Meghan in Motion

Photos: The Ruins in Northern Peru

meghan — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 14:30:00 GMT

Kuelap, Huacas, and Chan Chan

Photos: Salasaka

meghan — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 14:19:00 GMT

Our volunteer home in Ecuador

Back in the States, Safe and Sound

meghan — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 01:40:00 GMT

Our flight landed in Minneapolis around 11PM Sunday night, returning us to a familiar, frozen land. I'll add another update about our last few days in Peru sometime this week, but wanted to let everyone know we've made it home safely. Happy Holidays!

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So here's that update I promised you:

On Thursday morning we bought tickets for a 9:30PM overnight bus to Lima and then spent the in-between time lying out on the beach. Our bus was very comfortable and we managed to get most of a night's sleep on the way to Lima. We arrived in Lima around 7AM on Friday, and headed straight to our usual hostel, the Red Psycho Llama. We slept some more that morning and walked down to the waterfront in the afternoon since we hadn't done that during either of our previous stays in Lima. There's a boardwalk on the bluffs above the beach, and we walked along that a bit. By the time we figured out how to get down to the beach I realized that I needed sunscreen or shade--neither of which were available where we were--so we headed back to the hostel.

On Saturday, our final day of our adventure, we made use of our sunscreen and visited the beach proper. In the afternoon we met up with one of my brother's friends who lives in Lima, which was a nice opportunity to talk about our trip and the region with someone who knew first hand what we were talking about. We headed to the airport early, around 8:30, for our 12:20AM flight. Our plane actually took off around 1AM and landed in Miami around 6AM. We had a 13hour layover in Miami and spent a fair bit of it sleeping and watching football.

We landed back in Minneapolis at 11PM Sunday night, layered up with all the clothing we could at baggage claim, took the lightrail to downtown, and caught a cab rather than waiting for our bus in the cold. (It's cold here!) We spent the night at Eric's old place with his former roommate. On Monday my mom fetched me back to Wisconsin, and Eric headed to his family's on Tuesday after watching the Vikings lose on Monday night with friends. (heh heh heh) We'll be with our families for the holidays and are moving to Texas before the end of the year. ...Because we haven't had enough time on the road lately.

Thanks, everyone, for joining us on this journey for the last two months. It's been a wonderful trip--we really wish we could have stayed longer, but we're happy to be back with family and friends for the holidays. Happy Holidays & New Year to all!

A Few Days in "Ruins": Visiting Kuelap and Chan Chan

meghan — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 23:13:00 GMT

We last left you in Lojas, or that's where you left us. From there we bused to Piura, Peru. As we arrived at midnight, we decided to stay the night. Our cab driver told us we could get a direct bus to our destination of Chachapoyas at noon the next day, ut that bus line had moved its terminal and once we found it we learned that they no longer offered that route. Instead, we found a bus to Chiclayo and picked up an overnight bus to Chachapoyas from there. (I'll state for the record that I just wrote a much more detailed account of this journey, but the laptop I'm using inexplicably turned off and I lost it all, and I don't think it's important enough to write again. Save your work regularly!)

Chachapoyas is a mountain town and the capitol of its region, though it very much has a small town vibe. Apparently not too many gringos go there because we got lots of open stares, especially from kids. One little boy froze in place and stared, slack-jawed, at Eric until his mom started laughing. It was pretty amusing. Nonetheless, I'm pretty surprised more travelers don't go there--it's a jumping off point for some great ruins, treks, and more. We were there to visit Kuelap, the oldest ruins in Peru, but for our first day in town we mostly relaxed--recovering from too many buses--and did a small walk up a hill to a viewpoint over the city.

We booked a tour company for our visit to Kuelap and went with a group of about 15 people, most of them Peruvians and Argentinians. Our tour was in Spanish, which was just fine. I got the broad strokes, and Eric was usually able to fill me in on what I didn't understand. Kuelap is about a 2.5 hr drive outside of Chachapoyas along really narrow, curvey mountain roads. Fortunately the weather was great because we had heard that if it's really rainy you sometimes can't get to the site by car. Of course, our guide also told us that only about 30 people visit the site each day (at least in the low season), even though this Kuelap's size and quality rival that of Macchu Piccu, which as hundreds of visitors each day.

Kuelap was contructed by the Chachapoyas, a pre-Incan civilization. The city sits atop of a mountain, overlooking valleys and other mountains in the Andean range. A huge base was contructed for the city and only two narrow passageways existed to enter the city. Good luck trying to attack this place. Kuelap is also intersting because it was actually a city. Macchu Piccu was really just a religious center that was still under construction when it was abandoned. Kuelap's ruins mostly consist of circular houses built one right next to the other. Jungle-y trees have grown in and around the ruins, so especially in the sections that haven't been too excavated, you sort of have the feeling of being in the Jungle Book or Indiana Jones or something. We took lots of pictures, which we will share as soon as we can.

The city of Kuelap itself is smaller than Macchu Piccu, but when the other ruins in the area are considered, many of which have not yet been excavated, Kuelap can be considered much larger than the Incan City. After at least seven campaigns, the Inca eventually defeated the Chachapoyas and brought them into the Inca Empire. Not long after, the Spanish arrived and conquored the Inca Empire. There are some rectangular buildings in Kuelap, which likely demonstrate the influence of the Incas, but possibly also of the Spainards. (Otherwise the Chachapoyas only used circular construction.)

I thought Kuelap was really impressive, and the fact that there's hardly anyone else there while your visiting is just amazing. There are several treks possible in the area, so if anyone is looking for an alternative to the Macchu Pichu hoopla, I suggest visiting Chachapoyas.

We left Chachapoyas on Monday and arrived in Trujillo at about 4AM Tuesday morning. We had called ahead to make reservations at a hostel in Huanchaco, a small costal resort town just outside of Trujillo... nonetheless, they didn't answer the door when we rang at 4:30 AM, so we tried another a few doors down and got in there. We hung out on the beach Tuesday afternoon and hung out with a few other guys at our hostel that evening (back at the one we originally made reservations with).

Today (Wednesday) we toured a number of archeological sites around the Trujillo area with an organized tour. We started with Las Huacas del Sol y de la Luna (the Temple of the Sun and Moon), just south of the city, which were built by the Moche Empire. Huaca del Sol is Peru's largest pre-Columbian structure, and it's scheduled to start full excavation in April. You can't currently go in it, but they believe that it was a political center for the city which is burried in sand between it and Huaca de la Luna, the religious temple, which we were able to tour.

Huaca de la Luna is its own sort of pyramid in that every 90 years a new temple was built overtop of the old one, the old one first being filled in with mud bricks. There are seven layers to the temple now, which makes for interesting excavation: you can't get to an inner layer without destroying the outer layer, but the inner layers are incredibly well preserved because of this practise and a fair about of the original piant still exists on the extensive frescos decorating the walls.

