So I'm home now, but I have more I want to write, so I'm gonna keep going for two or three more posts. I flew back to Chicago, chilled with my family for three days, then made a mad dash across country to my new home for the winter, Kings Beach at Lake Tahoe.
I forgot to write about Juliaca before! After enjoying the sparsely populated jungle, cloud forests, and barren altiplano for two weeks, Juliaca was a surprise treat. It is on no tourist's list of things to see in Peru, since it has no ruins or museums or anything, but I think it's awesome! It's really for the altiplano people of Peru, I saw maybe one other white person in that 100,000+ city. It really is on the gringo trail, you just have to make a choice to stop there.
Some videos of the market in Juliaca,
It felt like a piece of Lima's Barrios Altos neighborhood on a tract of flat land at 12,000ft. That means the streets were packed with people and the open air market stretched on for (a few) kilometers in all directions. And since it was above 3000m elevation, everyone was gentle and friendly, unlike Barrios Altos. People bent over laughing about my height, but nobody tried to hustle me.
A few kilometers before Juliaca I saw the first white person since 14 days previous in Puerto Maldonado, also bicycle touring! I greeted him with a hearty "HOLA GRINGO!!!" He started speaking German to me, further melting my mind. He was from Berlin, and he was much more of a soldier cyclist than I. He had full serious biking clothes, a helmet, bike shoes and clipless pedals, a bike computer, etc. I was dressed in a stupid alpaca sweater with stick figures on it. Someone told me this made it clear I was a tourist. My backpack and other crap was lashed on my handlebars because I broke a spoke in the rear wheel the day before. No helmet, just a Arlington Park horseracing baseball hat. No cycling tights for me, just cutoff slacks.
This guy, Andre, did not have a sense of humor really, he was all business, Lima to La Paz, head down and hauling! He did tell me about a time he got lost and ended up on an old Inca trail that traversed over some peaks and made his effing life! I wish I would have had him point that out on a map.
We rolled into Juliaca together and I was intrigued by this huge outdoor market. He didn't have time to explore, just four days to get to La Paz, so we parted ways.
In the market there was some decent 1/4 chicken for 9am, a huuuuge mud pit in the middle of it all, tons of buses waiting to be filled, and the first sizeable bike parts selection I had seen since 3 weeks earlier in Cusco. I got some great neon mudflaps with a picture of a snarling tiger face on them. Everyone had these in the altiplano.
There was also the biggest coca leaves dealer I saw on the trip. They had massive bales of coca leaves for 80 soles, sold by old ladies. I turned them down.
This is where comical bowler hats made an appearance in traditional women's dress. I chuckled about that about every day. Apparently someone in the early 1900s ordered tons of them from Europe by mistake, and then convinced Aymara women to wear them, and they still are a fad to this day.
I really should have stayed a night in Juliaca, but I was set on getting to Puno and resting there, so I just passed through quickly. Halfway to Puno I stopped to sugar up, and these people told me about some ruins nearby, Sillustani. They made it sound like it was really close, like 5km away. It turned out to be more like 25km.
I took off on this choppy dirt road towards some town in the distance, still sporting a broken rear spoke. This was really worrying the whole time, once one spoke fails, more can quickly follow, resulting in a really unstable squirrelly wheel.
I asked a bus for directions to the ruins, and they used a preposition I didn't know, so I smiled and nodded and kept on to the town. I biked through a field up to a house built out of rocks, and the women in bowler hats looked like they were really over doing it with their traditional dress. I really don't know what happened next, but I blame the towns people. There was a group of Peruvians outside the house, and I distinctly asked, "Is this the ruins? Is this a museum?" and they fucking said YES! Then they started telling me I could park my bike in the small courtyard of the stone house, so I did. One of the guys had a button down blue shirt, I thought he was the tour guide. I started taking pictures of stuff.
Next, suddenly, the blue shirted man and some kids wanted me to walk with them to the parque. I thought this was a tour of the ruins, but it was all complete fiction in my mind! I just rolled up to some random house in the countryside with the neighbors outside talking, and they walked me over to the sports park to play or watch soccer. I realized it wasn't a tour once I saw the soccer field, and then couldn't figure out a polite way to leave, so we sat talking for a while. I couldn't stop thinking about the $200 USD in my bike seat, and my passport back with my bike.
Eventually, my plans of getting to Puno that night became clear to everyone, and we all saw some rain coming, so I got free of my friends and rushed 10km onward to the ruins. Compared to this experience, the ruins were really boring and not worth it, but the mobs of Japanese and Europeans seemed to like it.
So I made it to Puno, stashed my stuff, then took a bus back to Juliaca for a day with my bike. The bus cost 60 cents to go 40km, and at that price they wanted that thing full! Not only did they yell out Juliaca! at the bus stop 50x, they continued as the bus slowly made its way through Puno's streets. And they got it full, no problem. I'm not sure how that worked, everyone in Puno knows where the bus stop is, but I guess people miles away from there can also get sold on an impulse idea of going to Juliaca.
I had no idea where the bus let me off, I just started biking randomly without recognizing a thing for three hours. The thing I needed most was a spoke, so I hit up the bike district of sorts. It was all full of new Chinese Walmart bikes, nobody there knew how to work on them or get parts, but some lady was willing to disappear for 20 minutes off to somewhere, leaving me in charge of the shop it seemed. I tried to sell one of her bikes for 20 soles ($6), but no dice.
Eventually she came back with a spoke that was too long, but it worked well enough. The guy from the stove store next door helped me install it, and noticed I had a crack in my frame! I'm really glad he saw that, that's really no good. Neither of them wanted any money for 45 minutes of scavenger hunting, problem solving and struggling.
So I went down to the local open air welder. This is a person that's hard to start a conversation with because you walk up and they had a blinding arc welder working on some bed frame or something. I had to chime in and tell them their ground wire on my frame wasn't going to work because it was insulated by rubber from the rest of the frame (it wasn't that detailed of a story in Spanish). They welded for about a half hour, the two of them, then they wanted only $1.50! I talked them up to $3 because good christ, that's a bad hourly rate.
Next, I was biking around and noticed all the bicycle rickshaw drivers were hanging out around the same dilapidated block. There were about 7 ladies serving the same food I had at my second homestay, fry bread and outrageously thick syrupy red tea. The tea was on par, but the fry bread was pre-made and cold. Still, I didn't know where else to get this besides that one house on the mountain side. The rickshaw drivers were all sitting in their comfy passenger seats, enjoying life.
The wheelbarrow of food I chose was right in front of a huge green puddle in the street, and there was a waiter of sorts wearing shin high rubber boots, serving all the rickshaw drivers. I got some funny looks for eating with them.
After this I set out on my other mission for the day, to get a Ronaldinho soccer jersey. One of the top ten T-shirts I ever saw was this Ronaldinho jersey with a bunch of soccer action shots, worn by a gas station attendant near Cusco. Then in Puerto Maldonado there was another one with a picture of him kissing an old lady on the forehead. Really, who enjoys every second of his life more than that guy? He proposed to a Swedish soccer player at the Beijing Olympics in broken English the second time he met her. What a hero.
Anyways, I went to about 20 jersey stores, no exaggeration, and it was hard for me because I can't really pronounce Ronaldinho, and he's Brazilian so Peruvians don't give a damn. It'd be like asking for Ohio State jerseys in Milwaukee, there's a massive lake and another country in the way. Eventually, I found a place with one, but it's not nearly as cool as the other two I saw.
After that, I continued to get lost, and found and lost the bus district a few times while running other errands and randomly exploring, then couldn't find it again for a half hour when I wanted to leave.
A train went through Juliaca at one point, which is funny because the train tracks are fair game for the populous to set up their market, so they must have scrambled to pack up. Then it cuts off a major taxi street on the main shopping street, which really chills out that town like nothing else. It was nearly like going to the mall in America since we don't have taxis and microbuses passing through.
That's about it. For next time I have the bulk of Bolivia stories to tell, then this ride is over!
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Monday, November 2, 2009
Ohhhh Señor Jesus!
I found a Quechua language radio station near Llave. Did some recording on my mp3 player for y'all.
And then I found a translator for a USA southern baptist minister in La Paz. This guy is amazing if he´s translating this live. Wish I had more space, this went on for an hour at least. You can learn some good Spanish from this.
The Rapture! En Español!
And then I found a translator for a USA southern baptist minister in La Paz. This guy is amazing if he´s translating this live. Wish I had more space, this went on for an hour at least. You can learn some good Spanish from this.
The Rapture! En Español!
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Puno and Lake Titicaca
The best thing to do in Puno is to visit the Uros, it´s truely unique to Peru...and Bolivia. The Uros live on a small colony of floating islands built out of reeds since before Incan times.
I really had higher hopes, I thought the islands were just loose to float wherever, and I thought I could save the $3 boat fare by swimming out to them, conquering them in my own Wisconsinite way. Titicaca is too cold for locals to swim in, but for hearty Midwesterners it´s slightly warmer than Memorial Day swimming in inland lakes.
In reality they´re well anchored in a wetland that would be nasty to swim in. It´s a long boat ride through a channel of reeds, probably 3-4kms.
In the present day, the idea of living on reed islands way out in a lake, serviced by dirt cheap ferries is poverty. They got some bad press for pressuring tourists for money for photographs, but I would have preferred that, I can´t add any more weight to my cycling rig. Now they just really pressure you to buy souviners and (Peruvian) ballpark priced drinks, so I got two keychains and a beer.
If you make the trip out, you get to meet the president of one of the colonies, and they show off what they build out there. The best of it are these massive reed boats, but in the current day there´s some cheating, or improvements. The boats are only reeds on the outside, inside they´re stuffed with recycled glass and plastic bottles which float better than the reeds. Some of them are double-decker, but of course reeds alone can´t support fat European tourists, so it´s a wooden loft wrapped in reeds to hide the wood.
The Uros even eat the reeds that make up their island, when they´re still green anyways. They let us try some, not too bad.
Walking on the islands is sort of like walking in a barn with hay bales for flooring. Cooking on the islands is a problem because you could burn the whole place down, so they have some specialized pottery to raise up their fire.
Besides that, not much else, they have a school and hospital out there. They´re real buildings just set on top of probably real islands.
Another thing in Puno that absolutely made my day was the discovery of a toilet store near my hostel. Do I even have to say the punchline? No seats in the whole store! I saw three stores in Puno, and one in Juliaca, no toilet seats in any of them! Departmento de Puno is a silly place. My hostal had 25 gallon buckets of water stored up for the water blackouts, just like I was used to since Macusani. And no agua caliente! I was going to suffer through a cold shower before leaving, but I just heard the sound of water flowing from the showerhead back to the source.
One thing that made me sad was seeing pale colored sheepsheads for sale outside the stadium. And then a few corners later street dogs and traditional women digging through a pile of trash and rotten food right on the street. Rough scenes to see before bedtime.
Dead sheep don´t have to be sad though. Down south of Puno by Juli I saw the standard Toyota combibuses with their roof racks loaded as full as possible with strapped down sheep bodies! I really couldn´t tell if they were alive or not, the ones up front had their heads up high, but they were probably just flopping in the wind. Sorry I don´t have a photo to share, I had about 7 chances too, there were that many dead or tranquilized sheep going up north towards Puno.
I also saw live sheep taking the bus! One of the buses that whipped by had the back seat down and four live sheep in there, then one traditional woman and the driver. Made my day. I wonder if they paid 60 cents each just like anyone else.
Those traditional women really have great control over their farm animals. In the best case I saw 20 sheep, four alpacas, a few donkeys and some pigs all marching in a happy formation across the altiplanto. And they keep them out of the street until its time to cross, it´s all perfectly correographed. I think all it takes is a whip, and then association of the whip with the sound, Sshh. Looks like they spend some time with each new animal in small groups. I witnessed them chasing just two pigs around one afternoon, training them.
South of Puno there was a strange immigration checkpoint. These guys from Peru´s SUNAT agency dressed all in black, and black cowboy hats were standing in a tiny town with road cones out. Salsa music was playing. It was all verbal, seems like they just wanted to ask me questions in Spanish until they stumped me. They were all the same truck driver questions I´m used to, until they asked if I had children. I guess they must have said hijos instead of niños. Anyways, they had to switch to broken english, then seconds later I was allowed to pass.
I had a pretty bad night in ILAVE, Peru. I thought it was LLAVE (key en español), until I saw it in all caps on a bus. I foolishly left Puno for La Paz with just 100 soles ($30) in my pocket, I hadn´t used an ATM since Puerto Maldonado because there just aren´t any. Juliaca and Puno have them, but I forgot. Anyways, so in Ilave I didn´t want to spend money on a hostal, so I started setting up my tent in this crater thing to keep out of the winds that can be miserable. It was right off the main road, not even out of town, and these people kept stopping by looking at me like I was building a space ship. I kept getting the standard, "Its too cold! Go to the hostal!" BS that I´m sick of.
The dysentary bug bit again in the privacy of 3am, thank Jehovah, so nasty! I totalled my pair of pants in the panicked rush. Post disaster, I was standing out in that crater with no idea what to do. It definitely wasn´t all that cold, I had a nice time looking at the stars for a few minutes ignoring the miserable state at my feet. It´s probably good I´m traveling alone, I returned to my tent for more supplies in nothing but shoes and a coat. I´m still searching for some poor lavanderia where I can bring my clothes in shame.
The town of Juli does not have a catamaran to Bolivia, no matter what may be claimed on the Internet. The harbor has a really fancy building that is all boarded up, and then some rowboats.
I ended up taking the bus part of the way to some strange border town. Like usual, they tried to sell me an entire bus at first for 50 soles, a private bus to the border. The price for traveling with the fine people of Peru is 2 soles, 60 cents.
The same thing happened in Maldonado, I thought I´d ask the car ferry people for advice on jungle boating, thinking they´d be impartial. They tried to talk me into renting their extremely slow car ferry for a river cruise, and for a lot of money.
The same thing happened again in Copacabana, in Bolivia. I forgot about the timezone change, so I missed my boat to the island of the sun, and they tried to sell me a private boat for 300 Bolivianos.
I couldn´t believe the border crossing, after how much it´s been talked up online, it was much easier than advertised. I did fail to get the Bolivian visa in Puno though, just because they were out of stickers to attach my passport photo to the form. Not sure I believe that.
So the border is this stone arch at the end of a long uphill road. They pretend there´s a wall, but really it only extends a few hundred feet. No matter, there are no guards or anything watching, I could have just cycled through. It´s very voluntary, you have to walk into the Bolivian immigration office yourself. Then you find out you need to get an exit stamp from Peru, so you walk back across.
The visa is reciprocal, which means it costs Americans $135 in crisp $20 bills, just like it costs Bolivians to apply to the US. They have USD change, wrinkled $1 bills.
Really all you need is the money, a passport, the exit stamp, and a copy of your passport front page and yellow fever vaccination. They didn´t care to see my fake fancy hotel reservation in La Paz, a bank account printout or passport photo.
On the application form, they checked off that I had arrived by train, a train that doesn´t exist in that part of Bolivia, and crossed off some other complicated stuff.
Across the border people were noticeable more chill, waves and holas were not as frequently returned as in Peru, and the road was lower quality.
Copacabana is such a cheap resort town, it blew me away. I could afford a vacation there with my first job, The Bargain Bulletin paper route from middle school. That route paid 5 cents per paper delivered, or $7.50 per week I think. A couple weeks of that saved up and I could afford the $6/night hostal with a view of Lake Titicaca and hot water(!), and 15 cents for an apple. Dinner would be a splurge at $2 for a hamburger or $4 for fajitas. A boat ride to the Island of the Sun and back is only $2.25.
I had a pretty good time on the Island of the Sun, despite it being a tourist trap. I made friends with a Japanese traveler on the boat with poor English and worse Spanish. We only had an hour to walk around, and I convinced him to hustle to the peak of the island´s mountain. The lake itself is already at 3800m (12,500ft) elevation, so it´s a chore. We got up there in 45 minutes, took a few quick pictures and then had to flat out run down these rocky paths back to the boat.
