Du-Enter

Beyond desire to leave the distinct odor of Lima, we headed to Cuzco (3,400 masl) near the Urubamba Valley.
Many believe the city was designed in the shape of a puma. Cuzco has this touristy feel to it where you can eat pizza and burger, however it’s still one of those cities where tradition wins before commercialism, so yes, nice place to visit.
During our stay there was a celebration going on, I am not quite sure what exactly was going on, but throughout the whole day kids were throwing water balloons at each other, obviously there wasn’t any exclusion for people such as us. Hah! Fun to see kids laughing when balloon reached its destination… Nice one thought!

Initially I didn’t want to go to Machu Picchu to avoid seeing buses full of tourist, but temptation to see it and feel it was far stronger than anything else. YEAH! Great place to visit! Aquas Calientes, the nearest village, will provide any kind of service to get you to reach Machu Picchu and to make sure, once you there; you spend your greens with them. We took a bus for $15 for a few minutes journey but at the end of the day it was worth it. The place itself is seriously magical and very special. 15^th century Inca site is located 2,430 meters (7,970ft) above sea level, situated on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba valley. The place is perfectly hidden and that’s why it took a while to find it and make it accessible to the public. I have had a chance to see the drawings once the place was discovered and it’s hard to believe that it actually was discovered.

There is limited number of people allowed to climb Huayna Picchu, I think it’s 250 visitors per day. It can be very disappointing if you don’t get your ticket based on first come first served basis. The place is about 360 meters (1,180 ft) higher than Machu Picchu and it’s quite a steep climb in a very humid conditions. It was a residence of the high priest and the local virgins and you can get great views from here down to Machu Picchu.

What I was really looking forward to on the journey was Lake Titicaca, 3,811 m (12,500 ft) above sea level, as I have had a chance to enjoy some time on the lake before from the Bolivian side. I couldn’t resist experiencing this feeling again. But I didn’t know that I am running straight into a disaster. We passed city called Juliaca just on the edge of the lake and Bolivian border, place full of smugglers trying to sell cheap Bolivian goods. In a bit we have arrived to Puno, capital of Puno region. The city is located on the shore of Lake Titicaca and has quite a nice vibe, lot of youngsters hanging around, traditional high street, lot of cafes and restaurants. Next day we headed to see the Uros Islands. Documentaries tell you how special this place is, but they somehow always forget to mention that the ´indigenas´ inhabitants don’t have to fish anymore, which as to my understanding is the main purpose for them being island people and being an independent culture. But tourism ruined everything. Islands are now loaded with souvenir shops and kids beg coins of weak grandmas. There is also couple of local Adobe styled houses to rent and sleep over for a night or two. F*** me running this is seriously disgusting!

To compare the situation with the Bolivian side, we have to consider major facts: Bolivian economy is far less developed and it´s criminality level is pretty much beyond control. However, I felt absolutely safe and welcomed in Bolivian Copacabana or Isla del Sol. No marketing involved what so ever! Respect to those who are trying to keep the highest lake in the world untouched.

 

Arequipa, our next stop, lies in the Andean mountains at an altitude of 2,335 meters (7,661ft) above sea level. On purpose, we booked ourselves into the hostel with a huge terrace on the top, as we couldn’t let go away any seconds of our lives without adoring the snow-capped volcano El Misti 5,822 masl (19,101 ft) and Nevado Chachani 6,075 masl (20,250 ft) the highest of the mountains near the city of Arequipa in southern Peru. Mornings were the best for visibility and we came to climb one of them! At least we wanted to attempt it. “Luckily” Jana’s wisdom tooth started to give her a seriously hard time, up to a point where chances that we attempt the climb started to disappear in the clouds. We have been forced to visit a doctor as the painkillers become irrelevant to her misery. This gave us a full four days to acclimate for the altitude, find a guide who would take us up, hire some gear and most importantly decide which of the two we will try to climb. We have managed to get in touch with one agency, while still in Europe, and get an idea about the rates. They were offering it for over $300 per head that seemed to us, being proper gringos, quite a high price, but thought there must be a reason behind it. Nevertheless, hostel owner Jose, recommended us another, very local, agency and he assured us that the agency we got in touch with is a bunch of banditos. This is where you need trustworthy locals to help you out. Agency Jose recommended could do it for $60 per head including equipment. Right, this is within the budget then and we signed up. We came to the conclusion that El Misti is not as challenging and rewarding as Nevado Chachani and decided to go for the higher one. We still had couple of days, as Jana still wasn’t fit enough to climb. And this is where we considered her tooth as luck, as we had plenty of time to make sure we are fully acclimated. I remember that the day before I couldn’t eat anymore, as my stomach got squashed to a size of a golf ball and diarrhea was another sign of a proper fear. For the last few days, Chachani managed to earn big respect just by looking at it every day and now it’s only so little missing to feel her from inside out.

