Hi everyone, I´m still in Peru.  I´ve pushed my return by 2 weeks because I met a guide I really liked in the mountains near Huancayo and wanted to spend some more time hiking there.  Now, I am writing form Iquitos, which is in the jungle and a totally different world.

I haven´t posted pictures to Picasa as I no longer have my little netbook, but I hope this little narrative will nonetheless offer some imagery.  This was the first time for me to go wild camping and self-supporting for 5 days, so naturally I was a little nervous, but my guide, and soon to be friend, Ruben, had 8 years of experience behind him, so I thought we´d be alright.  Ruben was also new to this trail and termed it as ¨exploration¨ which naturally added appeal to me.  We shopped and planned and packed.  Ruben carried the tent, I carried most of the food and we ended with about 35 kg each which would diminish as we ate the food.  Mani, Ruben´s dog, were to accompany us and also carry his fair share, 3 kg or so of dog food, in his little back pack.

Carrying 35kg was alright.  Carrying them up a 4800 meter (15,700 feet) was not.  I had to command my strength in ways I rarely recall doing to climb up to the pass, with every breath feeling nearly empty.  We camped that night just past the pass.  I was sick from the altitude and went to bed without dinner as the only thing I could stomach was a cup of tea.  Ruben had to eat all of the huge amount of pasta he had prepared for us.  The night did not improve things as my nasal pasageways closed down from the cold dry air.  Luckily, I had packed some Paracetamol which I subsequently had to use every night.  I spent half the night up cursing "what the f am i doing here?¨ and was close to telling Ruben that I was giving up and wanted to go back.

The next day brought more strength and cheer as the sun came up, the iced up creeks started to melt and flow again, and I once again understood why the Inca worshipped the sun.  The day was a lot more pleasant (and mostly downhill) as we walked past the beautiful Suerococha lake, about 2.5 km long, with wild birds nesting in its estuary.  Ruben pointed out some rocks which were lined up in straight line and unlikely to have beenthere  naturally and speculated we were on a old road.  A little bit further his theory was confirmed as we found ourselves on a beautiful Inca road going down the side of the lake.  Having spent quite some time reading and geeking out about the roads, I was so thrilled to walk on one and that was completely remote, untravelled and hardly known.

The third day we got lost.  Utterly lost.  Completely Lost.  "Let´s veer off towards Tanta (a village somewhere nearby)¨ came out of Ruben and collided with a firm ¨Let´s retrace our steps¨ from me.  The earlier part of the day involved a vain search for the lake Ticllacocha, which Ruben kept saying ¨It´s around the the next valley, I´m sure.¨ and after ascending many valleys and passes, we saw nothing but waterless, unhospitable, rocky land.  I was reminded of wild west movies where unsuspecting settlers get lost and die in the arid and harsh wilds of the western United States.  We spotted a patch of green with a little bit of water and decided to camp there.  Ruben did some more exploration without the burden of a back pack with no sign of lake (nor village for that matter) and agreed: ¨Let´s retrace our steps.¨  I was rather upset with Ruben.  His confidence prior to the trip led me to believe it was going to be pretty straight forward, whereas it turned out to be a shot in the dark, but I was mostly concerned about our safe return.  We had spent about half an hour in silence and I decided to break it off by explaining how I felt.  Ruben was apologetic and humble and we both agreed that our priority was to make it back safely, given that we only had 2 days of food, and were 3 days away from our starting point.  Talking was good, as by the end of the evening, humor had returned and the dog Mani made things easier through his playfulness and unconditional love.

The next morning we woke up bright and early and ready to brace the challenge of retracing our steps, which was not totally straightforward as the previous day, we were so preoccupied with finding the mysterious lake, that we hardly ever looked back to see where we were coming from, and there were no trails for the most part as large parts were sheer hard rock.  That´s when Mani amazed us by leading us back almost exactly the same way as we came.  We got the confirmation by occasionally seeing our opposite direction footsteps on a patch of soil.

By midday, we had found our way back to familiar ground and we were now relaxed and enjoying all the beautiful scenery which someone I had missed the first time around.  Garden like is what I would describe a lot of the landscape.  I swam in the glacial waters of the Huascacocha lake on the way back and camped on its estuary, with wild birds as neighbors. The next day, we reascended the dreary pass and it equally challenged me, though this time I did not get altitude sickness.  Before nightfall, we were safely back in the village of Miraflores.