Down at the harbor, five minutes late, some assholes tried to tell us our boat already took off, and maybe if I stopped to listen they would have tried to sell me a private boat for 400 Bolivianos. I saw the recognizable gringo with the stupid yellow hat on a boat and ignored them, and we made it.
(Sailboat geekout, ignore the following)
Immediately after getting back to Copacabana I walked right up to the sailboats for hire people, with the sun nearly setting, and handed over 50 Bolivianos for an hour, no negotiation. It´s a small price to pay for sailing on a janky pinewood boat at 3800m. It was just like sailing with me and my janky 1970s hobie catamaran, except now with a language barrier and worse components. I guess sailing terms in English are pretty much a language barrier already though. There were panicked moments at the start, the sail went up, then had to come right down again to retie the sail to the boom. It was basically a rowboat style, with the oars included (essential), and then a mast with three shrouds just like the hobie cat.
The main sheet block (block means pulley in modern sailing, and main sheet means...well nevermind) was really a block of wood screwed down to the inside of the hull. I guess that explains some things. You could tie the mainsheet to it with a quick release knot, then you just had the rudder to hold on to.
The rudder tiller was really just a tree branch, minus the bark. The boom and mast were tree trunks, I assume. Sailing does not have to be a rich mans sport, if you have a lot of building time and some farming ropes.
These boats really make some distance. That guy, Marceille, told me some tourists once rented his boat for over a month, they sail toured it all the way to Peru across the lake. Also, you can hire this guy to bring you to the Island of the Sun and back, it takes 3 hours each way. There´s always wind! Every day the wind blows towards the island in the morning, and back home in the afternoon. Not sure all that can be true.
My trip is almost over, I fly out of Lima on November 6th. Only five more days of dumbassing, better make it good!
I really had higher hopes, I thought the islands were just loose to float wherever, and I thought I could save the $3 boat fare by swimming out to them, conquering them in my own Wisconsinite way. Titicaca is too cold for locals to swim in, but for hearty Midwesterners it´s slightly warmer than Memorial Day swimming in inland lakes.
In reality they´re well anchored in a wetland that would be nasty to swim in. It´s a long boat ride through a channel of reeds, probably 3-4kms.
In the present day, the idea of living on reed islands way out in a lake, serviced by dirt cheap ferries is poverty. They got some bad press for pressuring tourists for money for photographs, but I would have preferred that, I can´t add any more weight to my cycling rig. Now they just really pressure you to buy souviners and (Peruvian) ballpark priced drinks, so I got two keychains and a beer.
If you make the trip out, you get to meet the president of one of the colonies, and they show off what they build out there. The best of it are these massive reed boats, but in the current day there´s some cheating, or improvements. The boats are only reeds on the outside, inside they´re stuffed with recycled glass and plastic bottles which float better than the reeds. Some of them are double-decker, but of course reeds alone can´t support fat European tourists, so it´s a wooden loft wrapped in reeds to hide the wood.
The Uros even eat the reeds that make up their island, when they´re still green anyways. They let us try some, not too bad.
Walking on the islands is sort of like walking in a barn with hay bales for flooring. Cooking on the islands is a problem because you could burn the whole place down, so they have some specialized pottery to raise up their fire.
Besides that, not much else, they have a school and hospital out there. They´re real buildings just set on top of probably real islands.
Another thing in Puno that absolutely made my day was the discovery of a toilet store near my hostel. Do I even have to say the punchline? No seats in the whole store! I saw three stores in Puno, and one in Juliaca, no toilet seats in any of them! Departmento de Puno is a silly place. My hostal had 25 gallon buckets of water stored up for the water blackouts, just like I was used to since Macusani. And no agua caliente! I was going to suffer through a cold shower before leaving, but I just heard the sound of water flowing from the showerhead back to the source.
One thing that made me sad was seeing pale colored sheepsheads for sale outside the stadium. And then a few corners later street dogs and traditional women digging through a pile of trash and rotten food right on the street. Rough scenes to see before bedtime.
Dead sheep don´t have to be sad though. Down south of Puno by Juli I saw the standard Toyota combibuses with their roof racks loaded as full as possible with strapped down sheep bodies! I really couldn´t tell if they were alive or not, the ones up front had their heads up high, but they were probably just flopping in the wind. Sorry I don´t have a photo to share, I had about 7 chances too, there were that many dead or tranquilized sheep going up north towards Puno.
I also saw live sheep taking the bus! One of the buses that whipped by had the back seat down and four live sheep in there, then one traditional woman and the driver. Made my day. I wonder if they paid 60 cents each just like anyone else.
Those traditional women really have great control over their farm animals. In the best case I saw 20 sheep, four alpacas, a few donkeys and some pigs all marching in a happy formation across the altiplanto. And they keep them out of the street until its time to cross, it´s all perfectly correographed. I think all it takes is a whip, and then association of the whip with the sound, Sshh. Looks like they spend some time with each new animal in small groups. I witnessed them chasing just two pigs around one afternoon, training them.
South of Puno there was a strange immigration checkpoint. These guys from Peru´s SUNAT agency dressed all in black, and black cowboy hats were standing in a tiny town with road cones out. Salsa music was playing. It was all verbal, seems like they just wanted to ask me questions in Spanish until they stumped me. They were all the same truck driver questions I´m used to, until they asked if I had children. I guess they must have said hijos instead of niños. Anyways, they had to switch to broken english, then seconds later I was allowed to pass.
I had a pretty bad night in ILAVE, Peru. I thought it was LLAVE (key en español), until I saw it in all caps on a bus. I foolishly left Puno for La Paz with just 100 soles ($30) in my pocket, I hadn´t used an ATM since Puerto Maldonado because there just aren´t any. Juliaca and Puno have them, but I forgot. Anyways, so in Ilave I didn´t want to spend money on a hostal, so I started setting up my tent in this crater thing to keep out of the winds that can be miserable. It was right off the main road, not even out of town, and these people kept stopping by looking at me like I was building a space ship. I kept getting the standard, "Its too cold! Go to the hostal!" BS that I´m sick of.
The dysentary bug bit again in the privacy of 3am, thank Jehovah, so nasty! I totalled my pair of pants in the panicked rush. Post disaster, I was standing out in that crater with no idea what to do. It definitely wasn´t all that cold, I had a nice time looking at the stars for a few minutes ignoring the miserable state at my feet. It´s probably good I´m traveling alone, I returned to my tent for more supplies in nothing but shoes and a coat. I´m still searching for some poor lavanderia where I can bring my clothes in shame.
The town of Juli does not have a catamaran to Bolivia, no matter what may be claimed on the Internet. The harbor has a really fancy building that is all boarded up, and then some rowboats.
I ended up taking the bus part of the way to some strange border town. Like usual, they tried to sell me an entire bus at first for 50 soles, a private bus to the border. The price for traveling with the fine people of Peru is 2 soles, 60 cents.
The same thing happened in Maldonado, I thought I´d ask the car ferry people for advice on jungle boating, thinking they´d be impartial. They tried to talk me into renting their extremely slow car ferry for a river cruise, and for a lot of money.
The same thing happened again in Copacabana, in Bolivia. I forgot about the timezone change, so I missed my boat to the island of the sun, and they tried to sell me a private boat for 300 Bolivianos.
I couldn´t believe the border crossing, after how much it´s been talked up online, it was much easier than advertised. I did fail to get the Bolivian visa in Puno though, just because they were out of stickers to attach my passport photo to the form. Not sure I believe that.
So the border is this stone arch at the end of a long uphill road. They pretend there´s a wall, but really it only extends a few hundred feet. No matter, there are no guards or anything watching, I could have just cycled through. It´s very voluntary, you have to walk into the Bolivian immigration office yourself. Then you find out you need to get an exit stamp from Peru, so you walk back across.
The visa is reciprocal, which means it costs Americans $135 in crisp $20 bills, just like it costs Bolivians to apply to the US. They have USD change, wrinkled $1 bills.
Really all you need is the money, a passport, the exit stamp, and a copy of your passport front page and yellow fever vaccination. They didn´t care to see my fake fancy hotel reservation in La Paz, a bank account printout or passport photo.
On the application form, they checked off that I had arrived by train, a train that doesn´t exist in that part of Bolivia, and crossed off some other complicated stuff.
Across the border people were noticeable more chill, waves and holas were not as frequently returned as in Peru, and the road was lower quality.
Copacabana is such a cheap resort town, it blew me away. I could afford a vacation there with my first job, The Bargain Bulletin paper route from middle school. That route paid 5 cents per paper delivered, or $7.50 per week I think. A couple weeks of that saved up and I could afford the $6/night hostal with a view of Lake Titicaca and hot water(!), and 15 cents for an apple. Dinner would be a splurge at $2 for a hamburger or $4 for fajitas. A boat ride to the Island of the Sun and back is only $2.25.
I had a pretty good time on the Island of the Sun, despite it being a tourist trap. I made friends with a Japanese traveler on the boat with poor English and worse Spanish. We only had an hour to walk around, and I convinced him to hustle to the peak of the island´s mountain. The lake itself is already at 3800m (12,500ft) elevation, so it´s a chore. We got up there in 45 minutes, took a few quick pictures and then had to flat out run down these rocky paths back to the boat.
Down at the harbor, five minutes late, some assholes tried to tell us our boat already took off, and maybe if I stopped to listen they would have tried to sell me a private boat for 400 Bolivianos. I saw the recognizable gringo with the stupid yellow hat on a boat and ignored them, and we made it.
(Sailboat geekout, ignore the following)
Immediately after getting back to Copacabana I walked right up to the sailboats for hire people, with the sun nearly setting, and handed over 50 Bolivianos for an hour, no negotiation. It´s a small price to pay for sailing on a janky pinewood boat at 3800m. It was just like sailing with me and my janky 1970s hobie catamaran, except now with a language barrier and worse components. I guess sailing terms in English are pretty much a language barrier already though. There were panicked moments at the start, the sail went up, then had to come right down again to retie the sail to the boom. It was basically a rowboat style, with the oars included (essential), and then a mast with three shrouds just like the hobie cat.
The main sheet block (block means pulley in modern sailing, and main sheet means...well nevermind) was really a block of wood screwed down to the inside of the hull. I guess that explains some things. You could tie the mainsheet to it with a quick release knot, then you just had the rudder to hold on to.
The rudder tiller was really just a tree branch, minus the bark. The boom and mast were tree trunks, I assume. Sailing does not have to be a rich mans sport, if you have a lot of building time and some farming ropes.
These boats really make some distance. That guy, Marceille, told me some tourists once rented his boat for over a month, they sail toured it all the way to Peru across the lake. Also, you can hire this guy to bring you to the Island of the Sun and back, it takes 3 hours each way. There´s always wind! Every day the wind blows towards the island in the morning, and back home in the afternoon. Not sure all that can be true.
My trip is almost over, I fly out of Lima on November 6th. Only five more days of dumbassing, better make it good!
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Alpaca Capitol of the World
I learned how to order fried chicken in Ollechea, so I took a day off to enjoy myself. Also my legs were tired after four days straight of nothing but uphill riding, and I knew the difficulty would only increase with altitudes beyond 2300 meters in Ollechea.
I really missed out on Ollechea cause of my laziness. A store keeper told me, "There´s a public bathroom down the road, you should check it out." Public bathrooms were the nastiest things in Peru, but really it was a hot springs. Yep, was too lazy to make it 1km and pay the 60 cents admission.
Then on the day I left, my 10 year old friend was really excited about a festival happening that night with fireworks and music and stuff. As I rode out of town I could hear a parade behind me that I was basically avoiding by accident.
I did two things right though, finished my book, so that was about 300 grams reduced from my pack. And also made some friends at the street vendor food stand.
They have these stands all over Peru, they´re tiny coal grills with skewers of flat meat, and then you get a baked potato on the tip. Optionally you can lather it with hot sauce. It costs just one Sol, 30 cents. I thought it was beef for hundreds of miles, and I kept getting weird looks when I asked for one as bistek. Finally in Ollechea I sat down at one that was loaded with just raw meat, so it was an excuse to mingle for a few minutes. Turns out its alpaca meat!
The girl running the stand had a pretty crazy situation, she was 12 years old, running that stand until late, she also ran the general store behind her, and went to school. I guess it´s not really like working though, her friends were all there. The whole town was on that street, along with a bunch of transients waiting for their buses to leave.
So after two nights I decided to head for Macusani. Everyone I talked to about Macusani said it was extremely cold, just like they said Puerto Maldonado was extremely hot. All over Peru people kept bragging about their Peruvian genetics, saying things like "I´m Peruvian, so my immune system is strong enough to withstand malaria" and "I´m Peruvian, so soroche doesn´t affect me." I started playing the game too saying I preferred the cold because I was from Chicago.
The other thing they kept saying was, "subido, subido!", or uphill. Man it was grueling, probably my magnus opus of cycling so far. I could see concrete barracades way up near a mountain peak, and yep, the road snaked around enough that I ended up there. I chewed enough coca leaves to make my mouth numb, but not numb enough for surgury. I think it really did help, it clears your headache and slows your heart. At sea level, or jungle level, it doesn´t do anything, coffee is much stronger.
To anyone trying the same trip, there is absolutely nothing between Ollechea and Macusani. No tiendas to restock or buy lunch from. There were seriously three huts, and one of them was part of Inca ruins. There is one town, but to get to it you have to go way into a valley and back up again.
Luckily there was a construction site near the peak, and the workers, as friendly as always, handed me a big sack of food! It was fully stocked, tea, soup, a pork chop, and rice. I would have never made it without that, at least I would have had to camp and eat my pasta.
Saw a massive condor near the peak too, check that one off the list.
I got really slow at the peak, was limping along and about to freecamp when someone told me I only had 5kms to go. They called my bluff on the cold, I showed up at the first tienda in town with numb hands and feet, speaking really poor Spanish. I was wearing shorts and sandals because even this day there was a stream crossing, the jungle wouldn´t quit!
The kid working the tienda was probably 7 years old. I bought my stack of candy and juice and was binging outside with obviously the whole family upstairs staring at me, and another kid a few doors down. I crossed the street for a more comfortable place to sit and saw the blinds quickly shut and the light turn off. Then they just stared from the other window, not fooling anyone.
I love how the Andean people won´t change their way of life no matter how rough the elements. Central heating and cooling just isn´t going to happen for the common Peruvian, so in the hostal they had the thickest alpaca blankets possible, two of them. It felt like the lead blanket they give you when getting X-rays at the dentist, and it worked. These people are like the eskimos of Peru.
It had to be in the 40s at night. Still, almost all the shops were open air. They´d have a rolltop entrance as wide and tall as the store. They even had people selling stuff outdoors in the square off bike carts. They told me it never ever snows. I can´t believe that, how could the conditions be any more suitable?
They really love Halloween here, all the women in Macusani dressed up early, they´re going as Rosanne dressed as a witch. It´s not that they´re really that huge, they´re just wearing 5 layers of traditional clothing.
I was really glad to get my cheese fix here, I hadn´t succeeded buying cheese since Maldonado. In Ollechea they did have it, when I asked they brought it out like a museum piece, all wrapped in an oily cloth. I didn´t want to buy the whole half kilo of cheese, so they yanked it back and hid it again.
I noticed a lot of people had pretty greasy hair, probably because showering here really sucks. I forgot to mention before, since Quince Mil there were intermittent water outages as well as power outages, and the water didn´t run the whole time I was here. Instead they had a 7 gallon bucket in my room, full to the brim. The power also went out in the morning, but I got used to that.
This was the highest city of my trip, 4300m, or 14,000ft! I thought La Paz was going to be the highest, but it´s only 10,000ft. As I write this, I´m still higher than that, Lake Titicaca is at 12,000ft. These people walked around like the altitude was nothing. They´d run down the street for blocks, and tons of people had bicycles. I bent over light headed after climbing two flights of stairs to my room.
I wish I would have stayed longer in Macusani, I´m sure there was a lot more to explore around there. The whole place is surrounded by herds of Alpacas, and they have a breeding program too. I´m sure I saw over 1000 heading down to Puno from Macusani.