Our guide Javier and the driver came to pick us up at some crazy morning hour with all the equipment we have tried on the day before. They told us that there is a couple of Argentineans who signed up for the climb last minute so we are going to pick them up. Right, so it’s five of us. In one-way it felt much safer, but doubts that those guys are going to be pro climbers were stronger. So stress levels rose a bit again. Especially for Jana being the only girl in the team. Guys seemed to be extremely fit, loaded with muscles like they left the gym a second ago. Phew my ego went straight to the coffin! On the way out of the town they mentioned that they just came back from Aconcagua in Argentina that didn’t add to the team spirit at all.

After couple of hours drive, our jeep started slipping off the road due to the ice and heavy snow. We could not go any further and had to get off there, pack up our stuff and head on to the base camp, which was somewhere between 5,300 meter above sea level. Packed with tents, all the gear, water and usual stuff, we started to climb. As from the very beginning I positioned myself at the end to make sure that none of us gets left behind. As we were progressing upwards, swearing became part of a must have, also breathing was becoming harder and harder, so regular breaks to oxygenate the brains become a must. After the first half, the Argentinean guys started to slowly fall behind. I tried to maintain my position being the last one, but at some point it become unbearable. Traversing from left to right I said to myself that it’s safe to leave them behind, as we will be able to see them even from a distance. Javier, our guide, passed the message that he is heading to the base camp to start building the camp and prepare some food, as it was getting quite late. We kept shifting slowly but progressively in the deep, new snow. One of our team members broke apart half way through the second half and he had to be carried to the base camp – first one gone with a strong altitude sickness. For the first time I’ve seen someone absolutely gutted. Unfortunately we haven’t had time to go back, the only solution was to keep warm, try to eat something and go to sleep. It was just after “sunset” that we managed to slip into the sleeping bags. I could hear him vomiting all over the place.

Right “let’s try to get some sleep! No, that’s impossible, I’ve got a massive headache, I can’t breath oh f*** I can’t breath. I have to wake up at 24.00 to have breakfast and start climbing half an hour later. I’ve gone nuts! We have gone nuts!” I’ve tried to focus on sleeping or some sort of sheep counting but as soon as I started, the lack of oxygen woke me up and I had to breath like I’ve just finished some sort of a marathon. Hah, but I didn’t make a move.

“What an effort it is going to be to move to one side? Let’s try.” That’s like to run upstairs…

I didn’t manage to sleep, but I did manage to relax at some point and rest the body. Jana did have some sleep, which was just great! Javier woke us up with some breakfast ready made and message that we are leaving in half an hour. It was super dark but we could see the starts, which was the positive part of the whole thing. Negative part was, that the Argentinean team was out with no attempt to climb any further and both with altitude sickness. Me, having head like a bomb that is going to explode any second, I could choose to stay with couple of super sick guys and wait for Jana and Javier until they come back from the Chachani summit or somehow persuade my body to head on with them. I took couple of Ibuprofens, got myself ready and joined the summit party. Once I made the decision I got suddenly much better and I realized that it was a mind game, which was trying to save me. Quite natural! We left those two in the base camp to rest, as it was pretty much safe to pick them up once we get back. We started to climb at around 1am. We started the ascent to the Angel Col then traversing El Angel Mountain itself. Then we needed to ascent the face of Fatima Mountain and then we could see Mount Chachani. It was only three of us so it was pretty much straightforward climb. Javier enjoyed digging into the European mentality in terms of climbing and such but I think we found it easy to swallowJ. He liked to talk about Polish climbers because they are apparently muy duros as he liked to say. So in a way he enjoyed European climbers but understandably he had to push his ego. Nice!