Now I am in Iquitos in the Amazon Jungle, where it is I am surprised to report, more pleasant and less hot and humid than New York City right now.  More on Iquitos next... stay tuned.

:-)

Tarik

Glorious Machu Pichu

I earned my visit to Machu Pichu.  All in all 107 km (66 miles)  on foot over 8 days with high altitude mountain passes.  At first, I was worried that I would not be able to handle it, and felt reassured that our expedition was equipped with two mules to help those too sick or tired to walk.  It turned out that not only I had no altitude sickness, but that I led the expedition to the highest passes such as Yanama at 4,500 meters (a little less than 15,000 feet) and overall was complemented by my fellow trekkers about my "excellent shape."  It's nice to discover new aptitudes in one's 30's though I think that my swimming experience must have helped with breathing in low oxygen air.

The hike itself wad incredibly beautiful, much better than the Colca which I had done the week before, and had I known, I would have skipped Colca and spent more time in the Sacred Valley instead.  We kept alternating between 3 climate zones sometimes in the same day: humid hot and insect ridden river valleys, cool dense lush cloud forest, and cold dry high land where only grass and shrubs grow.

There were ruins of two main Inka cities on the hike: Choquequirau and Machu Pichu.  Choquequirau is the largest of the two but has only been excavated about 20% and so one can only see a couple of the structures and the main plaza along with a number of agricutural terraces.  Since the only way to reach Choquequirau is by 2 day hike on mule trail, we pretty much has the place to ourselves which felt like a priviledge.  We encountered Peruvian workers doing restoration work very slowly (For wooden wedges, there was a dude sitting with a tree branch and chopping little bits by hand).  We were told the excavation was going to take about 50 years and at the rate I witnessed, it was totally believable.

Machu Pichu on the other hand was magestic and awe inspiring.  It totally lives up to the expectation.  I admired the beauty of the stonework, the ingenuity of the aquaducts and the Inka roads (I don't like ot call them trails because even though they are narrow, they are fully paved and better engineered than current Peruvian roads), and losing myself in the miriad of streets.  I pretended that I was a guest in the still vibrant city and tried to imagine how its people lived.  I thought that there would be so many tourists that the site would be hard to enjoy, but that was not the case.  The site is large enough that people disperse and you can still have quite an intimate experience with it especially if you veer off the main attractions and go down the residential streets.

More photos on Picasa

http://picasaweb.google.com/chertar/MachuPichu#

Back in Cusco I found that I kept getting angry at how the Spanish Conquistadores destroyed much of the city's Inka temples and palaces to replace them with exceedingly inferior colonial houses which keep falling down after each earthquake while Inka walls widthstand without a trace of damage.  I could not get myself to walk into any of the churches built from rocks harvested from Inka sites.  For all I know, the Inka's could have been equally brutal to their contemporaries, but still I could not shake out the anger.  One of the guys I trekked with adequately said that the conquest was like the Spanish going back in the time and destroying the Roman Empire.

Enough ranting.  I am now leaving the sacred valley for the very remote high plateaus of the Central Andes through the town of Ayacucho.  The guidebook describes this road as only for "the most hard core and time rich back packers" which I suspect is an exageration.  There are no comfy tourist busses, so it will be bumpy local busses on unpaved roads but I think the experience will be worth it.  I am not sure how to connect the dots to my next and last destination: the northern Amazon, but I shall inquire locally once I get closer.  Tomorrow, I am shipping about half of the contents of my back pack (including this computer) back to the States in order to have an unincumbered last few weeks which will require casi-constant moving.  So this may be the last posting of pictures until I get back to the States in a few weeks already!

:-)

Tarik

Couscous in Cusco

Hi I just wanted to write a quick note and say that I made it back to Cusco safely after the 9 day trek to Machu Pichu and the other less famous but still impressive ruins of Choquequirao.  It was a long trek and I can say I got really good at climbing stairs.  My pants are starting to fall as I have gotten fitter which is a super add on bonus to the amazing views and experience.