The next day I started heading down to Lake Titicaca. I got a chance to redeem myself for taking a taxi earlier, the mountain pass after Macusani was 4800ft. There was a peak next to the pass that looked pretty easy to climb, so I put my bike down and went up there. What do you think I found at the top of the world? Two traditionally dressed women who saw me coming and avoided me. Also a circular stack of rocks. Peruvians really like to stack rocks, both for a purpose, and recreationally.
Not a whole lot to say about my trip down to Puno, I´ll keep it short. In one town everyone seemed afraid of me, but then a 7 year old girl half my size asked for a picture with me. Then four more people pulled out digital cameras and got a picture. I thought they were really poor but they surprised me.
San Anton was a tough town, I couldn´t stop anywhere without a curious crowd forming. I stopped to buy cheese and ended up with a semi-circle of traditionally dressed middle aged people, and pulled an old foreign language trick on them.
Rosanne Woman 1: Where´d you come from with this bike?
Me: Cusco, via Maldonado
Rosanne Woman 1: Where are you from?
Me: USA
Rosanne Woman 1: (Huge grin, complete Quecha gibberish, 0% comprehension)
Me: No, I don´t have a wife
Rosanne Woman 2: He understood!!
I figure with foreign languages you should guess at what your opponent´s questions and answers are going to be in advance of them speaking, and in the beginning, listen for those one or two words that indicate which direction they went. If you end up with no words to work with, there´s no reason you can´t keep a straight face and just completely bullshit.
Besides, they keep following the same pattern. Truck drivers and construction workers have been the easiest, they ask the same questions in almost the same order every time. Children are the hardest, way too fast, curious and tangential! But they push me to learn the most.
Lunch in San Anton had a bunch of strange things that now seem normal. The price was $1, there was a motorcycle parked next to my table indoors, and the meat was spicy Alpaca.
One last thing, in Juliaca I saw the motherlode of coca leaves today. This stand in the market had three bales about half the size of a hay bale. I asked how much, and the old woman held up five fingers. No idea what that means.
That´s all I can think of for now. Tomorrow I´m going to see about a boat to Bolivia, and the dreaded Bolivian visa that costs $135. I´m also going to take the bus back to Juliaca because that town is awesome compared to Puno.
I really missed out on Ollechea cause of my laziness. A store keeper told me, "There´s a public bathroom down the road, you should check it out." Public bathrooms were the nastiest things in Peru, but really it was a hot springs. Yep, was too lazy to make it 1km and pay the 60 cents admission.
Then on the day I left, my 10 year old friend was really excited about a festival happening that night with fireworks and music and stuff. As I rode out of town I could hear a parade behind me that I was basically avoiding by accident.
I did two things right though, finished my book, so that was about 300 grams reduced from my pack. And also made some friends at the street vendor food stand.
They have these stands all over Peru, they´re tiny coal grills with skewers of flat meat, and then you get a baked potato on the tip. Optionally you can lather it with hot sauce. It costs just one Sol, 30 cents. I thought it was beef for hundreds of miles, and I kept getting weird looks when I asked for one as bistek. Finally in Ollechea I sat down at one that was loaded with just raw meat, so it was an excuse to mingle for a few minutes. Turns out its alpaca meat!
The girl running the stand had a pretty crazy situation, she was 12 years old, running that stand until late, she also ran the general store behind her, and went to school. I guess it´s not really like working though, her friends were all there. The whole town was on that street, along with a bunch of transients waiting for their buses to leave.
So after two nights I decided to head for Macusani. Everyone I talked to about Macusani said it was extremely cold, just like they said Puerto Maldonado was extremely hot. All over Peru people kept bragging about their Peruvian genetics, saying things like "I´m Peruvian, so my immune system is strong enough to withstand malaria" and "I´m Peruvian, so soroche doesn´t affect me." I started playing the game too saying I preferred the cold because I was from Chicago.
The other thing they kept saying was, "subido, subido!", or uphill. Man it was grueling, probably my magnus opus of cycling so far. I could see concrete barracades way up near a mountain peak, and yep, the road snaked around enough that I ended up there. I chewed enough coca leaves to make my mouth numb, but not numb enough for surgury. I think it really did help, it clears your headache and slows your heart. At sea level, or jungle level, it doesn´t do anything, coffee is much stronger.
To anyone trying the same trip, there is absolutely nothing between Ollechea and Macusani. No tiendas to restock or buy lunch from. There were seriously three huts, and one of them was part of Inca ruins. There is one town, but to get to it you have to go way into a valley and back up again.
Luckily there was a construction site near the peak, and the workers, as friendly as always, handed me a big sack of food! It was fully stocked, tea, soup, a pork chop, and rice. I would have never made it without that, at least I would have had to camp and eat my pasta.
Saw a massive condor near the peak too, check that one off the list.
I got really slow at the peak, was limping along and about to freecamp when someone told me I only had 5kms to go. They called my bluff on the cold, I showed up at the first tienda in town with numb hands and feet, speaking really poor Spanish. I was wearing shorts and sandals because even this day there was a stream crossing, the jungle wouldn´t quit!
The kid working the tienda was probably 7 years old. I bought my stack of candy and juice and was binging outside with obviously the whole family upstairs staring at me, and another kid a few doors down. I crossed the street for a more comfortable place to sit and saw the blinds quickly shut and the light turn off. Then they just stared from the other window, not fooling anyone.
I love how the Andean people won´t change their way of life no matter how rough the elements. Central heating and cooling just isn´t going to happen for the common Peruvian, so in the hostal they had the thickest alpaca blankets possible, two of them. It felt like the lead blanket they give you when getting X-rays at the dentist, and it worked. These people are like the eskimos of Peru.
It had to be in the 40s at night. Still, almost all the shops were open air. They´d have a rolltop entrance as wide and tall as the store. They even had people selling stuff outdoors in the square off bike carts. They told me it never ever snows. I can´t believe that, how could the conditions be any more suitable?
They really love Halloween here, all the women in Macusani dressed up early, they´re going as Rosanne dressed as a witch. It´s not that they´re really that huge, they´re just wearing 5 layers of traditional clothing.
I was really glad to get my cheese fix here, I hadn´t succeeded buying cheese since Maldonado. In Ollechea they did have it, when I asked they brought it out like a museum piece, all wrapped in an oily cloth. I didn´t want to buy the whole half kilo of cheese, so they yanked it back and hid it again.
I noticed a lot of people had pretty greasy hair, probably because showering here really sucks. I forgot to mention before, since Quince Mil there were intermittent water outages as well as power outages, and the water didn´t run the whole time I was here. Instead they had a 7 gallon bucket in my room, full to the brim. The power also went out in the morning, but I got used to that.
This was the highest city of my trip, 4300m, or 14,000ft! I thought La Paz was going to be the highest, but it´s only 10,000ft. As I write this, I´m still higher than that, Lake Titicaca is at 12,000ft. These people walked around like the altitude was nothing. They´d run down the street for blocks, and tons of people had bicycles. I bent over light headed after climbing two flights of stairs to my room.
I wish I would have stayed longer in Macusani, I´m sure there was a lot more to explore around there. The whole place is surrounded by herds of Alpacas, and they have a breeding program too. I´m sure I saw over 1000 heading down to Puno from Macusani.
The next day I started heading down to Lake Titicaca. I got a chance to redeem myself for taking a taxi earlier, the mountain pass after Macusani was 4800ft. There was a peak next to the pass that looked pretty easy to climb, so I put my bike down and went up there. What do you think I found at the top of the world? Two traditionally dressed women who saw me coming and avoided me. Also a circular stack of rocks. Peruvians really like to stack rocks, both for a purpose, and recreationally.
Not a whole lot to say about my trip down to Puno, I´ll keep it short. In one town everyone seemed afraid of me, but then a 7 year old girl half my size asked for a picture with me. Then four more people pulled out digital cameras and got a picture. I thought they were really poor but they surprised me.
San Anton was a tough town, I couldn´t stop anywhere without a curious crowd forming. I stopped to buy cheese and ended up with a semi-circle of traditionally dressed middle aged people, and pulled an old foreign language trick on them.
Rosanne Woman 1: Where´d you come from with this bike?
Me: Cusco, via Maldonado
Rosanne Woman 1: Where are you from?
Me: USA
Rosanne Woman 1: (Huge grin, complete Quecha gibberish, 0% comprehension)
Me: No, I don´t have a wife
Rosanne Woman 2: He understood!!
I figure with foreign languages you should guess at what your opponent´s questions and answers are going to be in advance of them speaking, and in the beginning, listen for those one or two words that indicate which direction they went. If you end up with no words to work with, there´s no reason you can´t keep a straight face and just completely bullshit.
Besides, they keep following the same pattern. Truck drivers and construction workers have been the easiest, they ask the same questions in almost the same order every time. Children are the hardest, way too fast, curious and tangential! But they push me to learn the most.
Lunch in San Anton had a bunch of strange things that now seem normal. The price was $1, there was a motorcycle parked next to my table indoors, and the meat was spicy Alpaca.
One last thing, in Juliaca I saw the motherlode of coca leaves today. This stand in the market had three bales about half the size of a hay bale. I asked how much, and the old woman held up five fingers. No idea what that means.
That´s all I can think of for now. Tomorrow I´m going to see about a boat to Bolivia, and the dreaded Bolivian visa that costs $135. I´m also going to take the bus back to Juliaca because that town is awesome compared to Puno.
Credits
Before I return to ordinary life and this blog becomes completely uninteresting, I think I should slip in some credits. You don´t just buy a ticket to Peru and pack a box full of bike parts and camping equipment, tons of people have helped me along.
First of all, thanks to my friend Kole, for describing Peru as such an interesting place, but not too much, so I´d have some left to discover myself. Kole´s schtick is pretty great too, he´s fed me two pretty hilarious and borderline dangerous lies mixed in with 300-400 legit facts about Peru and the Spanish language. But he was nice enough to come clean before the trip.
Thanks to my friend Scott, a much more hardcore traveler than myself. Can´t believe what he pulled living in and traveling across China. PRC can´t touch his way of life.
Thanks to Ariel, a former Chicagoan who´s on a bicycle tour of over a year and counting. She just did a similar stretch in Peru, so there was no better person to give advice. Good luck cycling Brazil! Blog here.
Thanks to Justin and Aaron from college, for traveling along the first week. Really helped with the culture shock and scams, and had tons of fun. Lima, and costal Peru had the toughest people in my opinion. I can´t believe Aaron made Peru his first foreign country experience, way to skip right to hard mode.
Thanks to Wheellife for keeping bicycle touring hilarious. Ugh, wish their website was still up. They had a pet goldfish in a water bottle all the way from London to Turkey. Then a badly behaved pet monkey in a cage for 10km in Pakistan. You might get the idea from this.
Thanks most of all to the people of Peru for putting up with me. I talk a lot of shit, but I´m the most naive person here. They´re so friendly, I never felt like I was traveling alone.
Thanks to Alex Wilson and West Town Bikes of Chicago, for teaching me all the good practices of bicycle mechanics. It was all hackjobs for me before that.
Thanks to Working Bikes of Chicago for teaching me even more bike mechanics. I used one of Jonathan´s tricks daily in the jungle.
Thanks to Orbitz for actually paying for part of my ticket as an employee perk, and possibly even taking me back as an employee after 7 weeks of vagabonding.
Thanks to South American Explorers for their advice, storage, and a safe place in Cusco to put my bike together.
First of all, thanks to my friend Kole, for describing Peru as such an interesting place, but not too much, so I´d have some left to discover myself. Kole´s schtick is pretty great too, he´s fed me two pretty hilarious and borderline dangerous lies mixed in with 300-400 legit facts about Peru and the Spanish language. But he was nice enough to come clean before the trip.
Thanks to my friend Scott, a much more hardcore traveler than myself. Can´t believe what he pulled living in and traveling across China. PRC can´t touch his way of life.
Thanks to Ariel, a former Chicagoan who´s on a bicycle tour of over a year and counting. She just did a similar stretch in Peru, so there was no better person to give advice. Good luck cycling Brazil! Blog here.
Thanks to Justin and Aaron from college, for traveling along the first week. Really helped with the culture shock and scams, and had tons of fun. Lima, and costal Peru had the toughest people in my opinion. I can´t believe Aaron made Peru his first foreign country experience, way to skip right to hard mode.
Thanks to Wheellife for keeping bicycle touring hilarious. Ugh, wish their website was still up. They had a pet goldfish in a water bottle all the way from London to Turkey. Then a badly behaved pet monkey in a cage for 10km in Pakistan. You might get the idea from this.
Thanks most of all to the people of Peru for putting up with me. I talk a lot of shit, but I´m the most naive person here. They´re so friendly, I never felt like I was traveling alone.
Thanks to Alex Wilson and West Town Bikes of Chicago, for teaching me all the good practices of bicycle mechanics. It was all hackjobs for me before that.
Thanks to Working Bikes of Chicago for teaching me even more bike mechanics. I used one of Jonathan´s tricks daily in the jungle.
Thanks to Orbitz for actually paying for part of my ticket as an employee perk, and possibly even taking me back as an employee after 7 weeks of vagabonding.
Thanks to South American Explorers for their advice, storage, and a safe place in Cusco to put my bike together.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Up outta the moisture
I´m back at the fringe of the mountains now, a town called Ollechea that shows up twice on google maps, didn´t notice the first one in real life. My paper map situation is really rough now, tons of helpful pueblitos are missing, so nurishment is a surprise unless I carry it.
I have to come clean, I took a station wagon the last 100km to Maldonado too. All these major roads have an armada of station wagons, vans and whatever they can come up with, shuttling between towns for whoever hails them. The price was right, it was really hot, and I didn´t know of any place to stay in that stretch. Looking back, I should have stayed at the motorcycle freetown. If they make a Mad Max four that takes place in Peru, that´s the location!
My driver honked at anyone outside their house anywhere on the way, and it worked, we rolled into town fully packed. First it was two sacks of rice and an old woman to collect the money in town. Then some other general randos. I had no idea what I was doing in Maldonado, so I just got out in the shared car district, which was a ditch with a few cars parked on both sides and the drivers all chatting. It worked out really well, the crowd that formed in minutes directed me to a really great hospedaje, Español.
Anything with wheels does a lot of work down there. I saw a huge flatbed truck unloaded except for a bunch of bags of rice thrown on the back. Drivers don´t waste any opportunity.
Oh yeah, definitely don´t go to the amazon if you´re not ok with bugs. The mosquitos were not as bad as Wisconsin, but maybe they weren´t in season. In the market in Maldonado I felt something on the back of my neck, grabbed for it, realized it was the size of my palm and felt it grab back in a sticky wormy insect way. I cracked my arm like a whip and never managed to see it. It was probably just a huge moth. The kittens in that town had no fear of them, I saw one carrying a moth the size of it´s face around in it´s mouth.
And I took the bus back out of the jungle, forgive me. For 15 soles they brought me 150kms back to Loromayo, the town with the world´s most adorable racism, and the start of the road to Puno. For 10 soles I stayed in the same place as before, it did not come with light this time either.
I´m sorry to keep coming back to the toilet humor, but this place really has quite the situation. Imagine the staircase in your house is concrete, outdoors and open to a huge variety of insects. And then there´s a toilet just right there in the open, no curtain or anything, and obviously no seat. My headlamp has been really useful, (thanks for the Christmas present mom and dad!) but in the jungle it was kind of funny, attracting all sorts of insects to my face and corners of my mouth, especially right here.
The first minutes on the road to Puno were very promising, but hit a low later. I left to a parade of Peruvian children chanting, ¨Gringo!¨ the same ones from before. Couldn´t have been happier. I regret not getting a video of that. Then the typical territorial dogs chased me for a minute, and I love playing with them, I bark back at them, slam on the brakes to call their bluff, bike in circles, bike right at them standing their ground, and whistle like I want them to follow me. No shortage of immaturity on my part.