As we have been reaching the summit, Javier said that we have to hurry up as the weather is not going to last for much longer and we still need to get down safely and pick those two and help them down somehow. At the end we gave up probably 200 meters of the summit as we have been pushed by time. Well deserved breaky, while savoring and enjoying our conquer of Chachani.

Ride down was pretty much piece of cake, but second half weather turned really nasty up to the point that we could hardly see max one meter away from us. Phew… Javier was really rushing but snow was heavy and meter deep and we could hardly walk. At that point I couldn’t even imagine what we are going to do with those two. I was struggling with myself and I wasn’t even in the base camp.

 

Finally we made it but we were completely done for. I could hardly stand on my legs, but firstly I went to check up on those two guys, how they were doing. One of them, in front of the tent with vomit all over himself, the other one in the tent pretty unconscious and in very bad state. So with no time what so ever for break, we emptied our rucksacks, Javier made a sedan and we started to carry him down. We left everything in the base camp and tried as quickly as possible to take him to the lower altitude with hope he will get better. Snow was helping a lot so we could at least slide him, but still man with his proportions was a challenge. As the snow started to disappear we were forced to drag him over the rocks, as we were unable to carry him all the time. As we climbed down, we could finally get a reception to our satellite phone and Javier called jeep to come as high as possible to pick up us. At some point we made it down where the jeep was already waiting but the geeza wasn’t getting any better. So quickly load him in to the car and chop chop to the hospital. In the car we were able to progress down much faster so he became conscious and started to make more sounds, few vomit here and there and finally he even asked for water which was a great relief to all of us. In the hospital we still had to use a wheelchair, but he looked much better. Success and mission accomplished.

To put it all together, I can only recommend the climb to Nevado Chachani. It’s a taught climb with many ascents and descents, but with lots of incredible views from different angles, which can leave you seriously speechless for a while. This is an advantage compared to El Misti, which has got one steep climb with a massive number of large ‘stairs’ and that’s it. So if you are confident, choose Nevado Chachani.

As it was late afternoon we had to rush to the hostel to pack our stuff because we have had a bus already arranged for the next morning to take us to Nazca Lines. Javier managed, as he promised, to arrange someone to go to the base camp on the same day to pick up our stuff and bring it back to us just in time before we left next morning. Great chap! Guys came back to the hostel with our stuff in the early morning hours but it didn’t really matter. They brought all our stuff, including passports! We said bye to each other and we could now laugh what have happened up there, as by then it was a “healed” memory already.

You probably expect me to place a comment on the altitude sickness – that’s something you can avoid, but once you there and it’s happening it’s too late. You never know how your body is going to react or if it will let you down and there is no way you can blame someone. You just have to take it as it comes and help each other as much as you can. Keep it simple and learn from it. I am very happy that we managed to help the Argentinian guy and brought him back to safety. The golden rule would be to get enough acclimatization and take local sorojchi and coca leafs…

Our next destination – Nazca Desert. We booked ourselves on a double decker bus with front seats reserved. As it was quite a journey (around 11 hours) it was nice to enjoy and observe new landscapes. The bus was heading to Lima and as we were the only ones getting off in Nazca, the driver forgot to stop… Being European you would expect the place to be sign posted but not here. It was quite dark already so we went down to double-check the situation, as it seemed we have now bee traveling for too long. The bad news was that we passed Nazca long ago and even worst news was, that the driver was capable of leaving us on the road in the middle of nowhere and in the middle of night just like that! We have been forced to push him (and the whole bus) to stay with us until they arranged for another of their buses heading the opposite direction to pick us up and take us back to Nazca. A bit of an experience, but after some days spent in South America we sort of knew how it works, therefore wouldn’t let him go without taking us back or arranging an alternative transport. Luckily it didn’t take too long and in a while we were able to hop on a new bus and in an hour or two we have finally been sleeping in the hostel in Nazca.

Next day we went to the local airport to see the famous Nazca Lines. Again quite touristy place, but definitely a must see attraction. We paid for the plane to take us over the lines. Jana, being the smallest one of all, had to sit literally in the ‘tail’ of this petite plane, myself with another Brazilian girl in the middle and the pilot with somebody else in the front. With no health and safety instructions we took off straight to the desert. To my surprise, pilot was really enthusiastic about the geoglyphs and figures. The plane was flying through a lot of air bubbles so we have been jumping up and down. The girl next to me had an experience just from vomiting. I could hardly believe that she has seen at least one figure. The pilot was so into it that he quite often forgot to hold the “wheel” … it was like “derecha …. izquierda…. miren….” Hey man, hold the wheel instead please!”