I trekked with a good group of 10 people and tomorrow, we are having a go away dinner for which I will cook some Moroccan Couscous in the city of Cusco :-)

Photos coming soon

xoxo Tarik

Kayaking Titicaca

I kayaked Titicaca ! :-)  At 4000 meters (12,000 feet) the lake is basically up there in the clouds.  I remembered once I went sky diving from an altitude of 10,000 feet and the ground looked so far below. Now, I was in a boat 2000 feet above that.

At that altitude, I expected it to be a breathless exercise, but it was actually pretty easy.  The lake was calm and the day sunny.  There were a couple of nearby islands, and far in the distance, 6000 meter snow capped peaks marking the border between Bolivia and Peru.

I also went on an organized tour to visit the floating islands of Lake Titicaca.  The history and engineering of the islands is pretty amazing.  They are peopled by a folk named the Uros, and they used to live on land, but got pushed off into the lake by other invading tribes.  They first lived on their large reed boats, but they started creating islands entirely out of reeds.  The islands float about one meter above lake level and go down one to two meters while the lake bed lies at 15 meters.  It's pretty incredible walking on them as they need to be constantly refreshed from the top with  (every two weeks) as the bottom rots out, otherwise, the whole island would irreversibly sink.  There were initially a couple of these islands, but as families grew, the islands subdivided, much like cells in the human body, and there is currently 50 of them.  The people living on them now are probably the last generation and in the future, the islands are likely to be maintained only for tourism.

I also visited the nearby island of Imantani and Taquile.  Imantani was an interesting place.  We stayed with a local family.  Taquile on the other hand was a tourist trap and I was glad to leave it.

While the organized tour I was on headed back to the town of Puno, I hopped on a fishing sail boat for a 1:30 ride to the village of Llachon where I got to kayak.  In Llachon, I was lucky to stay with a very nice family.  They were wonderfully warm and friendly and as I got to know them felt more comfortable taking pictures of the family.

See my Picasa for more pictures.

After lake Titicaca, I took a 6 hour bus ride to Cusco to visit the Inca ruins.  Cusco itself is an incredibly charming city, but it is almost ruined by the street hussling (I was offered a massage at least 20 times today) and the number of tourists dressed in weird ethnic ways they'd never dare to at home, and talking to shop staff in English assuming everyone ought to understand them.

Luckily, I am leaving Cusco tomorrow and going on extended 9 day hike through Andean wilderness, passing some massiving Inca ruins such as Choquequirao and ending in Machu Pichu.  More when I get back in 9-10 days.

Tarik

Hiking the Colca Canyon

I flew into Peru through Lima to the Southern City of Arequipa.  Don't ask me why I chose it,  it was just cheaper than flying to Cusco.  But what a nice surprise when I got there.  At over 2000 meters of altitude, it was a good place to spend a few easy days to let my body adjust to high altitude and the lack of oxygen that goes with it.  The entire city center is build from white volcanic rock which gives the city a very clean look.  There was an incredible monestary from the 1500's to visit, as it is a town within a town and was home to some 500 nuns.   Surrounding the city are the Misti volcano and other snow capped peaks over 6000 meters high.  While I was admiring these things, I took comfort in knowing that my body was busy multiplying its red cells so that I can absorb more oxygen during my hike in the Colca Canyon which is also nearby.

In Arequipa, one is bombarded with offers to trek the canyon from countless travel agencies that line the streets near the main square.  After studying the options, I chose to go it solo by taking public transport partly because I was told that there were animals on the bus and I didn't want to miss out on that.  Well, there were no animals but the bus ride was nonetheless very interesting.  Before the bus arrived, there was a semblance of a line, but as soon as the bus appeared, all hell broke loose and it was each on his own to fight for getting on the bus.  I'll just say that being a woman and carrying a baby on your back did not warrant any special treatment.  I managed to get on without having my conscience hurt too much and off we went for a rocky 3 hour ride to the canyon ridge village of Cabanaconde where the road ends and the mule paths start.

Photos from Arequipa and the Colca Canyon

In Cabanaconde, I heard Quechua spoken for the first time.  It is the language of the Inca's and it is still the firs language of many.  I befriended a shop keeper who taught me some: imay-naya-kaSHANki means "How are you?."  I wanted to learn more but once the shopkeeper learned that I was unmarried and traveling alone, she would not teach me anything else until I learned to say "I want a woman" in Quechua on which my brain froze and with it ended my lesson.