Then like 20 minutes into the road this guy passes me on a motorcycle and turns around to talk to me. He says, ¨There are robbers up there! Don´t go there!¨ and makes a pistol with his hand. I asked, where, in 100kms, in the woods or the next town or what? And then, SHIT! Necessito el baño! Ahorrita! My dysentary got bad again, probably cause I drank sweet tea in the jungle made out of river tap water. I ran off into the woods for a bit, came back. That pretty much ended the conversation, and I kept on.
After that it was mostly just gnarly uphill work, but it was my favorite scenic parts of Peru, the cloud forest phenomenon, in reverse and really slow. I got ripped off in the first town, 15 soles now for a Hospedaje ($5), but this one had light and a better outdoor bathroom. There was also absolutely incredible torrential rain while I was here, which makes tons of noise on that corrugated roof, and lightening really close over and over. Would have been a miserable night in a tent.
The next morning was way cooler than usual, so I got on the road early. I think all the flowing water downhill must carry the heat away, which is what makes the amazon basin so hot, and the mountains cool. That´s the pseudoscience that works in my head anyways.
Right away I came to a huge stream crossing. They were adding more rocks to it so the trucks could pass. They told me to wait an hour, have breakfast and relax. The most talkative guy at the tienda turned out to be a gold prospector with some crazy eyes. He said Peru is rich in metals, but nobody cares about anything but the gold! They get 70% of what flows down the river, but their process isn´t advanced enough to get that last 30%. Also, there are massive nuggets in the ground, but to find them is just guessing with a shovel. But in the United States there are detectors that can find the gold! Just then the construction worker standing by got the crazy eyes too, and they all got my contact information so I can buy a detector for them and bring it next year and hunt gold with them when I visit. Heh, probably not going to happen.
With all the rain there was tons of mud and tons of WIDE stream crossings. I got really good at them, didn´t usually have to put a foot down.
One of the stream crossings was a great swimming spot. Deep enough that kids were diving and doing flips and stuff. Spent some good time there, futily washing my bike for the upcoming mud and stuff. A bus full of construction workers rolled by, and one of them said, ¨El gringo, tambien!¨
Next night, I stayed in my tent in a construction site that had a roof, couldn´t find a town. Left really early so I´d be out of there before the workers showed. I still got to talk to the Seguridad folks rolling by, but they were fine with squatting.
Following afternoon I went through my favorite part of Peru, the highest reaches of amazon clouds. I ate an entire pinapple for lunch, kind of like a vegetarian lobster meal. Price tag was 75 cents, but I got ripped off, the next people paid 50 cents, haha.
I got caught in pretty hard rain, ended up seeking shelter in a cave, and then a pueblito´s school construction site. The worker showed up right away and said I could camp there. Then he and 4 of his 7 kids watched me try to light my stove and it ran out of fuel, so I got a dinner invite! They had basically fry bread, as the Native Americans have in the states, and then some really syrupy thick red tea, both were awesome!
They gave me the best seat in the house, on a firm matress next to a TV showing Planet Earth in Spanish. I thought that was funny, coming inside from some of my favorite scenery on Earth to watch a movie about Africa. They were living in the old school, as far as I could tell. Just over the top nice, I leaned back and they gave me a bag of clothes for a back rest. They fed me first, and the largest portion size.
They surprised me with breakfast too, in my tent. I traded them some bananas I was carrying, but it wasn´t enough.
Since then I´ve accended about 1500 meters over 20km on the map, and it´s very noticably drier, all in one day. The bugs are much less, and I can barely whistle now. The mountains are obviously different too, banana trees can´t survive here, but they were plentiful yesterday.
Sitting in this Internet cafe I was hounded by the kids. Had an audience of about 7 at one point, now just one standing there quietly. They taught me a little Spanish, and I taught them that Los Angeles is really far from Chicago, and about Shaquille O´Neil.
I think I got about 18 days left, which should be enough time to make it to La Paz. Next stop, higher hills.
I have to come clean, I took a station wagon the last 100km to Maldonado too. All these major roads have an armada of station wagons, vans and whatever they can come up with, shuttling between towns for whoever hails them. The price was right, it was really hot, and I didn´t know of any place to stay in that stretch. Looking back, I should have stayed at the motorcycle freetown. If they make a Mad Max four that takes place in Peru, that´s the location!
My driver honked at anyone outside their house anywhere on the way, and it worked, we rolled into town fully packed. First it was two sacks of rice and an old woman to collect the money in town. Then some other general randos. I had no idea what I was doing in Maldonado, so I just got out in the shared car district, which was a ditch with a few cars parked on both sides and the drivers all chatting. It worked out really well, the crowd that formed in minutes directed me to a really great hospedaje, Español.
Anything with wheels does a lot of work down there. I saw a huge flatbed truck unloaded except for a bunch of bags of rice thrown on the back. Drivers don´t waste any opportunity.
Oh yeah, definitely don´t go to the amazon if you´re not ok with bugs. The mosquitos were not as bad as Wisconsin, but maybe they weren´t in season. In the market in Maldonado I felt something on the back of my neck, grabbed for it, realized it was the size of my palm and felt it grab back in a sticky wormy insect way. I cracked my arm like a whip and never managed to see it. It was probably just a huge moth. The kittens in that town had no fear of them, I saw one carrying a moth the size of it´s face around in it´s mouth.
And I took the bus back out of the jungle, forgive me. For 15 soles they brought me 150kms back to Loromayo, the town with the world´s most adorable racism, and the start of the road to Puno. For 10 soles I stayed in the same place as before, it did not come with light this time either.
I´m sorry to keep coming back to the toilet humor, but this place really has quite the situation. Imagine the staircase in your house is concrete, outdoors and open to a huge variety of insects. And then there´s a toilet just right there in the open, no curtain or anything, and obviously no seat. My headlamp has been really useful, (thanks for the Christmas present mom and dad!) but in the jungle it was kind of funny, attracting all sorts of insects to my face and corners of my mouth, especially right here.
The first minutes on the road to Puno were very promising, but hit a low later. I left to a parade of Peruvian children chanting, ¨Gringo!¨ the same ones from before. Couldn´t have been happier. I regret not getting a video of that. Then the typical territorial dogs chased me for a minute, and I love playing with them, I bark back at them, slam on the brakes to call their bluff, bike in circles, bike right at them standing their ground, and whistle like I want them to follow me. No shortage of immaturity on my part.
Then like 20 minutes into the road this guy passes me on a motorcycle and turns around to talk to me. He says, ¨There are robbers up there! Don´t go there!¨ and makes a pistol with his hand. I asked, where, in 100kms, in the woods or the next town or what? And then, SHIT! Necessito el baño! Ahorrita! My dysentary got bad again, probably cause I drank sweet tea in the jungle made out of river tap water. I ran off into the woods for a bit, came back. That pretty much ended the conversation, and I kept on.
After that it was mostly just gnarly uphill work, but it was my favorite scenic parts of Peru, the cloud forest phenomenon, in reverse and really slow. I got ripped off in the first town, 15 soles now for a Hospedaje ($5), but this one had light and a better outdoor bathroom. There was also absolutely incredible torrential rain while I was here, which makes tons of noise on that corrugated roof, and lightening really close over and over. Would have been a miserable night in a tent.
The next morning was way cooler than usual, so I got on the road early. I think all the flowing water downhill must carry the heat away, which is what makes the amazon basin so hot, and the mountains cool. That´s the pseudoscience that works in my head anyways.
Right away I came to a huge stream crossing. They were adding more rocks to it so the trucks could pass. They told me to wait an hour, have breakfast and relax. The most talkative guy at the tienda turned out to be a gold prospector with some crazy eyes. He said Peru is rich in metals, but nobody cares about anything but the gold! They get 70% of what flows down the river, but their process isn´t advanced enough to get that last 30%. Also, there are massive nuggets in the ground, but to find them is just guessing with a shovel. But in the United States there are detectors that can find the gold! Just then the construction worker standing by got the crazy eyes too, and they all got my contact information so I can buy a detector for them and bring it next year and hunt gold with them when I visit. Heh, probably not going to happen.
With all the rain there was tons of mud and tons of WIDE stream crossings. I got really good at them, didn´t usually have to put a foot down.
One of the stream crossings was a great swimming spot. Deep enough that kids were diving and doing flips and stuff. Spent some good time there, futily washing my bike for the upcoming mud and stuff. A bus full of construction workers rolled by, and one of them said, ¨El gringo, tambien!¨
Next night, I stayed in my tent in a construction site that had a roof, couldn´t find a town. Left really early so I´d be out of there before the workers showed. I still got to talk to the Seguridad folks rolling by, but they were fine with squatting.
Following afternoon I went through my favorite part of Peru, the highest reaches of amazon clouds. I ate an entire pinapple for lunch, kind of like a vegetarian lobster meal. Price tag was 75 cents, but I got ripped off, the next people paid 50 cents, haha.
I got caught in pretty hard rain, ended up seeking shelter in a cave, and then a pueblito´s school construction site. The worker showed up right away and said I could camp there. Then he and 4 of his 7 kids watched me try to light my stove and it ran out of fuel, so I got a dinner invite! They had basically fry bread, as the Native Americans have in the states, and then some really syrupy thick red tea, both were awesome!
They gave me the best seat in the house, on a firm matress next to a TV showing Planet Earth in Spanish. I thought that was funny, coming inside from some of my favorite scenery on Earth to watch a movie about Africa. They were living in the old school, as far as I could tell. Just over the top nice, I leaned back and they gave me a bag of clothes for a back rest. They fed me first, and the largest portion size.
They surprised me with breakfast too, in my tent. I traded them some bananas I was carrying, but it wasn´t enough.
Since then I´ve accended about 1500 meters over 20km on the map, and it´s very noticably drier, all in one day. The bugs are much less, and I can barely whistle now. The mountains are obviously different too, banana trees can´t survive here, but they were plentiful yesterday.
Sitting in this Internet cafe I was hounded by the kids. Had an audience of about 7 at one point, now just one standing there quietly. They taught me a little Spanish, and I taught them that Los Angeles is really far from Chicago, and about Shaquille O´Neil.
I think I got about 18 days left, which should be enough time to make it to La Paz. Next stop, higher hills.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
No Luz!
I´m in Puerto Maldonado now after a trip down from the mountains into the amazon basin. On the first day on the way down there was an armed guard again who wouldn´t let me pass until 6am the next morning, so I camped in that truck parking lot. I woke up with my tent completely soaked because the mountains there are pretty much in the clouds from the amazon, or fog even.
I´ve been fighting for water the whole time, now in one day I´m fighting against it. In the mountains it was so nice, I´d drain 1/4 liter of water out of my body into my tent each night, open it up to the sun and it´d dry within 20 minutes. In the jungle, my wet tent and wet shoes stayed wet until the end, Puerto Maldonado. And I was still fighting for water, sweating like crazy for the three hottest hours of each day.
Once 6am rolled around I set out for the muddiest day of cycling. I didn´t bring fenders, so it just caked everywhere, and there were tons of stream crossings. I only fully dumped my bike once though, and jumped off of it in ankle deep mud.
The scenery was the best out of the whole trip, reminded me of Jurrasic Park more than anything but no dinos. Huge leaves on everything! Clay houses quickly transitioned to wood and sheet medal shacks since I´m sure the water would break down those mountain top houses within months. The people were still very Andean though, I should have taken a picture of the Andean guy with a knit hat standing on the porch of his jungle shack. People spoke Quechuan deep into the jungle, all the way to Quince Mil at least. Probably some great slang.
Construction really picked up here. At first it was just people painting things, the finishing touches. Over the course of the trip it was everything you could think of. At one point they told me to stand back and wait for an hour, and some more stuff I didn´t understand. Shortly after dynamite went off nearby, and I could feel it in my feet. The wait turned out to be 5 minutes.
I absolutely love the Peruvian attitude towards cleaning. It´s so futile, but they do it with pride. At one point in the road there was a truck driver pulled over on the most muddy road possible. It was at least 20 miles of muddy roads behind him and in front of him, and again, also exactly where he was parked. He was sitting there with a rag and a bucket, restoring the facia of that truck to showroom quality, nothing but shiny chrome. Definitely not half assed like I would have done it, I´m talking every surface of that facia was free of dirt.
In lots of towns, the kids and adults alike enjoy shouting out ¨Gringo!¨ at me. I started shouting back ¨Peruano!¨ with equal enthusiasm.
In Quince Mil I arrived in heavy rain and couldn´t figure out how to get into this hostal. Some kid, Cesar, saw me and offered a free place on his floor to sleep. He was from Lima, vacationing with family in the ´Mil for a few weeks. Turned out to be quite rough living in this town. The people across the street had a kid who liked to walk around fully naked all the time, and his shoulder down to his arm had been burned when their previous house burned down. My new friend Cesar told me he was crazy, but he wasn´t the only fully naked person I saw in the jungle. Just like in National Geographic.
Cesar´s cousin was a sad story. She was 16, fully deaf, not going to school as far as I could tell, and....pregnant! The only word she knew was mama, and she used this word all day, even when mama was 30 miles away wearing a blaze orange suit swinging a machete in the woods to build the pan oceanic highway. Teenage pregnancies are common in the jungle I was told.
The house he was staying at in Quince Mil was really comfortable. The kitchen was a shack in the backyard, along with another one for the bathroom and shower. Tropical Peru has ended the male vs female debate on toilet seats, up or down. I´ve seen just two toilets with a seat in the 500km since Cusco, and there wasn´t one here. They must be a crass sign of wealth or something.
They had tons of clotheslines, and the clothes would stay on those lines for multiple days, but then it rained every day, so you had to be lucky to avoid that. Under the clothelines were very well organized rock garderns, probably so the ground wasn´t always mud underneath.
One thing I didn´t expect about the jungle was to experience rolling blackouts, something that´s always been on my list. I was going to play pool with this guy on the one pool table in town, but when we got to the bar there was no luz! Then we were going to use the internet, but again, no luz! Candles started selling like crazy and every store and diner was suddenly really romantic on the walk home. It happened here in Puerto Maldonado last night too, and I was lucky enough to get a video of the lights coming back on at one of the main promonades.
The night I stayed in Quince Mil there I took Cesar and his aunt out for a night on the town! Dinner cost around $5.50 for the three of us, and drinks were $7. We went to the chicken restaurant that did have light somehow.
Honestly after Quince Mil I thought the scenery would continue to get exponentially cooler, but now I´d say my favorite part was Tinke to Quince Mil. The jungle proper has been cool, but not as mind blowing. Maybe I´m not going to the right places.
After Quince Mil I went to the town right before Loromayo, forgot the name. It was just getting fully dark when I got there, I was out of energy. I got the most Gringo! cheers here than anywhere, and ended up with a parade of about 20 young children within minutes of arriving. I taught them the high five, couldn´t think of much else. They followed me as I almost fell over and made a very confused trek door to door looking for a hostal, then luckily it was over. This town was very friendly, though very very poor. I have to backtrack to there today.
Hmm, I should really get on the road. Let me just say Mazuko was a great town, good food, and the first place motorcycle taxis started appearing. In fact it was 1/2 motorcycles here probably, all the locals. One of the toilet seats was here. I tried to buy malaria medication here and the pharmacy said go to the hospital, the hospital said go to the pharmacy. Haven´t had any luck since then either.
Between Mazuko and Puerto Maldonado was this city that wasn´t a city. It was some sort of freetown for motorcycle taxis. It was all grass huts or huts made out of tarps and it went on for quite a while. Tons of motorcycle repair places, and one truck engine repair too. I saw quite the motorcycle heroics here, they were trying to put beer crates on the back of one, two deep x two or three wide x three high, four 32oz per crate. Maybe more, I can´t really remember.
Puerto Maldonado has the best food of the trip! I´ve been stuffing myself every day with baked goods and dinners for $3.30. I was way down on weight when I arrived, made some progress back to my (north) American TV dinner heritage.
I took a river boat ride yesterday, but did it wrong, it wasn´t the best. I´m sad to see they´re building a bridge over the river to Bolivia and Brazil. The way they do it now is with family owned ferries, and it´s awesome. They´re all the same design, built of wood with a little metal for the keel. They carry one car/truck/van each, plus pedestrians and a moto. It´s tons of work, they have to dangerously back the car up two planks at a 30 degree angle, then the boat is grounded on the concrete and they have boards to pry it loose over a few minutes. After that, the 2-stroke motorcycle engine drives a shaft that´s 5ft long and powers a tiny propeller. There´s no reverse, but they have a trick, they point the shaft over the deck towards the shore.