It is very difficult to shoot a decent photo in such plane, as you can feel almost instantly, while you are focusing to make a shot, that your stomach disagrees with it. If you haven’t tired it yet, don’t forget to have an empty belly.

We had only a few days left to reach Lima but with pending Islas Ballestas and a full coastline journey, there was plenty to look forward to – especially great seafood! Our first priority was to rearrange accommodation in Lima. We had booked ourselves into the same hostel where we stayed upon arrival, but we didn’t enjoy the area at all. Kids breathing chemicals from the plastic bags is not what we came for.

As we have been progressing along the coastline we have seen almost every or, I should say, EVERY town or village completely destroyed by the earthquakes. Even though last earthquake hit the area quite a few years back the communities remain almost under the same conditions. One theory is that there is no reason to re-build it all over again because if it hits again they are back where they started. The other theory is that the government policy on how to help and bring affected areas back to normal specifies that to qualify for any support, the damage has to be of certain set extent, which of course is so high, that hardly anyone, who hasn’t had their house fallen apart completely, will qualify. Therefore, there is no financial cover what so ever. The guy who explained us about the system felt very intelligent and educated, judging from the way he was talking. Due to my lack of language, Jana had to translate me a lot of major facts in order for me to understand in the same time as he was talking. He always, very politely, stopped until Jana assured that I understood. No matter which of the two applies, it was very sad to see what we have seen. But people were very happy, smiling and enjoying their lives as normal.

Islas Ballestas, islands accessible from the town called Picso are just short half an hour boat ride away. I think photographs below are speaking for themselves and show how rich Peru is in terms of animal variety. There is couple of guards living on one of the Islands who constantly monitor the situation of the animal life-style as well as preventing, very popular, poaching. Bird droppings guano are another reason for the Islands to be so popular as these are used to prepare one of the best fertilizers in the world for it’s extremely high nitrogen levels.

Approaching Lima is not something we were hungry for after this amazing trip, but the plane is taking off from there so there is no other option. I can say that on the bus, movies with high level of violence are extremely popular and we are currently watching one with lots of shooting and such. The volume can’t get any higher then this and while stopping around Lima, I think those people on the bus stop must think we have gone mad. We have arrived at the station just before dark. The station is located in the very busy part of the city and we sort of couldn’t figure out how to get to the hostel quickly and, more importantly, safely. So we decided to grab a cab. While jumping in a lady stopped by and told the driver to take us exactly where we wanted to go, rather then taking us elsewhere to rob us or worth. Well this, not knowing Lima at all, made us go quiet for the whole of the journey to the hostel. The driver couldn’t look any dodgier, but we didn’t judge the book by it’s cover. He quietly took us exactly where we wanted to go and I think he got really offended by the lady at the station.

Lima is well known for some things, very unfortunately; therefore we decided to book ourselves to the more touristy area however, we still managed to keep our standard in the family type accommodation. This one was owned by a lovely gentleman with Alzheimer, so there was always some else to get the stuff sorted. Actual house was like a museum converted to a hostel with lot of cross walls added to convert the house to a hostel. Weird, but somehow nice, A bit like a labyrinth with weird hallways. We also met some nice people and as we had time to chill out and not to go anywhere we could really appreciate theirs’ company. We also went to Lima for a wander, but after Macchu Pichu or climbing the Peruvian peaks it’s really hard to appreciate or enjoy big city such as Lima. We did enjoy shopping in a supermarket where finally we had more options to choose from but that was it. We didn’t even want to go to the central Lima. Not because we didn’t like it, but we have been full of excitement and experiences already and we knew that Lima couldn’t give us any more. In the end, it’s just another big city. So we did the walk on the beach, some ice creams, chilling by the sea, but to tell you the truth we both have been looking forward to the plane, heading back to Madrid and then to London.

Mission accomplished and there wasn’t need to get any more than we already had. So we spent our last money on food of course J, but we still brought quite a lot of nuevos soles back to London. They haven’t been converted into pounds, so there is a chance we will come back…

Tags: Peru, Photography, Titicaca, travel