After stopping for lunch we headed towards Chan Chan, the ruins of a Chimu city between modern day Trujillo and Huanchaco. Driving down the road, it looks like just huge dirt piles in dirt fields, but once to realize that their ruins, you start seeing the walls and the mudbricks. Chan Chan was built in about 1300 and was defeated by the Incas about 150 years later. The city contained 9 royal compounds or palaces and we toured one of them. The walls and terraces were built with mud brick, which were carved into intricate designs and painted. Where it's been preserved or restored it's incredibly impressive, and where it's been erroded it looks like a melting sandpile. Some of the walls originally stood as much as 10 meters high. Really, it's impossible to describe the huge scale of this site--the palace itself and the city as a whole.

We're planning to take an overnight bus to Lima tomorrow night after just chilling on the beach all day. That way we'll have a night in Lima and can explore some of the things we missed when we were first there -- the sea wall and possibly some ruins within the city. We fly back Saturday night at midnight, and should be back in the Cities around 10 Sunday night. I'm terrified by the thought of winter weather (and we saw coverage of that storm on CNN down here!!), and I just can't believe two months are already come and gone. If I have time to load pictures in Lima I will, otherwise, I'll get them up once I'm home.

The Wheels on the Bus: Killing Time in the Lojas Terminal

meghan — Thu, 9 Dec 2010 11:32:00 GMT

After Cuenca, Eric and I bused down to Vilcabamba, a small town a hour and a half beyond Lojas. I thought we were going to go to Lojas because from what I had heard from another traveler, I thought it was a smaller tourist town like BaÑos. Lojas is actually a larger city for its region in Ecuador and Vilcabamba is the small tourist town. I figured that out after talking to Eric and consulting the Book after my last post.

We spent the last two nights in Vilcabamba and did some hiking yesterday at the Rumi-Wilco Nature Preserve. It's an absolutely beautiful place with amazing veiws of the Vilcabamba Valley. We tried walking to a waterfall earlier in the morning and later in the afternoon a zoo, but failed in our attempts. On the path to the waterfall we encoutered a gate and the end of the main road, so we turned around. Later we were told that you just ask someone in some house around there which trail to take... We really didn't know what was up with those instructions. We made it to the "zoo," which turned out to be a "mini-zoo" in a recreational area that looked like more of a local haunt just as it started to rain. We hung out under a covered bridge for a bit and then just turned back and stopped at a corner store and split a beer on the porch while we waited for the rain to stop.

We bused back to Lojas this morning so that we can catch a bus to Piura, Peru. We have a few hours to kill until that bus leaves, but then we'll get to enjoy a 9 to 10 hr ride. From there we'll either do an overnight bus if we can catch one or find a place to stay for the night and do more busing tomorrow. Busing definitely isn't my favorite part of traveling, but it's been worth everywhere we've been and everything we've seen. The bus system down here is actually really impressive. Most places, we've been able to walk into a terminal and get the bus we need within an hour.

And Ecuador has been really amazing because if you doze off on a bus for an hour, the landscape is so different when you open your eyes again. It's the most biodiverse country in the world, and you can tell just from riding aroudn. It's also gorgeous, especially where we've been traveling in the South now. Lots of rolling green hills, mountains, and lush valleys.

I'm still missing the kids from Katitawa, but we've met some interesting people since we left and have been enjoying our time back on the road. In Cuenca we befriended a restraunt owner who's from Cuenca but lived in New York City for ten years, and his cook. At the bus terminal in Lojas on our way to Vilcabamba, we realized that a couple we saw at a museum in Cuenca the day before had been on our bus and then was on our bus to Lojas too. Had we not reserved the last room at our hostel, we would have been at the same hostel too. We saw them around town a few times, but unfortunately never were able to grab a meal or drinks with them. Finally, we chatted with the owner of our dinner restraunt in Vilcabamba last night, an ex-pat from Virgina who was just a little strange in a mostly entertaining way.

Meeting people, talking about the world, and making friends has certainly been a highlight of our travels. And I'm sure we'll make a few more before were through.

On the Road Again: Heading South from Salasaka

meghan — Mon, 6 Dec 2010 17:05:00 GMT

Eric and I left Salaska on Saturday morning. It was a sad departure as we had formed some great relationships with the kids and other volunteers. Hopefully someday our adventures will take us back to Salasaka. We've already invited plenty of people to visit us in Austin and have invited ourselves to friends' couches all over the world.

On Friday night a group of six of us hopped a bus to Baños for dinner and caught a camioneta (the back of a pickup truck) back to Salasaka. There were already some Ecuadorian teens in the truck as well, so we had a sardine-packed but hilarious ride back to Salasaka with them. One even serenaded us to REM's "Losing My Religion," one of the songs he knew in English. Of course, we all joined in.

On Saturday we packed up and caught a bus to Ambato, hopped off on a corner, crossed the street and caught another bus to Riobamba, about an hour and a half away. We had hoped to catch a train over a section of tracked called Nariz del Diablo (The Devil's Nose), which is supposed to be a crazy ride, but it's closed until February. So instead we crashed there for the night, and caught a mid-day bus to Cuenca where we are currently.

We went to two museums this morning, had lunch, and then just walked around town--by the river and to the main plaza. Cuenca is a huge city now, but at it's center is impressive Spanish Colonial architecture.

We'll head out tomorrow for Lojas, which is supposed to be a beautiful town with hot bathes. From there we'll make our way back into Peru. Two weeks and lots to do still! I have a feeling we won't have great access to internet when we're crossing back into Peru, so I don't know if I'll update again this week (but I've been wrong about that before).

Until then, hope everyone is well and that those of you in the midwest are enjoying the snow!!

Trabajo Duro & Niñitos: Our First Week at Katitawa

meghan — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 17:28:00 GMT

For the rest of our first week at Katitawa School, Eric continued with the manual labor (or "trabajo duro") of leveling off the front school yard, planting new grass and pouring some new concrete edging to finish off the path. After my day in the library on Tuesday, I headed up to the school for a bit to help with the concrete, just so I felt like I accomplished something that day.

On Wednesday afternoon I was recruited to help out with the Pre-Kindergarten/Kindergarten ("niñitos" or little kids). I had already signed up to help with the niñitos for the full day on Thursday, so I thought that just the afternoon would be a good introduction. I entered the class after lunch. The teacher went into one small corner area with some of the kids to read a book, one of the mothers who sometimes helps sat with her kids and some others doing something else, and I sat near some kids on the floor and tried to get them to do something other than stare at me.

"Hola./Hi." Blank stare. "¿Como te llamas?/What's your name?" Blank stare. "¿Puedo jugar contigo?/Can I play with you?" Blank stare.