Ok, gotta go now. Heading to Loromayo and down south into the mountains up to Titicaca.
I´ve been fighting for water the whole time, now in one day I´m fighting against it. In the mountains it was so nice, I´d drain 1/4 liter of water out of my body into my tent each night, open it up to the sun and it´d dry within 20 minutes. In the jungle, my wet tent and wet shoes stayed wet until the end, Puerto Maldonado. And I was still fighting for water, sweating like crazy for the three hottest hours of each day.
Once 6am rolled around I set out for the muddiest day of cycling. I didn´t bring fenders, so it just caked everywhere, and there were tons of stream crossings. I only fully dumped my bike once though, and jumped off of it in ankle deep mud.
The scenery was the best out of the whole trip, reminded me of Jurrasic Park more than anything but no dinos. Huge leaves on everything! Clay houses quickly transitioned to wood and sheet medal shacks since I´m sure the water would break down those mountain top houses within months. The people were still very Andean though, I should have taken a picture of the Andean guy with a knit hat standing on the porch of his jungle shack. People spoke Quechuan deep into the jungle, all the way to Quince Mil at least. Probably some great slang.
Construction really picked up here. At first it was just people painting things, the finishing touches. Over the course of the trip it was everything you could think of. At one point they told me to stand back and wait for an hour, and some more stuff I didn´t understand. Shortly after dynamite went off nearby, and I could feel it in my feet. The wait turned out to be 5 minutes.
I absolutely love the Peruvian attitude towards cleaning. It´s so futile, but they do it with pride. At one point in the road there was a truck driver pulled over on the most muddy road possible. It was at least 20 miles of muddy roads behind him and in front of him, and again, also exactly where he was parked. He was sitting there with a rag and a bucket, restoring the facia of that truck to showroom quality, nothing but shiny chrome. Definitely not half assed like I would have done it, I´m talking every surface of that facia was free of dirt.
In lots of towns, the kids and adults alike enjoy shouting out ¨Gringo!¨ at me. I started shouting back ¨Peruano!¨ with equal enthusiasm.
In Quince Mil I arrived in heavy rain and couldn´t figure out how to get into this hostal. Some kid, Cesar, saw me and offered a free place on his floor to sleep. He was from Lima, vacationing with family in the ´Mil for a few weeks. Turned out to be quite rough living in this town. The people across the street had a kid who liked to walk around fully naked all the time, and his shoulder down to his arm had been burned when their previous house burned down. My new friend Cesar told me he was crazy, but he wasn´t the only fully naked person I saw in the jungle. Just like in National Geographic.
Cesar´s cousin was a sad story. She was 16, fully deaf, not going to school as far as I could tell, and....pregnant! The only word she knew was mama, and she used this word all day, even when mama was 30 miles away wearing a blaze orange suit swinging a machete in the woods to build the pan oceanic highway. Teenage pregnancies are common in the jungle I was told.
The house he was staying at in Quince Mil was really comfortable. The kitchen was a shack in the backyard, along with another one for the bathroom and shower. Tropical Peru has ended the male vs female debate on toilet seats, up or down. I´ve seen just two toilets with a seat in the 500km since Cusco, and there wasn´t one here. They must be a crass sign of wealth or something.
They had tons of clotheslines, and the clothes would stay on those lines for multiple days, but then it rained every day, so you had to be lucky to avoid that. Under the clothelines were very well organized rock garderns, probably so the ground wasn´t always mud underneath.
One thing I didn´t expect about the jungle was to experience rolling blackouts, something that´s always been on my list. I was going to play pool with this guy on the one pool table in town, but when we got to the bar there was no luz! Then we were going to use the internet, but again, no luz! Candles started selling like crazy and every store and diner was suddenly really romantic on the walk home. It happened here in Puerto Maldonado last night too, and I was lucky enough to get a video of the lights coming back on at one of the main promonades.
The night I stayed in Quince Mil there I took Cesar and his aunt out for a night on the town! Dinner cost around $5.50 for the three of us, and drinks were $7. We went to the chicken restaurant that did have light somehow.
Honestly after Quince Mil I thought the scenery would continue to get exponentially cooler, but now I´d say my favorite part was Tinke to Quince Mil. The jungle proper has been cool, but not as mind blowing. Maybe I´m not going to the right places.
After Quince Mil I went to the town right before Loromayo, forgot the name. It was just getting fully dark when I got there, I was out of energy. I got the most Gringo! cheers here than anywhere, and ended up with a parade of about 20 young children within minutes of arriving. I taught them the high five, couldn´t think of much else. They followed me as I almost fell over and made a very confused trek door to door looking for a hostal, then luckily it was over. This town was very friendly, though very very poor. I have to backtrack to there today.
Hmm, I should really get on the road. Let me just say Mazuko was a great town, good food, and the first place motorcycle taxis started appearing. In fact it was 1/2 motorcycles here probably, all the locals. One of the toilet seats was here. I tried to buy malaria medication here and the pharmacy said go to the hospital, the hospital said go to the pharmacy. Haven´t had any luck since then either.
Between Mazuko and Puerto Maldonado was this city that wasn´t a city. It was some sort of freetown for motorcycle taxis. It was all grass huts or huts made out of tarps and it went on for quite a while. Tons of motorcycle repair places, and one truck engine repair too. I saw quite the motorcycle heroics here, they were trying to put beer crates on the back of one, two deep x two or three wide x three high, four 32oz per crate. Maybe more, I can´t really remember.
Puerto Maldonado has the best food of the trip! I´ve been stuffing myself every day with baked goods and dinners for $3.30. I was way down on weight when I arrived, made some progress back to my (north) American TV dinner heritage.
I took a river boat ride yesterday, but did it wrong, it wasn´t the best. I´m sad to see they´re building a bridge over the river to Bolivia and Brazil. The way they do it now is with family owned ferries, and it´s awesome. They´re all the same design, built of wood with a little metal for the keel. They carry one car/truck/van each, plus pedestrians and a moto. It´s tons of work, they have to dangerously back the car up two planks at a 30 degree angle, then the boat is grounded on the concrete and they have boards to pry it loose over a few minutes. After that, the 2-stroke motorcycle engine drives a shaft that´s 5ft long and powers a tiny propeller. There´s no reverse, but they have a trick, they point the shaft over the deck towards the shore.
Ok, gotta go now. Heading to Loromayo and down south into the mountains up to Titicaca.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
The Mountain People
I finally left Cusco on a Monday, after getting some work done on my bike, rear cone adjustment and overhaul if you really must know. That guy cleaned up my cassette so well I almost payed for it as a new one. I can´t recommend the bike shop across from Hostel Estrellita enough. I think it´s called Planet Bike on Tullumayo and Santo Domingo.
I don´t like spending too much time reading maps, so both times I left Cusco I used just a compass to find my way out. Luckily it worked 2 out of 2 times, though I didn´t know if I was going the right way for over an hour. My mission for the first day was to make it just 30km to Urcos.
On the way to Urcos I found some pretty awesome ruins, Rumicolca, just next to the highway. It was an Incan wall with a great view of the mountains behind it. They had some rocks sticking out of the wall that formed stairs, and nobody was around so I climbed to the top. Up there I saw what turned out to be Peru´s friendliest archeologist approaching me. I was not allowed to be up there, but I had to ask him that. We went through the usual friendly introductions, what´s your name, how old are you, etc. Eventually he tells me to ¨[verb] your things.¨ And we got stuck on that for a while, I told him I don´t know what [verb] means, and eventually I left. Turns out he was telling me to get my shit off the ruins(!), but in an entirely too nice way.
The main square at Urcos cracked me up. They had a Iwo Jima style statue of old school Incas putting in place the gay pride flag. I think rainbow flags must have some other meaning here.
Urcos was way too easy, it was all downhill, so I decided to try for the first mountain pass that afternoon. After some grueling uphill riding I was seeing stars and had to sit down for a while. I decided I´d find the next tiny town and free camp there, since I was almost out of water.
Free camping in Peru is kind of spooky, but I got used to it. As long as you don´t mind invading some street dog´s territory, you´ll be alright. Within the first hour a dog will be barking at you from the woods, and all night long you´ll hear dogs howling. Otherwise it´s the same as anywhere.
The next morning I went into the town, and talked to some of the most naive people I´ve ever met. I´d give them a 5 out of 100 for knowledge of their own backyard. I didn´t ask, but I bet they knew their own names, so that´s 2 points. They knew their own town of 100 people had a store, so that´s about 3 points. They had no idea where the next town was though, or at least I couldn´t get it out of them. Turns out it was maybe 20km away in the next valley, but over some rough uphill terrain. I also asked if there were llamas up that way, and they said no. Three hours later I was photographing a pack of wild llamas near the summit.
I wish the llamas would have been around earlier, I really could have used their help carrying my gear uphill. At first they let me get within 5ft for photos, but once they figured out I was trying to catch them they started running more. I really didn´t have the strength to pounce at 4050m elevation. With a lasso it would have been a done deal though, next time!
The next town was Ccamarcca. I was an alien to those people, got some strange looks. Food was extremely cheap though, six banannas and four pieces of bread for 60 cents.
Down the road a few kilometers, basically connected, was the friendliest town of the Andes, and I don´t know the name of it. I showed up right when school was out, and that´s something that´s hard for me. High school girls here really have a thing for me. Really Peru, that´s such a cruel trick, that´s the wrong demographic!! I am not into that, I could have very well booked a trip to Thailand but I didn´t, this is Peru. My visa says on it you have 90 beautiful days in our country to stay away from underage girls, or you´re going to jail.
So I´m rolling through this town at 3900m elevation and I´m pretty much 1950s Elvis Presley. Packs of girls are staring and giggling absolutely psychotically. One girl threw some sort of traditionally colored cloth at me, but she missed and it flew behind my back. I assume that´s culturally the same as bras on stage at a Who concert. It wasn´t just the girls either, soccer games were interrupted another minute down the road for way too enthusiastic waving and whistling. And then the road turned uphill just as I came upon some really young kids. I ran out of steam and was talking to them breathing heavy over my handlebars. Their curiosity burned up my vocab in minutes. I was the first gringo they´d ever seen, so if you go to this town you can be the second.
About 1km later I found a nice place to camp. I heard some sort of hoofed animal in the night walking around, never found out what it was. The owner of the nearby shop was an extremely friendly guy I had met on the road the night before. He gave me 30 cents off my purchase and free candy.
My tent was apparently set up on some Quechua path into town because at 6am my neighbor, an ancient man, stopped by to say hello. I opened the door and let him see La Casa del Gringo, and I think he offered me breakfast but I was still fearful of local cooking, so he said ciao.
I had visitors about every hour until I left. The second set was a weathered woman with a baby in a colorful sheet on her back. She wouldn´t let me photograph her, but it would have been so perfect with the mountains and all. Had to be there. There was a second lady too, and they were obviously talking about me in Quechua, but Spanish would have gone right over my head too.
Then there was this weathered man who came by twice. His teeth were as black as lead .22 rounds, and the brass casings must have been below the gumline. There was no bling to his smile, no whiteness at all. It must not have been painful, he couldn´t have been happier or more friendly. He tried to sell me a scarf and some things out of a plastic shopping bag, but I already have too much gear so I had to pass.
My campsite was on a small hill in a valley surrounded by mountain houses on the inclines. There was nowhere to hid using the bathroom, so plenty of people had a chance to see my bare gringo ass.
Eventually I grudgingly set out for the kilometers I had to make that day. It was a second mountain pass, not as high as the first, but I was worn out and the shops didn´t have much appealing food. My spaghetti turned out really bad the night before when I ran out of water, but a one eyed dog with ESP was right there when I threw it out, licked it all clean off the ground.
Heading up the next pass, a van full of construction workers slowed down for me. The same ones who made fun of me the evening before for my slow progress. They let me skitch off their van for 2km and wore my arm right out. It almost got me over the top though. Felt like cheating, but why not take a free ride paid for by the state of Peru?
The next town, Ocongate, wasn´t nearly as friendly as the last. The children just stared while I ate my Bolivian candy and whispered to each other. I figured out how to buy coca leaves here. It´s not at all stores, so you have to ask around. It´s under the counter so you have to ask the lady or 7 year old working there, and you get about a half ounce for 30 cents. And it´s so addicting, now that I´m down from altitude it´s been completely neglected in my bag for days. Tastes like grass, as in your lawn.
I had a pretty good campsite here, great view of a snowy peak and next to a wide stream. Before I fell asleep there were flashlights on my tent and footsteps. I gave and ¨Hola¨ and I got back, ¨Hola, policia! You speak eh-spanish?¨ My conversation with them went perfectly, one of the few. They said the people of the town didn´t like me there, I never figured out if it was one person or all of them. Luckily they were ok with one night, so they left. The next morning I found some pisspoor ruins within a few hundred feet, maybe. It could have been a foundation of a house from 100 years ago, I don´t know.
I made the worst meal of my trip here, couldn´t find tomate sauce all day, so I got what turned out to be anchovies in watery tomato sauce. So nasty! I put my flashlight on it for a second and saw nothing but gray matter and noodles, but I still ate it until it got cold, reheated it twice and eventually gave up on the last bit.
Next morning I made it up to Tinke, the town right next to Ausangate, a 6000m snowy peak. Snow´s a rarity here. I stopped in for supplies and talked to a quechua woman for a while. I thought she was 50 or 60 but she said she was 30. Not really a sexy place here, but very badass people. Her friend was a guide who brought gringos to the summit of Ausangate. It´s a 2 day trip and costs 1000 soles, so this guy must be the richest in town. He had a modern backpack and parka, but then his shoes were just leather planks with basically belts and almost black toes. He hikes up through the snow with those!
My best moment in this town was asking for the trash. She told me a trash person would probably stop by. This one gnarly looking woman came by in minutes with a wheel barrow loaded with odds and ends. I almost ALMOST asked if she was the trash woman. Turns out her wheel barrow was loaded with huuuge pots of food and covered with nasty sheets for insulation. And her food was awesome after that meal of anchovies. 180 degrees, from trash to food.
That´s about all for the moutains, I went on to get ripped off by the taxi as I said, landed in Marcapata, and I´ll write the decent from there next time.
I can´t stress enough, if you want an awesome trip in Peru, travel from Cusco to Puerto Maldonado overland in Sept 2010. It´ll be paved and the towns on the way will still be backcountry. Any earlier and you´re a cowboy. Any later and the gringo scams will be budding and prices increasing. Right now it´s the friendliest shack towns with some of the most amazing scenery, especially Tinke to Quince Mil.
Torrential rain here in Maldonado has stopped, and it´s not 95 degrees like yesterday. Time for exploring.
I don´t like spending too much time reading maps, so both times I left Cusco I used just a compass to find my way out. Luckily it worked 2 out of 2 times, though I didn´t know if I was going the right way for over an hour. My mission for the first day was to make it just 30km to Urcos.
On the way to Urcos I found some pretty awesome ruins, Rumicolca, just next to the highway. It was an Incan wall with a great view of the mountains behind it. They had some rocks sticking out of the wall that formed stairs, and nobody was around so I climbed to the top. Up there I saw what turned out to be Peru´s friendliest archeologist approaching me. I was not allowed to be up there, but I had to ask him that. We went through the usual friendly introductions, what´s your name, how old are you, etc. Eventually he tells me to ¨[verb] your things.¨ And we got stuck on that for a while, I told him I don´t know what [verb] means, and eventually I left. Turns out he was telling me to get my shit off the ruins(!), but in an entirely too nice way.
The main square at Urcos cracked me up. They had a Iwo Jima style statue of old school Incas putting in place the gay pride flag. I think rainbow flags must have some other meaning here.
Urcos was way too easy, it was all downhill, so I decided to try for the first mountain pass that afternoon. After some grueling uphill riding I was seeing stars and had to sit down for a while. I decided I´d find the next tiny town and free camp there, since I was almost out of water.