Hiking on the mule paths, there are no distances indicated (nor are there any signs for that matter) so I do not know how much I hiked other than it was 6 hours the first day, 5 the second and 3 the last.  The hike was mostly vertical, up and down the canyon, often to the side of a cliff where one can easily die should one deliberately step into the void.  The reward was incredible views of the deep river, sheer cliff, snow capped mountains, and terraced village hanging somewhere in between.  The mule paths are their only connection to the outside world.  (Actually, they have cell phone reception, though no electricity, so re-charging the phones is a big headacke for them)  There were hostals in the villages with a basic but clean and warm bed, and food, often spaguetti bolognese.  Don't ask me why.

Next I am off to Puno to kayak on lake Titicaca and visit floating island villages made entirely out of reeds.  At over 3000 meters (9000 feet) of altitude,  my kayak might as well come with wings.

The good news about being in Peru is that I CAN COMMUNICATE!  Finally!  It was not me, it was the freaking dialects of the Argentinians and even more the Chileans that was throwing me off.  I can communicate without any problem now with Peruvians who actually speak proper Spanish.  What a relief.

Rio de Janeiro

Rio was a vacation in the proper sense of the term: beach, sun, good food and  friendly people.  I think it really deserves its reputation as one of the  most beautiful cities in the world

I stayed in a very fancy part of town: the Ipanema beach, and were it not for  the favela (shanty town) hunging a nearby cliff, you would think you are in a  first world country.  As a matter of fact, the prices are close to those in  New York, but the minimun wage here is $250 per month, so it gives a sense of  the chasm between the haves and have nots.  Still, the middle class is huge  and most central neighborhoods in Rio are very nice.

The beach is a culture of its own.  Hands down the nicest looking bodies  ever.  Having a beach where you can flaunt your stuff 365 days a year  certainly offers a big incentive.  At first, I thought that all Cariocas (as  the residents of Rio call themselves) had perfect bodies, then I went  downtown (far from the beach) and there people were reassuringly out of  shape.

Rio pictures in picasa

At my hostal I met a travel writer from Vancouver writing about swim suits in  Rio and I tagged along since I needed a swimsuit and it sounded like an  interesting experience.  At one of the shops, he asked one of the saleswomen  which bikinis she wears from the shop.  She rolled here eyes and said that  everything in the shop was way too big.  She said she likes the very tiny  ones that are smaller than a cleenex.  The local joke is to call them "dental  floss"

Sugar loaf mountain was a nice climb (in the teleferic) those when I got to the top, I  noticed that two guys had climbed it the old fashioned way: ropes!  The view  of Rio from up top was quite amazing.

Iguazu Falls

I went to check out the Iguazu falls since everybody I know who's gone there said they were amazing.  I dodged the 24 bus trip from Buenos Aires and flew instead.  1.5 hours later, I happily landed in Iguazu and once more marvelled at the wonder that is modern flight.

Amazing the falls were indeed though I apparently was there during unusually low water, but they could have said nothing and I would not have known the difference as they were really spectacular.  I spent about 3 days there admiring them from the different view points in Argentina and Brazil.

I crossed over to Brazil by public bus and yippie hurray the first country for which I did not have to  pre-arrange a visa for while I was in New York.  It was odd because it's the opposite for those traveling on an American passport.  I had a similar experience in Chile where Americans had to pay an "entry fee" of a hundred some dollars but I snuck in cheaply with my Moroccan passport which no one had heard of and kept opening the wrong way.

Iguazu Pictures in Picasa

While in Argentina, I was cautioned against taking buses in Brazil because they apparently don't have good buses and "the roads there are not as good as in Argentina".  It turns out that not only the roads are perfect in Brazil, but the buses are better than the ones I took in Argentina!  Hence the Argentine's reputation for being snobs to their neighbors.

The 24 hour bus trip from Iguazu to Rio was non-descript but not speaking a word of Portuguese was again a humbling experience.  I was trying to order lunch at a road stop and asked for "Salada" on the menu thinking I would get a nice healthy salad, but I was instead handed a ham and cheese sandwitch.  When I protested, the cook nodded saying what I had in my hands was indeed "Salada."  Go figure...