So I just started playing with some blocks and making faces at them. Eventually one little girl, Sintia (Cythia), asked me to help her make some boxes out of foam puzzle pieces, or as she calls them "casitas" (little houses). We played that for the rest of the day happily.

The next day the teacher was not in class, but Natasha, one of the volunteers who is usually with the niñitos every day was back. We sang some songs in the morning, I led stretches, and we played Duck, Duck, Goose outside. I also was regularly kidnapped by Sintia to play Casitas. (Her cat lives in the casitas.) I was also able to make friends with some of the other kids. Jéssica and Jenni are two sisters who always wear traditional dress and look like old ladies in miniature. They always look every serious. Jenni is only about two years old and just started coming to school. She likes to play Throw Things at Meghan, Hand Things to Meghan, Laugh at Meghan Making Funny Noises, and Puzzles. Jéssica is also very good at puzzles and likes to swing. She'll also play Casitas with me and Sintia sometimes.

There are a few other girls in the class who are still pretty shy around me, and there are three boys - Christian (Sintia's brother), Yannik, and Reyli - who do more to disrupt the class that if a tap dancing elephant click-clacked into the room every 10 minutes. They're all good kids, but focusing for more than 2 minutes just does not seem to be a part of their fabric. As a result, a lot of the day is just free play time, which is ok since they're 2-6 years old, but we want to teach them letters, numbers, colors, and the like, but it's tough. Thursday was pretty good. Today, Monday, was obnoxious. I basically spent the whole time between 9:30 snack and 12:00 lunch just guarding the door to make sure the kids didn't run off. We're hoping they tired themselves out today and that tomorrow will be better.

I also ended up in the Kindergarten on Friday. I wasn't supposed to be, but Sintia kidnapped me again to play Casitas all day long. I think that's when Jéssica finally decided I was OK. I think I also pushed her on the swing that day, which wins over almost any kid.

As far as the hard labor goes, Eric and some of the other volunteers got most of that done. Eric was in the library on Friday, which was a well deserved break. They laid the rest of the grass seed today.

Life has also been going well outside of the school. I may have mentioned in my last entry that each night a group of about 4 volunteers is responsible for dinner. On Thursday, Thanksgiving, Eric and three European fellows who arrived about the same time we did were responsible for dinner. They knocked it out of the park: pumpkin soup (or at least some kind of gourd) to start; roast chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, roast vegetables, and "craneberry sauce" (blackberries) for the main course; and apple crisp with homemade ice cream for dessert! And plenty to go around for 18 people! It was rough not being with family for the holiday - and having to explain repeatedly to the Europeans what Thanksgiving is about - but the meal certainly made the day!

Last week a volcano that we can see from the hill the school is on started erupting. On Friday night many of the volunteers went to the top of the hill and had a bonfire to watch the volcano. Throughout the day and night, you can hear it rumbling. So far, no concerns of it really going wild though. (They did have to evacuate the city of Baños, which sits at the base of the volcano, in 1999 when it was active then.) And fortunately all the ash from it blows off in a different direction, so it's just a cool view for us.

Speaking of Baños, that's where Eric and I went last weekend. It's a touristy town with lots of mountain bike and hiking trails, thermal springs for bathing, and really good eats. It's about an hour bus ride from Central Salasaka, which costs $0.50 each. It's pretty common for the volunteers to take off on small weekend trips to see the country or just get out of our crowded house for a bit.

We found a nice hostel, Plantas y Blancas, which is very clean and bright, dropped off our stuff and went looking for food. We found an authentic Mexican restaurant and pigged out - chips with guacamole and salsa, beef fajitas for Eric, enchiladas for me, a few beers, a few margaritas, and a chocolate crepe for dessert! Oh, man, it was good!

Sunday was the national census, when no one - national, tourist, or otherwise - was allowed out of their home or lodging from 7AM to 5PM while the census was conducted. We were warned of this, so we bought some groceries and playing cards on Saturday, and just enjoyed having a quiet room and hot shower all to ourselves for a day. As soon as the clock struck five, we packed up, checked out and caught a bus back to Salasaka, where we passed the evening as we have most here, sitting around chatting with our new friends about where their from, where they've been and what they're going to do in life.

This week is our last week in Salasaka. I was with the niñitos today and will be again on Tuesday and Thursday. Eric's hoping that the supplies have been purchased for his next project; otherwise, he's not quite sure what he'll be up to, but classes always need help and there's always the garden. Never a lack of work to do here!

Once we're done here, we've only two weeks left of our trip. We'll travel south through Ecuador to Cuenca, Lojas, and some other cities, and then will spend some time in Northern Peru before sprinting back to Lima for our flight home on the 19th. It's strange to think of getting back on the road after only just a week in one spot, and it's even stranger to think that we'll be back in the U.S., in the cold, cold Midwest, in just a few weeks.

Sumak Kawsay Yachay: Our Volunteer Home for Two Weeks

meghan — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 12:58:00 GMT

Eric and I arrived on Saturday morning in Salasaka, Ecuador, a small village located between the cities of Ambato and Baños. Several months ago we found a volunteer opportunity online at Sumak Kawsay Yachay or SKY Ecudaor, a privately-funded Ecuadorian organization "committed to assisting and supporting educational programs throughout the country." In Salasaka, SKY Ecuador supports the Katitawa school and runs a public library.

Today I am on library duty, which means I get to sit on the internet all day and actually think about what I'm writing in my blog rather than just spit it out. :) The library is pretty slow during the day. There are 3 computers that people can use, and apparently I can expect maybe three people to stop in at some point. So far, there's been a whole lot of nothing going on. But one of the other volunteers is working on building some new desks for in the library and other volunteers sort of stop in and out, so I'm not totally alone, which is good, because I'm not totally sure what to do if someone stops in for a the internet or a book and my Spanish is only so-so.

In the evenings there's a little more going on at the library as volunteers teach adult classes such as Spanish and English for Artisans. There is an impressive textile market in Salasaka, and some of the artisans who were aware that better/any English skills would help them increase sales approached SKY to request a class to meet their needs. Kids also stop in at the library more in the afternoons and evenings since they aren't in school then.

The Katitawa school is perched on a hill overlooking the valley that Salasaka and other villages are set in. About 40 students attend the school, and between 20 and 30 are expected to show up on any given day. While there are several other schools in the area, Katitawa is a bi-lingual school taught in Spanish and the native Kitchwa. The school is free - families pay $0.50 per week per student to help cover a snack and lunch - and prides itself in an excellent English education since nearly all of the volunteers who teach at the school are either native English speakers or otherwise fluent.