Free camping in Peru is kind of spooky, but I got used to it. As long as you don´t mind invading some street dog´s territory, you´ll be alright. Within the first hour a dog will be barking at you from the woods, and all night long you´ll hear dogs howling. Otherwise it´s the same as anywhere.
The next morning I went into the town, and talked to some of the most naive people I´ve ever met. I´d give them a 5 out of 100 for knowledge of their own backyard. I didn´t ask, but I bet they knew their own names, so that´s 2 points. They knew their own town of 100 people had a store, so that´s about 3 points. They had no idea where the next town was though, or at least I couldn´t get it out of them. Turns out it was maybe 20km away in the next valley, but over some rough uphill terrain. I also asked if there were llamas up that way, and they said no. Three hours later I was photographing a pack of wild llamas near the summit.
I wish the llamas would have been around earlier, I really could have used their help carrying my gear uphill. At first they let me get within 5ft for photos, but once they figured out I was trying to catch them they started running more. I really didn´t have the strength to pounce at 4050m elevation. With a lasso it would have been a done deal though, next time!
The next town was Ccamarcca. I was an alien to those people, got some strange looks. Food was extremely cheap though, six banannas and four pieces of bread for 60 cents.
Down the road a few kilometers, basically connected, was the friendliest town of the Andes, and I don´t know the name of it. I showed up right when school was out, and that´s something that´s hard for me. High school girls here really have a thing for me. Really Peru, that´s such a cruel trick, that´s the wrong demographic!! I am not into that, I could have very well booked a trip to Thailand but I didn´t, this is Peru. My visa says on it you have 90 beautiful days in our country to stay away from underage girls, or you´re going to jail.
So I´m rolling through this town at 3900m elevation and I´m pretty much 1950s Elvis Presley. Packs of girls are staring and giggling absolutely psychotically. One girl threw some sort of traditionally colored cloth at me, but she missed and it flew behind my back. I assume that´s culturally the same as bras on stage at a Who concert. It wasn´t just the girls either, soccer games were interrupted another minute down the road for way too enthusiastic waving and whistling. And then the road turned uphill just as I came upon some really young kids. I ran out of steam and was talking to them breathing heavy over my handlebars. Their curiosity burned up my vocab in minutes. I was the first gringo they´d ever seen, so if you go to this town you can be the second.
About 1km later I found a nice place to camp. I heard some sort of hoofed animal in the night walking around, never found out what it was. The owner of the nearby shop was an extremely friendly guy I had met on the road the night before. He gave me 30 cents off my purchase and free candy.
My tent was apparently set up on some Quechua path into town because at 6am my neighbor, an ancient man, stopped by to say hello. I opened the door and let him see La Casa del Gringo, and I think he offered me breakfast but I was still fearful of local cooking, so he said ciao.
I had visitors about every hour until I left. The second set was a weathered woman with a baby in a colorful sheet on her back. She wouldn´t let me photograph her, but it would have been so perfect with the mountains and all. Had to be there. There was a second lady too, and they were obviously talking about me in Quechua, but Spanish would have gone right over my head too.
Then there was this weathered man who came by twice. His teeth were as black as lead .22 rounds, and the brass casings must have been below the gumline. There was no bling to his smile, no whiteness at all. It must not have been painful, he couldn´t have been happier or more friendly. He tried to sell me a scarf and some things out of a plastic shopping bag, but I already have too much gear so I had to pass.
My campsite was on a small hill in a valley surrounded by mountain houses on the inclines. There was nowhere to hid using the bathroom, so plenty of people had a chance to see my bare gringo ass.
Eventually I grudgingly set out for the kilometers I had to make that day. It was a second mountain pass, not as high as the first, but I was worn out and the shops didn´t have much appealing food. My spaghetti turned out really bad the night before when I ran out of water, but a one eyed dog with ESP was right there when I threw it out, licked it all clean off the ground.
Heading up the next pass, a van full of construction workers slowed down for me. The same ones who made fun of me the evening before for my slow progress. They let me skitch off their van for 2km and wore my arm right out. It almost got me over the top though. Felt like cheating, but why not take a free ride paid for by the state of Peru?
The next town, Ocongate, wasn´t nearly as friendly as the last. The children just stared while I ate my Bolivian candy and whispered to each other. I figured out how to buy coca leaves here. It´s not at all stores, so you have to ask around. It´s under the counter so you have to ask the lady or 7 year old working there, and you get about a half ounce for 30 cents. And it´s so addicting, now that I´m down from altitude it´s been completely neglected in my bag for days. Tastes like grass, as in your lawn.
I had a pretty good campsite here, great view of a snowy peak and next to a wide stream. Before I fell asleep there were flashlights on my tent and footsteps. I gave and ¨Hola¨ and I got back, ¨Hola, policia! You speak eh-spanish?¨ My conversation with them went perfectly, one of the few. They said the people of the town didn´t like me there, I never figured out if it was one person or all of them. Luckily they were ok with one night, so they left. The next morning I found some pisspoor ruins within a few hundred feet, maybe. It could have been a foundation of a house from 100 years ago, I don´t know.
I made the worst meal of my trip here, couldn´t find tomate sauce all day, so I got what turned out to be anchovies in watery tomato sauce. So nasty! I put my flashlight on it for a second and saw nothing but gray matter and noodles, but I still ate it until it got cold, reheated it twice and eventually gave up on the last bit.
Next morning I made it up to Tinke, the town right next to Ausangate, a 6000m snowy peak. Snow´s a rarity here. I stopped in for supplies and talked to a quechua woman for a while. I thought she was 50 or 60 but she said she was 30. Not really a sexy place here, but very badass people. Her friend was a guide who brought gringos to the summit of Ausangate. It´s a 2 day trip and costs 1000 soles, so this guy must be the richest in town. He had a modern backpack and parka, but then his shoes were just leather planks with basically belts and almost black toes. He hikes up through the snow with those!
My best moment in this town was asking for the trash. She told me a trash person would probably stop by. This one gnarly looking woman came by in minutes with a wheel barrow loaded with odds and ends. I almost ALMOST asked if she was the trash woman. Turns out her wheel barrow was loaded with huuuge pots of food and covered with nasty sheets for insulation. And her food was awesome after that meal of anchovies. 180 degrees, from trash to food.
That´s about all for the moutains, I went on to get ripped off by the taxi as I said, landed in Marcapata, and I´ll write the decent from there next time.
I can´t stress enough, if you want an awesome trip in Peru, travel from Cusco to Puerto Maldonado overland in Sept 2010. It´ll be paved and the towns on the way will still be backcountry. Any earlier and you´re a cowboy. Any later and the gringo scams will be budding and prices increasing. Right now it´s the friendliest shack towns with some of the most amazing scenery, especially Tinke to Quince Mil.
Torrential rain here in Maldonado has stopped, and it´s not 95 degrees like yesterday. Time for exploring.
Cusco
I really dragged my feet in Cusco, kept coming up with every excuse not to leave on my bike. It´s comfortable there for expats, they´ll even give you oxygen masks in your hotel room if you pay enough. I missed out on almost all the touristy things besides seeing a military parade in the main square and taking a picture of a mom, son, and their llama. Immediately after the kid ran across the street to collect 30 cents from me, but I thought that would happen.
I have huge respect for the Peruvian army. I saw those guys running in formation in the hot sun in full fatigues with AK-47s and if that´s not enough, singing at the top of their lungs. All at 10,000ft altitude.
The second night I had a good time in the main square. You definitely can´t sit there peacefully. Within minutes a six year old girl was selling me a knit llama finger puppet for sixty cents. I thought it would be light enough to carry on my bike. Just as I pulled out my wallet I was mobbed by four other vendors who now saw a willing buyer. There were more finger puppets to buy, and paintings and everybody wanted my attention. I couldn´t listen to a full sentance from anybody before someone else would be beating me with their product. All the children were right in my face, leaning on my knees. And some of the best English I heard on the trip was from those guys.
Another hilarious thing in the main square were the fake deaf people. Two people approached me within minutes with clipboards that said in German and Spanish only, ¨I´m deaf, please give me a donation.¨ What an awesome idea, how can you argue with a deaf person?
I love how there are so many German tourists here the locals have picked up on a few phrases. They assume sometimes that I´m German, so I get a few words dropped. I´ve heard Tagesmenu (menu of the day), ¨Ist das dein freund?¨ and plenty of Hallos.
That´s about all for Cusco. Hostal Estrellita is really comfy, central, and 15 soles a night ($5.50). Stay there if you go.
I have huge respect for the Peruvian army. I saw those guys running in formation in the hot sun in full fatigues with AK-47s and if that´s not enough, singing at the top of their lungs. All at 10,000ft altitude.
The second night I had a good time in the main square. You definitely can´t sit there peacefully. Within minutes a six year old girl was selling me a knit llama finger puppet for sixty cents. I thought it would be light enough to carry on my bike. Just as I pulled out my wallet I was mobbed by four other vendors who now saw a willing buyer. There were more finger puppets to buy, and paintings and everybody wanted my attention. I couldn´t listen to a full sentance from anybody before someone else would be beating me with their product. All the children were right in my face, leaning on my knees. And some of the best English I heard on the trip was from those guys.
Another hilarious thing in the main square were the fake deaf people. Two people approached me within minutes with clipboards that said in German and Spanish only, ¨I´m deaf, please give me a donation.¨ What an awesome idea, how can you argue with a deaf person?
I love how there are so many German tourists here the locals have picked up on a few phrases. They assume sometimes that I´m German, so I get a few words dropped. I´ve heard Tagesmenu (menu of the day), ¨Ist das dein freund?¨ and plenty of Hallos.
That´s about all for Cusco. Hostal Estrellita is really comfy, central, and 15 soles a night ($5.50). Stay there if you go.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Into the Amazon Basin
Well, the road was definitely not all downhill, and definitely not finished. I´m now at the halfway point, Quince Mil. It´s a shack town in the jungle. The heat has been cranked up here, and so has the biodiversity. I already saw a parrot or something similar just sitting on a roof, among other birds of paradise. Butterflies are so numerous they´re almost a nuisance.
Peru is making a major investment in this trans mountain/jungle highway to Brazil. They really want an overland trucking route to connect the oceans. I´ve never seen such a professionally executed project. Maybe this is only interesting to me in a world domination way, but I think this is really cool, and want to sell my photos to The Economist. All the construction workers cheer me on, and they have all sorts of jobs, even down to a bunch of guys swinging machetes in the woods.
The road definitely wasn´t all downhill, what a joke. I read this in Lonely Planet shortly before leaving Cusco (thanks Justin!), so it wasn´t a surprise. There were three mountain passes, the first was 4100m and took me two days. I made friends with a van full of construction workers and they let me skitch their van about 2km almost over the second one, but it wore out my arm first.
The third one I cheated, it was 4700m high, and had an armed guard stopping people and asking if they had the balls to drive over it, etc. In the last town before it, Tinke, some gnarly weathered Quechua woman talked up how crazy it was, so I ended up deciding on a bus. When I went down to ask about the bus, I was stupid enough to get in some kid´s car and completely misunderstand the price of the ride. I thought he said S/7.50, but it was S/150 ($45). Cierte almost sounds like cientos I guess. Oops! Ah well, made his day for sure. He was not afraid to cross the centerline on every curve, so it was a pretty exciting ride, I have some crazy movies of his racecar driving.
I couldn´t belive there were pueblos up there around 4700m!! These people live in houses made of rocks on top of rocks with no electricity. I´m completely baffeled how they survive or even get water, unless they hike up to the snow.
The driver dropped me in Marcapata, which is a tiny town on a tiny flat spot in the mountains. From there it´s been downhill in the mud. I would have never made it uphill, my bike barely works when the chain oil has been replaced with mud. I would have never made it without a road bike, and I would have never made it if the road through the mountain platau was not brand new asfalt. If I had attempted this one year earlier I´d still be out there, cussing and dehydrated.
Got much more to write once I get to Puerto Maldonado, gotta get on the road now.
Peru is making a major investment in this trans mountain/jungle highway to Brazil. They really want an overland trucking route to connect the oceans. I´ve never seen such a professionally executed project. Maybe this is only interesting to me in a world domination way, but I think this is really cool, and want to sell my photos to The Economist. All the construction workers cheer me on, and they have all sorts of jobs, even down to a bunch of guys swinging machetes in the woods.
The road definitely wasn´t all downhill, what a joke. I read this in Lonely Planet shortly before leaving Cusco (thanks Justin!), so it wasn´t a surprise. There were three mountain passes, the first was 4100m and took me two days. I made friends with a van full of construction workers and they let me skitch their van about 2km almost over the second one, but it wore out my arm first.
The third one I cheated, it was 4700m high, and had an armed guard stopping people and asking if they had the balls to drive over it, etc. In the last town before it, Tinke, some gnarly weathered Quechua woman talked up how crazy it was, so I ended up deciding on a bus. When I went down to ask about the bus, I was stupid enough to get in some kid´s car and completely misunderstand the price of the ride. I thought he said S/7.50, but it was S/150 ($45). Cierte almost sounds like cientos I guess. Oops! Ah well, made his day for sure. He was not afraid to cross the centerline on every curve, so it was a pretty exciting ride, I have some crazy movies of his racecar driving.
I couldn´t belive there were pueblos up there around 4700m!! These people live in houses made of rocks on top of rocks with no electricity. I´m completely baffeled how they survive or even get water, unless they hike up to the snow.
The driver dropped me in Marcapata, which is a tiny town on a tiny flat spot in the mountains. From there it´s been downhill in the mud. I would have never made it uphill, my bike barely works when the chain oil has been replaced with mud. I would have never made it without a road bike, and I would have never made it if the road through the mountain platau was not brand new asfalt. If I had attempted this one year earlier I´d still be out there, cussing and dehydrated.
Got much more to write once I get to Puerto Maldonado, gotta get on the road now.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Cusco Cycling
Finally did some serious biking yesterday. I tried to make it to Moray (Incan terraced salt pits, and ancient experimental crop area), but I was way off, so I started trying for the tourist town Urubamba. In the end I ended up off the beaten path in Huayabamba, the next town over, at sun down.
Huayabamba is in a deep valley, and before decending to it I climbed around some less popular ruins. I was completely by myself, almost made it to the peak. From there I could see the boring trucking route into the valley, or alternatively the narrow dirt roads the locals use to access their terraced farms. Of course I came here to do the dirt roads!
It was more of a staircase at times built out of rocks, probably intended for mules and alpaca traffic. I only saw one ancient man using it besides myself. If you want to try it yourself, go north of Chinchero a few miles, 1km past the ruins, you´ll see a dirt road to a very poor but friendly town. Basically you keep to the right, eventually it´ll turn into a farming field, and then a trail.
From there you can somewhat choose your own adventure, there are really steep routes to save time sometimes, tons of switchbacks. It probably took me two hours to get down, almost no pedaling. This road was not on my highway map.
After getting down I realized I was in the wrong town, and the friendliest locals so far helped me get on the bus to Cusco, with my bike stashed up top. I´m not even sure they tied it down.
About 30 seconds into the bus ride we came across tons of broken glass and car parts. A compact car had nailed a graising cow, must have got off his leash. The farmers were trying to do CPR on the cow, but no rescue breathing of course. The windsheild was completely smashed, and seat belts are not popular in this country, so it couldn´t have been good.
The bus was standing room only, so I´m sure everyone on that bus is telling all their friends and family about the massive gringo who could touch the ceiling of the bus with the side of his face. They must have some free source of gasoline, the ride was over an hour, and cost just $1.
In my hostel there are some amazing travelers. One guy rode his motorcycle from Fresno to here. Everyone asks if you can do the panama canal with a car, the answer is that you have to build a crate and ship it DHL. Takes a few days and a few hundred dollars it sounds like.
Another bike touring guy is staying there, he started in Quebec SEVEN YEARS AGO! His name is Hero.
Getting on the road to Puerto Maldonado today or tomorrow. My lungs hurt from yesterday yet.
