We came, we walked, we conquered!

Machu Picchu
Originally uploaded by camandkristin.

We have finally completed one of the most anticipated stops of our trip- hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. 45kms over 4 days, 4 mountain passes (the highest being 4200m), a LOT of rain and fog, all capped off with some spectacular and unforgettable views.

Getting there wasn´t easy, starting with the bus ride from Arequipa. The trip should have been 10 hours, but ours took 21 after the bus broke down and we were left stranded on the side of the road overnight for 8 hours, nearly freezing to death. But we made it to Cusco with 3 days left to acclimatize to the altitude, and 3 days for Cam to be nice and sick. With almost nothing staying in his stomach for more than a few hours, and with our departure for the trail getting closer, we started to get pretty nervous about his ability to hike the distance at all, let alone carrying his heavy pack. But, in the nick of time (and with the help of some trusty antibiotics) he seemed to improve, and we set off at 5:15am on Nov 18 along with 12 other trekkers, 2 guides, and 20 porters.

The first day of the trail was pretty simple, 12km of relatively easy terrain. We stopped for lunch and realized that our money was being well spent! The food was gourmet and abundant, and the porters worked so hard to make us comfortable. The porters ranged in age from 18 to 41, and carry 25kg each. Regulations changed 5 years ago to limit the weight- they used to carry 50kg or more, but they are still amazing and it is humbling to have a 41 year old literally run by you wearing flipflops and with a 20kg bottle of propane strapped to his back.

The second day was the toughest day on the trail- 9km straight uphill to Dead Woman´s Pass, followed by 3km straight downhill to the second camp. We woke at 5am to pouring rain, and after breakfast of pancakes, porridge, and fruit salad we set off hiking at 6:30. We arrived at our camp at 1pm where we were fed even more.

The third day started out without rain, but the respite was only fleeting. We spent most of the walk (15km) in the pouring rain which gets to be a little disheartening. Without being able to see the spectacular views, Cam distracted himself by photographing any and every flower we passed. This secured our position well at the back of the line, but we have some great shots to show for it! Take time to smell the flowers, right?!

The last day was the earliest- we awoke at 4am to try and beat the rush to the Sun Gate- the first real view of Machu Picchu. It was only a 6km walk, but the weather continued to be crap and we all were convinced that the postcards in Cusco would be the closest we´d get to seeing the site. But we much have pleased Pachamama (Mother Earth) because as we descended from the Sun Gate the fog lifted and all our hard work was rewarded. Seeing it in pictures just isn´t the same as being there in person- it was truly spectacular. The archeological site itself is one thing, but being nestled into the towering peaks of granite, which drop off in shear cliffs, makes it unforgettable. Even the lingering fog added to its beauty.

We spent a few hours touring the site, and then six of us tackled Wayna Picchu with it´s almost vertical stretches of stairs and rope handrails. The view from the top was well worth the climb, which we did at midday under the blazing sun (not that we would even consider complaining about the sun after the previous days...).

We finally had to leave the site and return to Cusco by train, where we are now. Today is our recovery day, but we are both impressed as we have no muscle pains at all- the trek to Cañon del Colca prepared us well. Tomorrow we head to Puno to visit the Floating Islands of Lake Titicaca, and then it´s off to Bolivia. We have decided to change our routing slightly and from Bolivia will head south down Argentina instead of through Chile. Not only are the busses better, but there are large steaks waiting for us...

Love to all,
Kristin and Cam.

Let´s meditate a while...

Things have been busy since we left Lima, and we´ve put a lot of miles behind us.

On our last day in Lima we headed down to Central Lima to take in the sights- we decided to take our camera and bag with us despite the previous days incident, as we didn´t want to be defeated! Central Lima has some amazing buildings, but they lose their novelty a bit since they have all been restored multiple times after multiple earthquakes, so nothing is really that historic. These people are persistant though- they get hit by major earthquakes every 30 years at least. One cool building we saw was the cathedral which had catacombs underground. Not as impressive as those in France, but still pretty spooky to see patterns made of bones and skulls...

The next day we headed south to a small oasis town called Huacachina, where we did some sandboarding. Huacachina is nestled amongst miles and miles of towering sand dunes. We have never seen so much sand- these dunes put those in Oregon to shame. We took dune buggies out into their vast expanse, and you could see nothing in any direction except more and more dunes. Sandboarding down them is quite an experience, and potentially quite dangerous. Down here you don´t have to sign waivers for ANYthing. We ended up with a small beach worth of sand in every crack you can imagine (don´t imagine...) but no serious injuries. From there we headed further south to Nazca where we flew in a Cessna 172 over the Nazca lines (google them, if interested). The flight was expensive, and pretty uneventful, but it was cool to see the lines from the air. Kristin was disappointed that there was only one set of controls in the plane, and spent most of the flight watching the instruments to make sure our pilot knew what he was doing. Nazca doesn´t offer much else to do, so we took off in a night bus for Arequipa, where we are now.