The school is somewhat set in the Montessori method of education, which encourages exploration and self-directed education. That is to say, it takes advantage of a child's natural impulse to learn through observation and exploration, making connections through discovery. There are three paid teachers and a varying number of volunteers who lead several classes. There's a Pre-K/Kindergarten class and a group of older students who take classes in math, Spanish, English, art and, theater & music. Right now the school is also preparing for a Christmas/Winter Solstice program to be held on December 21st. (The solstices and equinoxes are very important in traditional indigenous cultures here, and while more than 80% of the population is Catholic, these traditional celebrations have been often been blended with Christian holidays.)

Currently there are 19 volunteers at Katitawa, which is an overly full house at the hostel that serves the Katitawa volunteers. I think there's typically 10-15 volunteers, but we're here at an overlap point when several new folks have arrived and some people who have been here a while are planning on heading out in the next week or two. Most volunteers stay at Katitawa for at least 3 months and some for even longer (6 months to a year if they can get a Visa). Eric and I will be staying for a meager 2 weeks, but out of an eight-week trip, I think that's pretty good. Who knows, someday maybe we'll come back for an extended stay.

Since we're only here for a short time, we probably won't do much in the way of teaching. Clearly, there's no sense in starting our own evening English class or anything like that. I will be subbing as a teacher's aide on Thursday in the kindergarten class, and we may help out with other classes as subbing or one-on-one tutoring is needed. However, it looks like our main projects will be construction based, since Eric is a jack-of-all-trades, and I know enough to help out and talk a bit of the construction talk (Thanks, Rebuilding Together!).

Yesterday we started on one of these projects. There's a grassy space in front of the school building where they've already started some landscaping, including a concrete patio with a sundial and a field stone wall at the edge of the terrace. The land in this area was very uneven, so we (and some others, especially some of the other newbies) started the process of hauling dirt from the garden in wheelbarrows to fill the low spots and cutting down high spots with a hoe. Eric is also working on finishing some concrete edging that lines the gravel path around the sundial and up to a space that will be a stairway down the hill.

This project is pretty heavy labor in and of itself, but it's complicated by the fact that we only have a smattering of hand tools to work with: 2 wheelbarrows, 2 or 3 shovels, a hoe. We were excited to finally find a hammer and tape measure yesterday. We have string and are using sticks for stakes to run plumb lines for leveling out the ground, but we don't have a line level, so we're just doing our best with attempting to hold a regular level over the line. And of course, children stop by to find out who we are and what we're doing, and to dig in the dirt we just laid down and leveled, and to jump on our plumb lines.

They're great fun though. I spent snack time yesterday running around the school yard and it's small farm (a few ducks, chickens and cows) with one nine year old named Michelle. She has a reputation of being a handful; she doesn't have much interest in staying in class which drives some of the volunteers nuts. She was hanging out with me during one of the breaks, but didn't go back to class once the bell rang. After a while I asked her (in Spanish!) why she wasn't in class. She said she didn't have class, and I replied that she had told me a few minutes ago she had Spanish class next. Then I observed that all the other students were in class. She smiled and ran off to join her classmates.

Michelle also likes to ask any boy and girl volunteers standing next to each other if they're boyfriend and girlfriend. I speak more Spanish than some of the other newbies, and it's great fun watching their faces when I translate for them. She's asked me if about 3 different guys are my boyfriend, and I say, You already know that Eric's my boyfriend! Finally I asked her who her boyfriend was and she ran off back to class.

We worked from about 8:30 to about 3, stopping for lunch at noon. In the evenings, the volunteers take turns cooking in groups for all the volunteers. I joined the Monday cooking group, and since the number of volunteers had increased so much over the weekend, they needed me to go to town to buy some more vegetables to stretch out the planned meal. Eric and I headed into town with two of the other new guys to buy supplies. We'd all been working on the earth moving, so we also stopped for a snack and a refreshing beer. (A liter bottle of beer costs a dollar, with $0.20 returned when you bring back the bottle.)

There's a decent sized farmer's market in Salasaka on Saturdays, but there's always someone with a fruit & vegetable stand at the Central Market during the week. Three large, fresh green peppers for $0.25? Eggs for pennies a piece? Fresh tomatoes, avocados, bananas, strawberries, oranges? Yes, please! There's also several small stores selling cheese, butter, crackers, fresh rolls, cooking oil and other staples in town, and some with a lesser selection on the road leading out to the hostel.

From the hostel it's probably a 20 or 30 minute walk to town, a 10 minute walk to the library and a 30 minute walk to the school. For the most part, Salasaka is agrarian, so we're walking along small plots with corn, cows, sheep, and the like. On the road heading past the library into town you can catch a ride in the back of someone's pickup for $0.10, but we've been enjoying the walk.

We made it back to the hostel right at 5, so I jumped in to help cook right away. Five of us prepared a cucumber and radish salad with a homemade vinaigrette; a baked pasta (aka, hotdish) including a fresh tomato and rosemary sauce, onions, carrots, green peppers, and a healthy dose of cheese; and finally a chocolate birthday cake with a strawberry sauce and yogurt ice cube. (It's almost lunch time, and I'm getting hungry talking about this!) I wish I could take some kind of credit for the brilliant meal, but an Austrian volunteer named Lisa (who is pretty much fluent in German, Spanish, English, French (or Italian?), and Latin) orchestrated most of the dinner. I did a lot of chopping and a lot of dishes.

So far Eric and I are both very happy with SKY Ecuador, the Katitawa school, and the other volunteers. It's an absolutely beautiful place. We can see the farthest point from the center of the earth from our back porch, as the equatorial bulge pushes a mountain here further away from earth's center than the highest point above sea level. And one of the two volcanoes within sight started erupting last night (just in a dust way, not in a "Lava! Run for your lives!" way) and we could see the plume on our walk into the library today. The volunteers are about half Americans and half Europeans, which makes for interesting Thanksgiving day plans... Eric's on the cooking team for that night with three European guys, so we'll see what they come up with for dinner.

Happy Thanksgiving to all! Right now I'm so thankful for your interest if you made it to the end of this very long entry. Pictures and more stories to come as we make ourselves more at home here.

If you'd like to learn more about where we're volunteering, please visit http://www.skyecuador.org/ Again, the school and library are privately funded, so if you feel so moved, feel free to make a donation at the website. Thanks!

32 Hours of Busing: The End of the Whirlwind

meghan — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 10:00:00 GMT

Tuesday at 3PM we boarded another Crus de Sur bus, heading out of Lima toward Tumbes, the border town between Peru and Ecuador. Roughly 26 hours later we arrived in Tumbes, Peru, collected our bags, used the bathroom, went four blocks down to the Sifa Bus Terminal, and immediately hopped on a six-hour bus to Guayaquil, Ecuador.

The bus to Guayaquil stopped at the border for us to officially exit Peru and told us that they would wait for us and the other couple of passengers. We walked into the office, and nothing was happening. People were standing around looking a little confused, and no one was at the processing desk. After several minutes of awkwardly standing around, we asked someone what was up and were confused by his answer. Eventually we figured out that the power was out and that it must have gone out just before we arrived. After some time, we were shuffled into a line entering a different room to be processed by computer and then sent to the first room we had been in to get stamped. So it all worked out, and our bus was waiting for us as promised.