Huayabamba is in a deep valley, and before decending to it I climbed around some less popular ruins. I was completely by myself, almost made it to the peak. From there I could see the boring trucking route into the valley, or alternatively the narrow dirt roads the locals use to access their terraced farms. Of course I came here to do the dirt roads!
It was more of a staircase at times built out of rocks, probably intended for mules and alpaca traffic. I only saw one ancient man using it besides myself. If you want to try it yourself, go north of Chinchero a few miles, 1km past the ruins, you´ll see a dirt road to a very poor but friendly town. Basically you keep to the right, eventually it´ll turn into a farming field, and then a trail.
From there you can somewhat choose your own adventure, there are really steep routes to save time sometimes, tons of switchbacks. It probably took me two hours to get down, almost no pedaling. This road was not on my highway map.
After getting down I realized I was in the wrong town, and the friendliest locals so far helped me get on the bus to Cusco, with my bike stashed up top. I´m not even sure they tied it down.
About 30 seconds into the bus ride we came across tons of broken glass and car parts. A compact car had nailed a graising cow, must have got off his leash. The farmers were trying to do CPR on the cow, but no rescue breathing of course. The windsheild was completely smashed, and seat belts are not popular in this country, so it couldn´t have been good.
The bus was standing room only, so I´m sure everyone on that bus is telling all their friends and family about the massive gringo who could touch the ceiling of the bus with the side of his face. They must have some free source of gasoline, the ride was over an hour, and cost just $1.
In my hostel there are some amazing travelers. One guy rode his motorcycle from Fresno to here. Everyone asks if you can do the panama canal with a car, the answer is that you have to build a crate and ship it DHL. Takes a few days and a few hundred dollars it sounds like.
Another bike touring guy is staying there, he started in Quebec SEVEN YEARS AGO! His name is Hero.
Getting on the road to Puerto Maldonado today or tomorrow. My lungs hurt from yesterday yet.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Bus to Cusco
I got into the social network of Spaniard girls for a few days. Followed one to a comfy hostel/home stay, she flew home, then followed two more to the cheapest bus to Cusco. They are awesome, half this continent is their playground. They´re so comfortable here, it´s like they never left home. And unlike other expats they´ll teach you Spanish.
The intercity buses have been bizarre lately. Now they fingerprint everyone´s index finger when you get on, and yesterday they had a cheap camcorder velcrowed on top of a recording TV/VCR watching everyone hand over their ticket. Maybe it´s so if the bus goes over the edge they can show my parents a nice tape of me arguing with them in broken Spanish over whether or not I have to check my small backpack.
By the way, a massive bike box to Cusco with Cromotex costs 50 soles. Just show up early and it´ll get on the same bus as you.
That driver has no fear too. There are guardrails, but only some of the time. And why should he be, we were riding on the Mercedez Benz Marco Polo line, not just any double decker bus. I started wondering today...did that driver do all 21 hours straight? I´m not sure if there were two or not. The stewardess looked in great form for having slept in her clothes just like the rest of us.
On hour 14 of that bus ride I wasn´t even ansy to get off, the views were incredible! Everything after Abancay was top notch. The switchbacks after that town took probably an hour and a half for the first mountain pass. I definitely recommend the Lima to Cusco bus, then maybe fly on your way out.
Some seriously gnarly farmer folk live back in those hills, I´m sure I´ll learn all about them soon. You´ll see cows grasing on some switchback and it looks like they have just 6m x 2m to make use of. Their irrigation systems must have been backbreaking to build, they pull all the water off the roads and dump it into terraced or high grade plots.
I made all sorts of a fuss with my bike after getting into town. It started off really smooth, but then I had the wrong address for South American Explorers, where I was going to assemble everything. Turns out it was another two blocks and then up some hundreds of stairs. A rough experience on my first day at 10,000ft altitude. I stashed the lighter half of my stuff with some pharmacy girls, and then this really eccentric social worker saw me trying to carry the box by myself and helped out. First we went the wrong way several times though, just to make it really gut wrenching. He spent a good jovial hour of manual labor with me, so I tipped him and his poor kids more than twice the taxi fare. Oh yeah, and he spoke fluent German, how weird.
Llamas are more scare than I though. I saw a small one tied up outside a gift shop, but that´s about it. I´m still in the market to purchase one.
Oh yeah, my travel plans! So I want to ditch the trucking routes and do backcountry if I can, so I´m planning to go to this jungle town, Puerto Maldonado, near the border of Bolivia. It´s almost all downhill from here, 500km, so it´s almost cheating. Then, if you´ll follow along on your maps, there are no towns or roads south of there, just rivers and national parks, so I hope to get to this tiny town, Astillero, by jungle boat. Then continue on backroads from there back up the mountains to lake Titicaca, and on to La Paz.
This looked great on 1980s maps in Lima, and the people in the hostal said, ¨Can you even drive to Puerto Maldonado? You have to fly.¨ All very promising. Unfortunately, this dude burst my bubble today, telling me that the road to P.M. is brand new, in fact the newest road in Peru and under construction right now. The first 30 miles are all original nastiness though, so that might be enough to make it a private road for me. I´m going to do more research tomorrow, but that´s the plan till further notice.
Till next time.
The intercity buses have been bizarre lately. Now they fingerprint everyone´s index finger when you get on, and yesterday they had a cheap camcorder velcrowed on top of a recording TV/VCR watching everyone hand over their ticket. Maybe it´s so if the bus goes over the edge they can show my parents a nice tape of me arguing with them in broken Spanish over whether or not I have to check my small backpack.
By the way, a massive bike box to Cusco with Cromotex costs 50 soles. Just show up early and it´ll get on the same bus as you.
That driver has no fear too. There are guardrails, but only some of the time. And why should he be, we were riding on the Mercedez Benz Marco Polo line, not just any double decker bus. I started wondering today...did that driver do all 21 hours straight? I´m not sure if there were two or not. The stewardess looked in great form for having slept in her clothes just like the rest of us.
On hour 14 of that bus ride I wasn´t even ansy to get off, the views were incredible! Everything after Abancay was top notch. The switchbacks after that town took probably an hour and a half for the first mountain pass. I definitely recommend the Lima to Cusco bus, then maybe fly on your way out.
Some seriously gnarly farmer folk live back in those hills, I´m sure I´ll learn all about them soon. You´ll see cows grasing on some switchback and it looks like they have just 6m x 2m to make use of. Their irrigation systems must have been backbreaking to build, they pull all the water off the roads and dump it into terraced or high grade plots.
I made all sorts of a fuss with my bike after getting into town. It started off really smooth, but then I had the wrong address for South American Explorers, where I was going to assemble everything. Turns out it was another two blocks and then up some hundreds of stairs. A rough experience on my first day at 10,000ft altitude. I stashed the lighter half of my stuff with some pharmacy girls, and then this really eccentric social worker saw me trying to carry the box by myself and helped out. First we went the wrong way several times though, just to make it really gut wrenching. He spent a good jovial hour of manual labor with me, so I tipped him and his poor kids more than twice the taxi fare. Oh yeah, and he spoke fluent German, how weird.
Llamas are more scare than I though. I saw a small one tied up outside a gift shop, but that´s about it. I´m still in the market to purchase one.
Oh yeah, my travel plans! So I want to ditch the trucking routes and do backcountry if I can, so I´m planning to go to this jungle town, Puerto Maldonado, near the border of Bolivia. It´s almost all downhill from here, 500km, so it´s almost cheating. Then, if you´ll follow along on your maps, there are no towns or roads south of there, just rivers and national parks, so I hope to get to this tiny town, Astillero, by jungle boat. Then continue on backroads from there back up the mountains to lake Titicaca, and on to La Paz.
This looked great on 1980s maps in Lima, and the people in the hostal said, ¨Can you even drive to Puerto Maldonado? You have to fly.¨ All very promising. Unfortunately, this dude burst my bubble today, telling me that the road to P.M. is brand new, in fact the newest road in Peru and under construction right now. The first 30 miles are all original nastiness though, so that might be enough to make it a private road for me. I´m going to do more research tomorrow, but that´s the plan till further notice.
Till next time.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Scam Team in Centro de Lima
Our last night in Lima we tried to find the bar with the brawl again since it was comfy and cheap and they treated /us/ right at least. We found this bar that was so exactly the same it was hard to tell if we were at the same place or not, but it definitely was different.
At 8pm the nightlife is dead in Peru, the bar was empty except for one Limeno, Marceille, with entirely too much energy. He was all excited because his band was going to be playing in two hours, so he sat us down. He didn´t speak English, but he had one phrase down, ¨In Lima we drinka the Pisco eSour!!!!¨ Pisco´s the national liquor by the way, made from grapes. Seemed like a good idea, we tried to make our own Pisco Sour earlier and it went poorly, so we were game. I thought the scam was going to be to get us drunk so we´d pay a cover charge for his band.
So the drinks took forever to arrive, and meanwhile he´s teaching us all sorts of trendy spanish and building up our egos and stuff. Eventually we each get pitchers of Pisco Sour, but half of it is foam egg whites, and then a shot of Pisco on the side. We´re blown away, and I asked the waitress how much it cost like 3 times, and the answer was, ¨it´s a big drink.¨ There´s also this geezer guy helping with serving, his teeth look blackened in the centers, and I never understood a word he said.
So we learned a toast wiht Marceille,
-Arribar! (upstairs, raise glass)
-Abajo! (downstairs, hit table)
-Al centro (*hit glasses*)
-Al dentro (down the hatch)
We moved inside, I chatted up the cute waitress who wouldn´t answer how much the drinks cost. She was 21, from Trujillo--where we were going in hours. I could have learned a lot from her, but she was the weakest person in the scam, so I was scolded by Marceille for talking to her, and told to sit down and help translate again for my buddies and some heated business going on.
We finished out pitchers and ordered a round of beers, nobody said Pisco Sour not at all, just cerveza, eye-to-eye with cute girl. Despite this, she came back with another three pitchers! It was a first for me, sending drinks back. Then we got our beer and said we had to go. The bill came, 400 soles even!!! $133 is not a legit bar tab for this country.
Our hostal was 50 soles a night for two people, no way I was paying 88 soles per pitcher of pisco sour at a cowboy bar! Good god, if we had accepted that second round, who knows where we´d be.
So the post-consumption bartering began, which is a less traditional form of bartering, kind of like not paying your landlord the rent. We got it down to S/312 since they had a fourth pitcher on there at least. We chugged the rest of our beers and went out to the balcony to smoke, which was a bad move. At least out there I had a minute alone to hide most the cash.
At the same time as all this, there was an amusing subplot happening. He had asked us in the beginning if we were all single, and when we hit the balcony our surprise secret prostitute arrived. Either that or an attractive Peruana girl who was really into us at an empty bar. Marseille hesitated a second introducing her, how would you introduce a prostitute to gringos without hurting anyone´s feelings? So I thought I´d take the chance to make it as awkward as possible and said, ¨hey, is that your girlfriend?!¨
So theres some talking and smoking and the new bill arrives, which was a total buzzkill, along with the geezer, and the cute waitress. Everyone´s shoulder to shoulder in the doorway, so we´re boxed in on the balcony. I´m sure my broken spanish was off the hook here, it was my third day in the country, and I had just learned the word for 80 that morning, so that came in mighty handy. The geezer didn´t say much, and I continued to understand none of it. They showed us a fake menu with the 88 soles price.
So we start pulling out cash. We got up to S/136 or so, and four US dollars. They were nice enough to say, $20 USD more and you´re set, but this was still a ripoff already. I like to leave my mark on things and improve the world as I go, so I don´t want to spoil them and let them think this half assed scam works, especially on their biggest customer of the spring. Also, I wasn´t going to brawl over $20 unless they started it. I´m quite a wuss, but we all are bigger than them. It´d be three on six+, Marseille, the geezer, 100lbs waitress, prostitute (or are they neutral?), and two ten year olds who are really 16. I also saw a sickly looking rastafarian guy and girl in a back hallway earlier.
Anyways, tons of awkward silence, neither side wanted to budge, so I thought I´d follow Tisko´s advice, baseball is the great equalizer. Any two people can set aside their differences and talk about baseball. I noticed the geezer had a White Sox hat! I´m obviously a diehard Brewers fan, so what do we have in common? We both hate the Cubs!! Anything to take a break from this situation. I don´t know the word for hat, so I pointed at the logo, too close for comfort because he grabbed my wrist out of the air and did some shouting. Probably something about the White Sox´ season or something, I dunno.
So after some more awkward silence we were finally allowed to leave. Tailing us about 10 seconds behind on the street was the cute waitress, probably to go change in the four US dollars so they could all split the pot.
Well, I´m still sick but functioning now. Went for a run today, and I might even manage to eat three meals, up from zero four days ago. I´m thinking of taking this microbiology experiment on the road either tomorrow or the next day to Cusco, where I can finally assemble my bike. 20hr bus ride!
At 8pm the nightlife is dead in Peru, the bar was empty except for one Limeno, Marceille, with entirely too much energy. He was all excited because his band was going to be playing in two hours, so he sat us down. He didn´t speak English, but he had one phrase down, ¨In Lima we drinka the Pisco eSour!!!!¨ Pisco´s the national liquor by the way, made from grapes. Seemed like a good idea, we tried to make our own Pisco Sour earlier and it went poorly, so we were game. I thought the scam was going to be to get us drunk so we´d pay a cover charge for his band.
So the drinks took forever to arrive, and meanwhile he´s teaching us all sorts of trendy spanish and building up our egos and stuff. Eventually we each get pitchers of Pisco Sour, but half of it is foam egg whites, and then a shot of Pisco on the side. We´re blown away, and I asked the waitress how much it cost like 3 times, and the answer was, ¨it´s a big drink.¨ There´s also this geezer guy helping with serving, his teeth look blackened in the centers, and I never understood a word he said.
So we learned a toast wiht Marceille,
-Arribar! (upstairs, raise glass)
-Abajo! (downstairs, hit table)
-Al centro (*hit glasses*)
-Al dentro (down the hatch)
We moved inside, I chatted up the cute waitress who wouldn´t answer how much the drinks cost. She was 21, from Trujillo--where we were going in hours. I could have learned a lot from her, but she was the weakest person in the scam, so I was scolded by Marceille for talking to her, and told to sit down and help translate again for my buddies and some heated business going on.
We finished out pitchers and ordered a round of beers, nobody said Pisco Sour not at all, just cerveza, eye-to-eye with cute girl. Despite this, she came back with another three pitchers! It was a first for me, sending drinks back. Then we got our beer and said we had to go. The bill came, 400 soles even!!! $133 is not a legit bar tab for this country.
Our hostal was 50 soles a night for two people, no way I was paying 88 soles per pitcher of pisco sour at a cowboy bar! Good god, if we had accepted that second round, who knows where we´d be.
So the post-consumption bartering began, which is a less traditional form of bartering, kind of like not paying your landlord the rent. We got it down to S/312 since they had a fourth pitcher on there at least. We chugged the rest of our beers and went out to the balcony to smoke, which was a bad move. At least out there I had a minute alone to hide most the cash.
At the same time as all this, there was an amusing subplot happening. He had asked us in the beginning if we were all single, and when we hit the balcony our surprise secret prostitute arrived. Either that or an attractive Peruana girl who was really into us at an empty bar. Marseille hesitated a second introducing her, how would you introduce a prostitute to gringos without hurting anyone´s feelings? So I thought I´d take the chance to make it as awkward as possible and said, ¨hey, is that your girlfriend?!¨
So theres some talking and smoking and the new bill arrives, which was a total buzzkill, along with the geezer, and the cute waitress. Everyone´s shoulder to shoulder in the doorway, so we´re boxed in on the balcony. I´m sure my broken spanish was off the hook here, it was my third day in the country, and I had just learned the word for 80 that morning, so that came in mighty handy. The geezer didn´t say much, and I continued to understand none of it. They showed us a fake menu with the 88 soles price.