Arequipa is Peru´s 2nd largest city, and is very beautiful. One of the cleanest cities we´ve seen so far. We spent the first day touring the Santa Catalina Monastery, which was founded 400 years ago and still houses 30 nuns who live a completely cloistered life. The Monastery is beautiful, and a mecca for photography, but the highlight was our eccentric guide who kept saying things like ¨Come to my reality...¨and ¨Let´s meditate a while...¨. The insides of our lips were bleeding by the time we were done since we had to bite down to stop from laughing.

That same day we booked a 3 day trekking tour into Cañon del Colca for the next morning. The advantage of travelling during off season is you can book things extremely last minute. The tour was awesome, but hard work. The first day included a 5 hour bus ride and then 5 hours of trekking- 3 hours straight down hill, and then 2 hours up. The canyon is considered the deepest in the world, and we went to the bottom of it, and then back up... That night was spent at a tiny village deep in the mountains- we slept in a mud brick room, with a dirt floor and no hope of electricity. The next day we walked 2 more hours down hill (this is much harder than it sounds...) and made it to an amazing Oasis with bamboo huts and swimming pools fed by natural waterfalls. We relaxed there for a few hours and then went up... and up... and up... We climbed 1250 vertical meters, by walking 8kms on a switch back trail. It took us 3 hours and 2 minutes, but a young Swedish couple with us made it in 90 minutes (or so they say... our guide is skeptical)! We had the option to ride a mule, but since we are doing the Inca trail in a week we figured this would be good training, especially since we were carrying backpacks (lighter than normal, but still there). Anyway, we survived, and the views and scenery were well worth the work. We are back in Arequipa now and are finally doing nothing, for at least a day! Tomorrow night we take a bus to Cusco where we´ll be until we finish the Inca trail on the 22nd.

All is well, 43 days in.

Cam and Kristin.

Our first incident

We've been travelling for 1 month and 2 days, and we've heard a ton of bad stories from a bunch of different people, but so far we have been pretty lucky. Until yesterday. Yesterday we had our first "incident", but we've come out the other side basically unscathed. Just one more notch in the belt of travelling stories.

We arrived in Lima on Nov 1 after travelling for 26 hours on a bus from Ecuador. We are becoming experts at understanding Spanish-dubbed movies. We checked into a hostel in Miraflores, which is the "posh" (and supposedly safter) section of Lima to meet our friends Jon and Hannah. Miraflores looks just like Vancouver- 4 blocks down the street from our hostel is an area that looks just like Metropolis. There is everything you could ever want, plus a lot of stuff you would never want. It's a nice change from where we've been, although we don't desire to stay too long.

Anyway, yesterday we 4 decided to head to Pachacamac, which are some Inca ruins about 20km south of Miraflores. The hostel owner gave us directions on how to take the bus, so we grabbed our cameras and set out. We had to make a bus transfer at a bridge (outside of Miraflores) to get back on the PanAmerica highway. We walked up the stairs to the bridge, and were standing in the melee waiting for the proper bus to come along. All of a sudden I saw a guy grab my bag and start pulling. My bag is just a small "purse" that I wear across my body and all it had in it was a guide book, some pens, hand cleaner, and one wallet (which had about $50 in it, which is actually more than I normally carry). Anyway, the guy was jerking the bag down, I guess trying to break the straps. I started screaming bloody murder (I'm not sure how "fuck off" translates to Spanish, but I think he got the idea) and I tried to pull away. He kept jerking the bag over and over again, and was dragging me out into the street (the frickin' highway, keep in mind). There were two other guys there, who I thought were helping me, but I found out later they were helping HIM. I finally got my wits about me and took a swing at his head, but at that moment he gave up and ran away. I turned to see both Jon and Cam running over to help- the whole incident probably took 20secs. I hadn't realized it, but one of the guys had also tried to grab the camera from Cam. Cam was wearing the camera across his body as well and grabbed it closer to his body like a football and spun, but he fell to the ground. The guy then left Cam and came over to me- which was fortunate for us since our camera was worth much more than my bag. Anyway, we ended up coming away unscathed, except for some rope burn on my arm where my strap was rubbing, and a bit of emotional damage. We got back on the horse right away and carried on to Pachacamac. The worst part was we had to return to the same bridge on the way home, but I just held my bag even tighter and we were fine!

Hopefully that will be our one and only incident, but it doesn't give me too good of a feeling about Peru! We lasted in Ecuador for 31 days without a problem.

Anyway, today we are going to head down to Central Lima to see the sights. We'll take our camera, but I'll leave my bag at home! Tomorrow we are heading south to Ica where we can do some sandboarding. Coastal Peru has so much sand- it is essentially a desert. It makes for some beautiful landscapes, with the ocean on one side, and miles of dunes on the other. People build there homes right into the sand cliffs, which seems crazy given the seismic activity around here, but they don't have a lot of other choice, I guess.

All is well. We are one day older and wiser, but still happy and safe.

Hi to all-
Kristin and Cam.