We stopped again on the other side of the border to pick up more passengers. We drove for quite a while, and we were starting to wonder if we would stop for customs on the Ecuador side at all. Just when I was about to put my passport away because it seemed ridiculously far from the border, we stopped for customs. Then a while down the road we stopped for a security check. Then a few minutes later we stopped a a narcotics checkpoint. Don't ask me to explain it, because I can't. Then we were on the road for several hours with one rest stop about half way through. We arrived at the Guayquil bus terminal, which is HUGE, took a taxi to a hostel listed in The Book, dropped our stuff off, ate a great & insanely cheap meal around the corner, and crashed for the night.

We decided to spend an extra night in Guayquil, since it looked like there were some interesting things to do, it would break up our bus marathon, and we didn't need to be to our volunteer site until the weekend. We visited a park where giant iguanas roam around freely and then made our way to the river.

There's a huge and relatively new boardwalk called the Malecon 2000 along the river. We walked up most of that, weaving through a botanical garden, and visiting the Museum of Anthropology and Art. At the far end is a hill called the Colina Santa Ana, a 444-step stairway lined with cafes and pubs leads up to a lighthouse and chapel at the top of the hill. We learned the hard way that the cafes are open for dinner not lunch, or at least not at 3PM. We stopped at a pub for a beer and a barsnack comprised of banana chips and chunks of cheese, which was surprisingly tasty, and then continued to the top of the lighthouse for some pictures. We walked back down the Malecon, had some icecream cones and people watched for a bit.

Afterward, we headed back toward our hostel and ate dinner at the same restaurant. I had tried Eric's shrimp dish the night before, and decided to go out on a limb and order it for myself. (For those who don't know, I DO NOT eat seafood of any sort, so this was a big step.) We woke up not quite as early as we planned Friday morning, got breakfast at the same place, and headed to the bus terminal to start our whirling about again. We booked a 6-hour bus to Ambato, the town next to Salasaka where we would be volunteering, and departed within the hour. Our bus raced crazily through winding mountain roads, as seems to be the custom.

It was raining in Ambato when we arrived and we hadn't printed out the direction to our site in Salasaka yet, so we decided to just find a hostel there for the night so we could find our way in the morning. The Book lists two hostels for all of Ambato (it isn't a tourist town), one mid-range option and one budget option. The budget option said it was clean and centrally located, so we opted for that. Centrally located, yes. Clean, a subjective statement. It seemed to be the sort of place young men crashed at when they party in Ambato for the weekend. We got a room to ourselves, used an internet cafe downstairs, found some food on the block, played cards in our room, and slept in our clothes on top of the covers. It could have been a lot worse, but I would have chosen a lot better had I know what we were getting into. All part of the adventure though.

We got up early and headed straight out. Since we had big bags, didn't know how buses worked, and just wanted to get there, we took a cab for $6 to Salasaka and were dropped off in the "center," which just seems to be some arbitrary point along the main road. Fortunately, some other volunteers who were heading out for a weekend trip were also on the main road and called us over. They gave us directions to the library, where we ran into another brand new volunteer and met Roberto, the director of SKY. Mattias, the other volunteer, showed us to the hostel, and Roberto gave the three of us a tour a little later in the morning and treated us to lunch. There are about 14 other volunteers, so we started to get to know those who had stuck around for the weekend.

I'll write more about our volunteering once things get rolling. We'll probably be working on some sort of construction project since we're only here for 2 weeks. Today, we need to head to the market in Ambato for some food and then get some laundry done. But, for now, the whirlwind is done and we're settling into our new home in Salasaka.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Meghan & Eric

Photos: Huacachina & the Sand Dunes

meghan — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 23:08:00 GMT

Photos: Colca Canyon

meghan — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 22:05:00 GMT

2 day trek

Colca Canyon, Huaca China & Lima (Tambien) - More of the Whirlwind

meghan — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 21:07:00 GMT

Like I said before, I am totally losing track of days... Thankfully, my watch shows days of the week, which is sort of helping. It's great though. Really great. Weekends and weekdays are no different. Sometimes we notice that a town is busier, and then we realize it's Saturday, but that's about it.

Early in the morning last Thursday, we headed out on a two day-one night trek in Colca Canyon, arguably the deepest canyon in the world. Our guide said it was, but The Book said another nearby canyon in Peru was, and their numbers were so different we really aren't sure who to believe.

We were picked up from our hostel in Arequipa around 3:15 AM and rode in a small bus for about 3 hours before we reached Chivay, where we had breakfast. Then we rode about another hour and a half over a really bumpy road to Cruz del Condor, a viewpoint over the canyon where it's common to see condors. Unfortunately, they weren't very social that day, and we only caught a passing glimpse of two low in the canyon and weren't able to get any pictures.

We drove a while further up the road to the starting point of our trek. There were about 10 of us in the group, and we were a bit more diverse group than our Inka Trail posse. There was a young couple from Poland (and I really regretted no learning more/any Polish from my friend Magda), three 20 somethings from Ireland who had started out solo but started traveling together sometime in Ecuador, an older Sweedish guy, a French guy who smoked like a French guy, another American who was 24 and traveling all over the world "on business," and a very quiet British guy who learned during our decent into the canyon that he had really bad knees and ended up a few hours behind the rest of us and then rented a donkey to carry him up the next day.

Which is also to say that an trek into a canyon is just as it sounds: one day down, one day up. We actually thought this trek was harder in some ways than the Inka Trail. Certainly, if it lasted four days, it would be. Part of the difficulty was the all up and all down nature of it (the Inca Trail undulates a bit more), but a lot of it was that the trails just weren't as good. Almost all of it was loose gravel on faily narrow paths looking right over the steep drop of the canyon wall. (But look, Mom, I'm alive so it's OK!) Like with the Inka Trail, the first day was hardest for me because everyone else starts out fast and I felt like I had to kill myself to keep up. On the second day, especially going up, everyone chilled out a bit more and I had an easier time keeping pace.

On day one we hiked down for about three hours and then about another hour along the bottom to our lunch spot, where we had Lomo Saltado, which is a popular alpaca dish, served with rice, potatoes, onions and bell peppers. Alpaca is a lot like beef but a bit tougher. I think it's ok. I'm not big on tough meat. From there we walked about another hour along the canyon to our "guesthouse" in "paradise."

It looked like rain with some threatening bangs of thunder, so our guide, Ivan, took us along a shortcut that followed a mountain stream. Fortunately we were only hit with a few random sprinkles. "Paradise" is an oais area in the canyon where several guesthouses with freshwater pools are built. We arrived less than an hour before sunset, so Eric and I opted not to swim. Since we're a couple, we got a "matrimonial hut"--a concrete building with a sand floor and thatched roof (thankfully it didn't rain), and a really firm full-sized mattress on some concrete blocks.