So we start pulling out cash. We got up to S/136 or so, and four US dollars. They were nice enough to say, $20 USD more and you´re set, but this was still a ripoff already. I like to leave my mark on things and improve the world as I go, so I don´t want to spoil them and let them think this half assed scam works, especially on their biggest customer of the spring. Also, I wasn´t going to brawl over $20 unless they started it. I´m quite a wuss, but we all are bigger than them. It´d be three on six+, Marseille, the geezer, 100lbs waitress, prostitute (or are they neutral?), and two ten year olds who are really 16. I also saw a sickly looking rastafarian guy and girl in a back hallway earlier.
Anyways, tons of awkward silence, neither side wanted to budge, so I thought I´d follow Tisko´s advice, baseball is the great equalizer. Any two people can set aside their differences and talk about baseball. I noticed the geezer had a White Sox hat! I´m obviously a diehard Brewers fan, so what do we have in common? We both hate the Cubs!! Anything to take a break from this situation. I don´t know the word for hat, so I pointed at the logo, too close for comfort because he grabbed my wrist out of the air and did some shouting. Probably something about the White Sox´ season or something, I dunno.
So after some more awkward silence we were finally allowed to leave. Tailing us about 10 seconds behind on the street was the cute waitress, probably to go change in the four US dollars so they could all split the pot.
Well, I´m still sick but functioning now. Went for a run today, and I might even manage to eat three meals, up from zero four days ago. I´m thinking of taking this microbiology experiment on the road either tomorrow or the next day to Cusco, where I can finally assemble my bike. 20hr bus ride!
Monday, September 28, 2009
Prostitutes and Cocheras
I definitely have entirely the wrong audience to write about prostitutes, meaning my coworkers and my family, but I´m going to do it anyways.
This city has its share, and they´re all over, enough that you´ll run across them just going about your normal business. The first set were in the pricey nighlife district, Miraflores. Just two girls with the softest voices, one said Hi and cocked her head next to a taxi stand. Then ¡Vamos! as we walked away.
The third set was my favorite, we made good friends with them! We went to the bus station about three hours early because our last bar experience went poorly, I´ll get to that later. While the driver was dropping us off he said, ¨It´s really secure here¨ even though we didn´t ask. I learned later either that neighborhood or Callao, by the airport, were the most dangerous in Lima. I would have chosen Rimac though.
We bought our tickets to Trujillo (an 8hr luxury bus ride for $14), and found a corner store that sold beer with the typical jail bars to buy through. Drinking on the street is cool here, yet I haven´t seen anyone do it besides us and the bus station security guard. We did that for a few rounds of 32 ouncers between some parked cars.
This entirely too cute girl kept walking by in an aqua windbreaker and white sweatpants, she was hard to miss. We purchased and ate the shit out of a pile of chicken from a street vendor on the hood of some car. As we were finishing up, somehow we started talking to her on her 5th pass with her friend.
It was the usual broken Spanish introductions for a while. I asked them if they were 16, and they said, ¨No! 21 and .... 25.¨ At some point they said they had to go to work, I asked where they worked and got just smiles and no answer.
Eventually the proposition came, and it went completely over my head. I understood none of the words, but the hand slapping was pretty clear.
As drunk as we were, and as good of an idea as it seemed (possibly underage girls in a bad part of Lima, three guys and two girls) we had to add to that our bus was leaving in 15 minutes, so we said our goodbyes.
8 hours later in Trujillo I expected a laid back beach culture but it was as intense as Lima, like we never left. We wandered around and checked into a Hostel / Cochera, which turned out to be a sex hotel mostly. A cochera is a place where you bring your esteemed lady of the night for hourly room rental. A hostel in South America doesn´t have to be a place for bearded backpackers, it´s any cheap hotel. In this case the matresses were wrapped in plastic and so were the three remotes they gave us. Whatever goes on in that room with three matresses is probably too kinky for me to imagine. It was all brand new though, clean, and the most expensive place we stayed, $21 for the three of us.
Hospedaje is the real word for backpacker´s hostel. La Casa Suiza in Huanchaco was a great hospedaje we ended up at next. They had a rooftop barbeque deck, TV room, free internet and friendly surfer staff for $5/night per person.
Another great one in Lima is Casa del Mochilero, where I am now. It´s basically a homestay, also for $5 per night.
This city has its share, and they´re all over, enough that you´ll run across them just going about your normal business. The first set were in the pricey nighlife district, Miraflores. Just two girls with the softest voices, one said Hi and cocked her head next to a taxi stand. Then ¡Vamos! as we walked away.
The third set was my favorite, we made good friends with them! We went to the bus station about three hours early because our last bar experience went poorly, I´ll get to that later. While the driver was dropping us off he said, ¨It´s really secure here¨ even though we didn´t ask. I learned later either that neighborhood or Callao, by the airport, were the most dangerous in Lima. I would have chosen Rimac though.
We bought our tickets to Trujillo (an 8hr luxury bus ride for $14), and found a corner store that sold beer with the typical jail bars to buy through. Drinking on the street is cool here, yet I haven´t seen anyone do it besides us and the bus station security guard. We did that for a few rounds of 32 ouncers between some parked cars.
This entirely too cute girl kept walking by in an aqua windbreaker and white sweatpants, she was hard to miss. We purchased and ate the shit out of a pile of chicken from a street vendor on the hood of some car. As we were finishing up, somehow we started talking to her on her 5th pass with her friend.
It was the usual broken Spanish introductions for a while. I asked them if they were 16, and they said, ¨No! 21 and .... 25.¨ At some point they said they had to go to work, I asked where they worked and got just smiles and no answer.
Eventually the proposition came, and it went completely over my head. I understood none of the words, but the hand slapping was pretty clear.
As drunk as we were, and as good of an idea as it seemed (possibly underage girls in a bad part of Lima, three guys and two girls) we had to add to that our bus was leaving in 15 minutes, so we said our goodbyes.
8 hours later in Trujillo I expected a laid back beach culture but it was as intense as Lima, like we never left. We wandered around and checked into a Hostel / Cochera, which turned out to be a sex hotel mostly. A cochera is a place where you bring your esteemed lady of the night for hourly room rental. A hostel in South America doesn´t have to be a place for bearded backpackers, it´s any cheap hotel. In this case the matresses were wrapped in plastic and so were the three remotes they gave us. Whatever goes on in that room with three matresses is probably too kinky for me to imagine. It was all brand new though, clean, and the most expensive place we stayed, $21 for the three of us.
Hospedaje is the real word for backpacker´s hostel. La Casa Suiza in Huanchaco was a great hospedaje we ended up at next. They had a rooftop barbeque deck, TV room, free internet and friendly surfer staff for $5/night per person.
Another great one in Lima is Casa del Mochilero, where I am now. It´s basically a homestay, also for $5 per night.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Cured!
Wow, never had such a dramatic turnaround from one pill, best dollar I ever spent. The civil war dysentary simulator is over! Cipro-C is the magical medication, or Ciprofloxacino.
Ran out of time for Huaraz, going to Lima and my buddies are heading home, then on to Cusco.
Ran out of time for Huaraz, going to Lima and my buddies are heading home, then on to Cusco.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Sick as a Dog
We´re in Huanchaco now, a surfing and fishing town next to Trujillo. After one day of surfing and happiness and meeting really fit expat girls on the beach the crew is in a rough state today. We´re all feeling sick, and despite this, Justin partied all night with locals until 7am. He is Sid Vicious reincarnate!
48 hours ago I did laundry, and in the last 30 nearly bedridden hours I shat my way through all my bottom halves. I´m now in boardshorts waiting for laundry round two, but that´s socially acceptable here, the boardshorts anyways.
I´m ready to organ donate my bladder cause this is bullshit, it´s become useless. The first night I drank 2.5 liters of water spread out after bathroom breaks and still felt dehydrated. It´s been better since then.
Good news though, the drug store here is a dream compared to the United States, especially if the medicine works. All I did was walk across the street, say hello and ask for a lil medicamento for la diarrea. No prescription, no referral, no Aetna POS II network, no line, no waiting, no high cost, no FSA Debit card, no pre-existing conditions--it was a dollar a dose, or three Peruvian bus rides. In and out in 2 minutes. The oxycontin was a little more expensive. Just kidding.
A dollar a dose also came with some advice,
-No fruit!!
-Rice!
-No pizza
-???? didn´t understand
-???? soup, blah blah blah
-Drink gatorade, even though nobody sells it
Next stop is Huaraz, 3000+ meters elevation, hope I can heal up before then. I got some good stories about scams, prostitutes, and whore houses that we stumbled upon in our last hours in Lima, but I´m waiting for a better state of mind to write about it. A teaser: I´m so glad to be bedridden here instead of the place with matresses wrapped in plastic.
48 hours ago I did laundry, and in the last 30 nearly bedridden hours I shat my way through all my bottom halves. I´m now in boardshorts waiting for laundry round two, but that´s socially acceptable here, the boardshorts anyways.
I´m ready to organ donate my bladder cause this is bullshit, it´s become useless. The first night I drank 2.5 liters of water spread out after bathroom breaks and still felt dehydrated. It´s been better since then.
Good news though, the drug store here is a dream compared to the United States, especially if the medicine works. All I did was walk across the street, say hello and ask for a lil medicamento for la diarrea. No prescription, no referral, no Aetna POS II network, no line, no waiting, no high cost, no FSA Debit card, no pre-existing conditions--it was a dollar a dose, or three Peruvian bus rides. In and out in 2 minutes. The oxycontin was a little more expensive. Just kidding.
A dollar a dose also came with some advice,
-No fruit!!
-Rice!
-No pizza
-???? didn´t understand
-???? soup, blah blah blah
-Drink gatorade, even though nobody sells it
Next stop is Huaraz, 3000+ meters elevation, hope I can heal up before then. I got some good stories about scams, prostitutes, and whore houses that we stumbled upon in our last hours in Lima, but I´m waiting for a better state of mind to write about it. A teaser: I´m so glad to be bedridden here instead of the place with matresses wrapped in plastic.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Bar Brawls
As I said, we got locked out of the hostel the first night upon returing from a club at 3am, so we wandered around central Lima for a few hours, climbing buildings and avoiding shadowy groups of people down unlit streets.
Eventually we found this door, two blocks from our hostel with stairs to a third floor, and music going on. It was completely empty and they were buffing the floor, but still were happy to serve us, and we chatted up the bartender, Christina for a while. The cook was about to leave, but made us the best calamari I´ve ever had.
Eventually this guy comes over with no knowledge of English and starts telling us all sorts of complicated things about Lucha Libre wrestling, he´s wasted and a wrestler himself. In Peru, beer comes in 32oz bottles and you all share it, so he bought one to share with us as he´s stumbling around.
While we´re on our last cup, he tries to pay and they catch him trying to pass a falso 100 soles bill ($30). Serious cash for Peruvians, we can´t even get change for them 5 out of 6 times. I pulled out one of mine to compare and it looks and feels identical, but then Christina licked a certain spot on mine and a small black line showed up, but not on his. He has no means to pay for tab, probably around $10, so they´re arguing, and I tried to learn as much angry spanish as I could. Eventually they tell me to go away, so I found this ladder to the roof, at dawn which I thought was pretty cool.
I come back down, and get scolded for going on the roof by some woman, now 4:30am who comes out of a hidden door. When I returned to the table, our buddy is now in a headlock on the floor by Christina´s husband. I stare dumbfounded for a while, almost having poor enough taste to take a photo, and Christina starts punching the guy in the face. Then people start coming out of everywhere, there´s a shirtless heavier guy, the lady and a few others. They eventually released him and his bloody nose. Christina stands there saying, ¨Tu malo person¨ about 40 times.
We decide its time to go, so we pay, probably too much but not far too much, and leave. After that, Christina runs after me with my sweatshirt I forgot at the bar, crying. Down the street there´s a crowd of tourists, and I said, ¨Hey, you guys want to go to a cool bar?¨
Internet is over, till next time.
Eventually we found this door, two blocks from our hostel with stairs to a third floor, and music going on. It was completely empty and they were buffing the floor, but still were happy to serve us, and we chatted up the bartender, Christina for a while. The cook was about to leave, but made us the best calamari I´ve ever had.
Eventually this guy comes over with no knowledge of English and starts telling us all sorts of complicated things about Lucha Libre wrestling, he´s wasted and a wrestler himself. In Peru, beer comes in 32oz bottles and you all share it, so he bought one to share with us as he´s stumbling around.
While we´re on our last cup, he tries to pay and they catch him trying to pass a falso 100 soles bill ($30). Serious cash for Peruvians, we can´t even get change for them 5 out of 6 times. I pulled out one of mine to compare and it looks and feels identical, but then Christina licked a certain spot on mine and a small black line showed up, but not on his. He has no means to pay for tab, probably around $10, so they´re arguing, and I tried to learn as much angry spanish as I could. Eventually they tell me to go away, so I found this ladder to the roof, at dawn which I thought was pretty cool.
I come back down, and get scolded for going on the roof by some woman, now 4:30am who comes out of a hidden door. When I returned to the table, our buddy is now in a headlock on the floor by Christina´s husband. I stare dumbfounded for a while, almost having poor enough taste to take a photo, and Christina starts punching the guy in the face. Then people start coming out of everywhere, there´s a shirtless heavier guy, the lady and a few others. They eventually released him and his bloody nose. Christina stands there saying, ¨Tu malo person¨ about 40 times.
We decide its time to go, so we pay, probably too much but not far too much, and leave. After that, Christina runs after me with my sweatshirt I forgot at the bar, crying. Down the street there´s a crowd of tourists, and I said, ¨Hey, you guys want to go to a cool bar?¨
Internet is over, till next time.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
So far so good
I´m in Peru, took the redeye from Miami and got in at 5am. I was impressed by the modern looking airport, just like any airport you´d see in America.
During the landing I could see basically shipping containers arranged in a neighborhood fashion, I thought for sure they were mostly unused or just on the outskirts, but after getting in our cab we started rolling heading for the hostel and it stretched on for miles and miles of squalor. I thought the whole city was going to be like that, but we took some turns and suddenly everything was clean and historic.
I´ve gotten so much mileage out of my 90 word Spanish vocabulary so far, it´s been great. Some people are more accessible than others with broken Spanish, but pretty much everyone doesn´t know English or sucks at it. I´d say only two conversations have ended in utter confusion, and I´m chatting up everyone.
Yesterday we did tons of things you can´t do in America,
-Purchased contacts without a perscription
-Asked directions from a guard with an AK-47
-Ate a three person meal with 200 ounces of beer for $10
-Partied until 7am (locked out of the hostel)
-Catacomb tour with a pit of just skulls 10m deep
The street markets are INSANE and stretch on for miles. There´s a massive parking garage thing full of people cutting up chickens, fish, and pigs and at some places selling meals of it fresh. The whole place smells like rotten fish, just like what you can order, called ceviche. The whole city smelled like piss when I got here, but I got used to it.
Getting kicked off the internet, stay tuned for a bar brawl story next time ´round!
During the landing I could see basically shipping containers arranged in a neighborhood fashion, I thought for sure they were mostly unused or just on the outskirts, but after getting in our cab we started rolling heading for the hostel and it stretched on for miles and miles of squalor. I thought the whole city was going to be like that, but we took some turns and suddenly everything was clean and historic.
I´ve gotten so much mileage out of my 90 word Spanish vocabulary so far, it´s been great. Some people are more accessible than others with broken Spanish, but pretty much everyone doesn´t know English or sucks at it. I´d say only two conversations have ended in utter confusion, and I´m chatting up everyone.
Yesterday we did tons of things you can´t do in America,
-Purchased contacts without a perscription
-Asked directions from a guard with an AK-47
-Ate a three person meal with 200 ounces of beer for $10
-Partied until 7am (locked out of the hostel)
-Catacomb tour with a pit of just skulls 10m deep
The street markets are INSANE and stretch on for miles. There´s a massive parking garage thing full of people cutting up chickens, fish, and pigs and at some places selling meals of it fresh. The whole place smells like rotten fish, just like what you can order, called ceviche. The whole city smelled like piss when I got here, but I got used to it.
Getting kicked off the internet, stay tuned for a bar brawl story next time ´round!
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Peru Cycling
Just realized I saw a video once of Peru cycling, hope it's just like this. Check out the trail at 2:00!
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