We sat around and had some beers with the other American and the Irish kids. The Irish bunch was heading the opposite direction as us--they had come from Ecaudor and down the Peruvian coast and were heading to Cusco--so they gave us some pointers for Huacha China and Ecuador and we told them about our time in Cusco, Puno and on the Trail. We all had dinner together and headed promptly to bed, probably around 9PM. We were due to set out hiking again at 5AM the next morning. ET and I set our alarms for quarter to 5 and promised the Polish kids we would knock on their hut to wake them up too.

The next morning we hiked up rocky switchbacks for about 3 hours and were rewarded with breakfast in the town at the top. We brought along some snacks to we could eat a bit before climbing up the canyon. Leaving early in the morning always sounds rough, but it's great to beat the heat of the day and to realized that I hauled my butt up a huge canyon earlier in the day than I used to get to work.

After breakfast we stopped at the Cruz del Condor lookout again because there were some flying around and we got some pictures. Eric really wanted to get pictures of condors, so I was really happy that worked out. Then we drove for an hour and a half to a hot spring and paid 10 soles ($3) a piece to soak in the hot spring-fed pool for about and hour. Heaven. Pure and simple.

After that we had a lunch buffet in Chivay, drove for a while, stopped at a lookout at the highest point in the area where you can see about 10 volcanoes, and then drove for 3 hrs or so back to Arequipa. Along the way, we passed several llama and sheep farms, which are for some reason really amusing.

We arrived back at our hostel in Arequipa around 6, showered, and caught a bus to Ica at 10PM. We arrived in Ica around 9AM -- I'm getting better at sleeping on busses -- and took a 15 minute cab ride to the neighboring town of Huaca China. Ica/Huaca China are closer to the coast (about 70km inland), south of Lima. They are surrounded by giant sand dunes that stretch all the way to the coast. Huaca China is sort of a tiny oasis built around a small lagoon as a resort town for Peruvian elite once upon a time. The tourists are still a mix of Peruvians and gringos, and the town is basically two streets: an inner ring right around the lagoon and an outer ring around that, though the outer ring is pretty sparse.

We decided to stay at a nicer hotel with a pool for about $12 each per night. On the first day we laid around the pool during the day. In the evening we took a dune buggy and sand boarding tour, and then climbed the closest dune to watch the sunset.

We were only going to stay one day in Huaca China and had even thought about skipping it altogether, but wanted to break up the bus rides from Arequipa to Ecuador. After a fun and relaxing first day, we decided to stay a second night. Certainly, we've been on vacation this whole time, but it's been a lot of treking and museums and being sick... so we decided we deserved to enjoy some relaxing times.

On day two we chilled around the pool again, and this time made good friends with our bartender, Yosip. He invited us out that evening to have some beers with his friends and him at another bar. We asked what the bar was called so we could meet him there, and he pulled out a piece of paper and wrote down "Pub Bar" with all the seriousness in the world. We went out for dinner and then found Yosip and his crew around 8:30 at Pub Bar on the outer loop. We had a fabulous time, which involved trying to help them pick up some German girls in the bar, teaching them funny English phrases, a late night challenge to race up the sand dunes, and a lot of Yosip trying to teach me how to dance with a Latin flare. We invited them all to visit us in the U.S. and promised our couch for as long as they'd like it. It was one of the most fun nights I've had in Peru.

We had talked of waking up early to catch an early bus from Ica to Lima in order to catch a 1PM bus from Lima to Tumbes. Ica to Lima is about 6 hrs. Lima to Tumbes is around 20+. I'm thankful that we didn't wake up early enough for that because I don't think I could do that sort of bus marathon. We caught an 11:30 bus out of Ica on a mid-level bus line and arrived in Lima around dinner time. We headed straight back to the Red Psycho Llama Hostel in the Miraflores neighborhood and found our friend Elias working the desk again. He smiled and welcomed us by name as soon as we poked our heads in the door.

Our bus to Tumbes is at 1PM tomorrow, so we've got a bit of time to kill in Lima. Tumbes is basically the boarder crossing between Peru and Ecuador. Our goal is to be in Salasaka, Ecuador, to volunteer for two weeks by the weekend, which will bring the end to the whirlwind and will begin the settling-into-somewhere section of our trip.

Hopefully internet will be as accessible in Ecuador so I can continue to keep you all updated. We may get some pictures uploaded while we're here in Lima.

Love to all,

Meghan and Eric

PS - I hear there's snow in Wisconsin. I am not jealous.

Photos: Inca Trail and Machu Picchu

meghan — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 18:05:00 GMT

Puno/Lake Titicaca & Arequipa: The Start of the Whirlwind

meghan — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 23:23:00 GMT

Early Monday morning (I think... days are slipping away from me) we headed out of Cusco by bus to Puno, the main Peruvian city on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Lake Titicaca is considered the largest high altitude lake in the world. Puno is described by almost any traveler or guidebook you'll come across as a one-day town. Most will say that if you can cross over into Boliva the Lake is more interesting on that side, but Boliva requires over a hundred dollar entrance fee per person from the U.S., so we didn't go that route.

We took a Tour Peru bus to Puno, and that ride went well. As soon as you step into the bus station in Puno, you are accosted by people trying to sell tours and directing you to hostels. We booked our bus out for the next day immediately, and found a taxi to the hostel we intended to stay at. The guy who offered us a taxi was actually one of these tour people, but he was an ok guy. He got us a taxi and a good deal at our hostel, so we booked a tour of the Floating Islands with him for what I think was a good price.

The tourist attraction of Lake Titicaca are the Floating Islands. A Peruvian community who resisted the Incan empire created islands out of reeds and reed roots, and continue to live in the middle of the Lake on these handmade islands. We did a three hour tour on Tuesday morning, which involved a visit on one of these islands. Our guide and the president of the island (family elder from what I could gather) described how the islands are created, how homes are built and how the cooking is done. Then the women took people to their homes to show us the homes from the inside (everything is created from the reeds) and then took us to her market to sell us handicrafts. I know some people have complained that they felt they had to buy things during these tours, but we expected this and were happy to purchase these items from the person/community who actually made them.

We then rode on one of the massive reeds boats to another of the islands where there was icecream and beverages for sale. The islands are each pretty small, maybe 10 huts on each with an open area in the middle, but the islands are all sort of tethered together and form a great chain in the Lake between the bay by Puno and the Big Lake.

When we returned to the mainland, we had lunch and then collected our items from storage at our hostel and used the internet to book our next hostel in Arequipa. It was only 1ish and we didn't book a bus out till 6PM. We stopped for a beer and then walked to the bus terminal rather than taking a taxi. We only had about 2 hrs to kill at the bus terminal, so we caught up on reading.

We opted for a less expensive bus for our ride to Arequipa in order to save some money on a short 6 hour trip. We each paid 15 soles, which is about 5 dollars. The bus was a typical coach bus, but with no toilet. The seats were a bit cramped but fine to start. ... Then, someone kept their window open the whole ride. It was FREEZING and everyone else somehow had the sense to wear their heavy coats. Then the guy in front of me reclined into my lap. I tried to recline to compensate, but it just sent my knees further into his seat. We put on our music, curled up together as best we could, and reminded ourselved we only paid five bucks a pop.

We arrived in Arequipa after 1AM, found a legit taxi (thankfully!) and headed to our hostel, which it turns out is out in the suburbs, but is very nice. They provide rides to the city center during set times in the morning, so after breakfast we headed into Arequipa. We found the Museum of the Andes, and took a very good tour of the gallery, which is focused around an Incan mummy, Juanita, who was discovered in 1995 at one of the volancos outside the city. We walked around some more, discovering that our map wasn't entirely accurate or that all the tourist attractions had closed or moved. We settled for lunch and then meandered some more, stumbling upon the Municipal Museum of Arequipa, which was less than a dollar entrance fee. It was random, but there was lots to look at and it killed some time.

We headed back to the plaza, bought some items to make dinner with and headed back to our hostel.

We've booked an overnight trek to Colca Canyon for tomorrow, which leaves around 3:30AM from our hostel, so I need to get to bed soon. We should return by 6 on Friday and will catch a 10PM bus to Ica/Huacacyna (sp?) from there, so it will be a while before I'll write again.

Pictures are tough because computers are slow, but we're loading what we can.

Love,

Meghan & Eric

Machu Picchu - Cloud Forest & Ruins, Days 3 & 4

meghan — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 21:31:00 GMT

Day 3:

The third day of the trek contains the second and third passes, as such, for much of the day you're still at a high altitude, going up a bit and down a bit, but never as steep as Day Two. Much of this day follows the original Incan road and passes through two Incan tunnels carved into the cliff. Part of the day is a decent over an Incan Staircase lovingly called "The Gringo Killer." I thought I survived alright, but the next day my left knee was so sore! Throughout the day we were walking through a cloud forest, along steep precipices, and over steep stone embankments. As with the other days, we were surrounded by beautiful mountains. Again, mountain streams and waterfalls appeared, trickled and rushed all around us. Several varieties of orchids thrive in this section of the trail, but it must have been the wrong season for them, as we didn't see any.

Also on Day Three, we were able to visit several smaller Incan ruins along the way, and Max presented at each, teaching us more about Incan culture, architexture and religion. Probably most impressive to Eric and I were the Incan aquaducts, which you could still see carved into the tops of walls along the city, and the fountains to which they carried water. These lessons were very useful in understanding and appreciating the city of Machu Picchu when we arrived on Day Four. I think it would otherwise have been way too much to soak in. Plus it provided more context: The Incan can't just be summarized in this one well-known city. They were are empire, and understanding how different sites worked together in the network of religion and communication helped provide some context of what that meant.

One of the sites was a rest stop most likely for the king and his army on the way to Machu Picchu. The other was likely a religious site with a obersvatory, which once contained a mechanism, which, when aligned properly with the sun revealed the Solstices and dictated the seasons for planting and harvesting. A final site could be seen at a distance from early on in the day. At first, it seemed quite small but clearly contained several terraces along the mountainside. It was the last site we passed just before arriving at camp that evening, and to stand inside and below it revealed it's great size. Imagine, constructing massive terraces up the side of a steep mountain!

Gray clouds threatening rain hovered over us in the afternoon, but thankfully never followed through on what they seemed to promise. Though we took our chances traveling during the start of the rainy season and saw an afternoon rain almost every day in Cusco, out four day hike along the Inca Trail stayed completely dry and about a perfect as anyone could hope for when it comes to weather.

Our final campsite was the largest we stayed at. Along the way, most campsites were staggered so that the full throng of hikers were't piled on top of one another. But the final morning hike to the Sun Gate overlooking the city creates a fervor, and everyone wants to be as close to the ranger station as possible to get a head start. At our final meal we were introduced to our porters and learned a little about their families and the village that many of them are from. Most of these men were in their mid twenties, but one was in his fifties! We headed to be early, as Day Four would begin at 3:34AM.

Day 4:

Why so early, you ask? As I indicated above, everyone want to get to Machu Picchu first. The ranger station that opens the site to trekkers doesn't open until 5:30, but you want to get in line as a group as soon as you can. Our porters tapped on our tent and then went back to work taking down camp. We had a quick breakfast and were rushed down the path with instructions that we could come back up to use the toilet and brush our teeth after we were in line. Our group was second in line, only behind the other Peru Treks group. Eric and I were stuck near to some guy in the group behind us listening to some soft rock ballads on his radio.

The hike from the ranger station to the Sun Gate is about 45 min to an hour, and it's probably the sketchiest bit along the trail. The path just isn't as wide, most of it is along steep precipices, and there's a fair amount of steep Incan stone stairs. Nonetheless, everyone thinks they need to be first and rushes as much as possible. I gritten my teeth and committed to staying right behind the person in my group in front of me. I would not fall behind and hold my group back today.

We did pretty well until we reach the final staircase: 50 steep & narrow stone steps. We waited a bit while the people ahead of us made their way up. There was one young woman in the other Peru Treks group who had twisted her ankle two days before the trek and still did it. We're pretty sure her boyfriend and guide carried her up these steps. When we finally got to them and were picking our way up, so impatient people behind us decide to blow past, practically running up the stairs. They nearly stepped on Eric's hand as he was climbing up and certainly caused me to wait for the choicer steps.

The truly obnoxious thing in all of this is that it was cloudy out. So even when we all reached the Sun Gate ahead of everyone else, winded because we practically ran the whole way, we had to wait a good 15 mintues for the clouds to dissipate with the sunrise. We're still not sure why the guides encourage this crazy making rather than assure people that we'll all still get there before most buses from Aguas Calientes and long before the throngs on the trains from Cusco.

Nonetheless, the view from the Sun Gate was stunning. Watching the clouds fade to reveal the city was like watching a photograph develop in a darkroom, just a shadow of an image at first, and, somehow, suddenly, an entire breathtaking landscape just in front of you.

We walked down from the Sun Gate to the Watchmen's Hut, which was in the city of Machu Picchu but still overlooking it. We were allowed a few photos here, before we had to decend to the entrance gate to properly check in. Large bags aren't allowed at the site, so we dropped Eric's bag off at a bag check. After a quick snack and bathroom break, we regrouped for our tour of Machu Picchu.

Max led us through of the important buildings. Machu Picchu is a massive site, and without a guide I don't think I would have made heads or tails of it. We noticed a bit at the smaller sites along the trail and at Machu Picchu that the Peru Treks guides seemed to kind of be hotshots among the other guides. It seemed like we got priority at any location we wanted to be at, and Max clearly knew some of the rangers at the site, which can never hurt.

Honestly, writing about Machu Picchu now is a lot like when we visited it: There´s so much, but I'm just so tired! I think the Temple of the Condor was the most impressive building. Two large natural stones were left as they were, looking like the V of a bird's wings. At the base, another natural stone was carved into the shape of a body and head of a condor and was used as an altar for sacrificing llamas and guinnea pigs. A small corridor cuts under one of the wings to a small altar room.

The Incas believe the world was divided into three sections: 1. The heavens or realm of the gods, embodied by the condor, 2. The earth or realm of the living, embodied by the puma, and 3. The underworld or realm of the dead, embodied by the snake. These animals are represented throughout Incan culture. Machu Picchu is believe to be shaped like a condor (much of the mountainside is un-excavated, but likely contains many more ruins) and Cusco was designed in the shape of a puma.

After our tour, Eric and I explored some other areas and sat on one of the terraces for a bit. The sun was inescapable, the waves of train-tourists from Cusco were starting to roll in, and Eric had picked up the cold I started out the hike with, so we decided to head out sometime around noon. Of course, with a 3:45 rise and shine time, we had already had a full day.

Our group met for lunch at a restraunt reserved by our tour company. For most of us, our train didn´t leave Aguas Calientes (the city at the base of Machu Picchu) until 7:30PM, so we had some time to kill. Quite a few people went to the hot springs, but we skipped that. By most reports, we only missed a big crowd of people. Eric and I hung out around the restaraunt and meandered toward a plaza and market in the afternoon. Then we played really mindless cardgames (like War) until it was time to head to our train. We took the train for about an hour and a half to the city we had breakfast in on the first day, and then Peru Treks bused us back to Cusco from there. I think that was 2 hours, but I slept through the whole thing.

We arrived back at our hostel, retrieved our items from storage, and crashed. We slept most of the next day, and then headed out of Cusco the morning after for Puno.

For a rundown of the hike from the professional perspective, you can visit Peru Treks summary at: http://perutreks.com/inca_trail_04d_itinerary.html

Machu Picchu - Easy? Difficult? Days 1 & 2

meghan — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 16:15:00 GMT

Some background:

The Inka Trail is a 45 k, four day-three night hike that climbs over three mountain passes, follows sections of an original paved Incan road, and concludes on the fourth morning at the Sun Gate overlooking the ruins of Machu Picchu. A maxium of 500 people embark on the trail each day, and treks must be booked months in advance.

Machu Picchu City is one of two major Incan cities that were hidden from the Spanish conquistadors. To prevent them from being destroyed, the last Incan King ordered that all the roads to Machu Picchu and the Lost City of the Incas (claimed to be El Dorado) be destroyed. An American archeologist from Yale "rediscoved" Machu Picchu in the early 20th century and began the process of restoring it to the world history site it is today. There are numerous other smaller Incan ruins along the Inka Trail to Machu Picchu, and certainly many throughout the jungle that have not been excavated yet.

Eric and I booked our trek with Peru Treks, a company that was recommended by many guidebooks and has won an award from the Ministry of Tourism in Peru. The company places great emphasis on supporting the local economy, porter welfare, and celebrating the history and culture of the trail and the Incan people. If you're considering hiking the trail at some point, we highly recommend them, as we had an excellent experience. http://perutreks.com/

Our Trek:

Day One

I'm sure you'll all recall that the night before we embarked, I was feeling a bit under the weather and we had faced some unusual challenges during the day. My sore throat decided to develop into a full-blown cold that evening. Between that and worrying about the trek, I didn't sleep much at all that night. We got up at 5AM, to be ready for our pick up scheduled between 5:20 and 6:00 AM. Our guide and a porter met us at our hostel, and we had to walk several blocks to meet up with the bus. We drove for a little more than an hour to Ollantaytambo, where we stopped for breakfast. I was not able to eat much, even though I needed to. I was really questioning whether I would be able to do this hike: I had basically been in bed for the last several days, now I had a new ailment, Could I really do an intense hike?? But we were on our way, so I might as well try... right?

We were in a group of 16 people, all around our age and all English-speaking: US, Canada, U.K., Australia, and one Portugues girl who had fallen in love with the Austrailian when she was studying English there.

Our bus dropped us of at KM 82, the start of the standard Inka Trail. Eric and I had each hired an extra porter to carry about 6kg of our stuff (basically, sleeping bag and pad, extra clothing). I had a small backpack with my sweatshirt, raingear, snacks, and water, and Eric had his big bag with similar essential items (ie, not full). The day was hot and sunny, and the first section of the trail doesn't offer much shade, though it's relatively level. We started out slowly, as our guide, Max, would stop every 20 or 30 minutes at first to let the group catch up and to tell us some history and background about the trail and the people who live in the area.

Then we hit some inclines. Nothing huge at first, but it felt incredibly challenging for me and everyone else seemed to be just scurrying up without any problems. Everytime we stopped, we were the last ones in. I felt like I need to stop to rest and sip water too often. I was getting really frustrated, and I felt really awful with the first day of my cold. Max was worried I was suffering from alitidue sickness, but Eric explained that I was just sick. The assistant guide, Jose, clearly started keeping an eye on me.

The we hit the first big incline of the trek (which after everything else we endured now seems like nothing). By the time I finally got to the top and had to walk several more meters to get to the bathroom and back, it was time to go again. I started to feel very angry that I never got to rest and that I was always coming in last. Day One is described by most as the "Easy" day and day two is touted as the "Difficult" day. If I was struggling so much before lunch on Day One, how was I going to be able to do this? I was having serious doubts.

The guides, Eric, and probably anyone in the world who has hiked, will tell you (and certainly told me) that hiking is 95% pyschological. Of course, that sounds like B.S. when you feel like crap and can barely breathe. Just before we reached our lunch spot, Eric offered to take everything I was carrying in his bag. I didn't want him to suffer just because I was weak, but-of course-he'd rather carry more than turn around. So, I said we could give it a try. I didn't think I had that much, but it made a huge difrrence to just carry my water bottle and my walking stick. Also, after lunch, a British woman named Belinda started to fall behind too. She was traveling with some friends and none of them had hired a porter, so they were carrying all their stuff. She had kept pase in the morning, but now that we were hitting more and more inclines, she was struggling. I started walking with her at the back of the herd, taking breaks as we needed. Eric and Jose stayed just a bit in front of us chatting in Spanish. Between having a lighter load and knowing that I wasn't alone in my struggle and doubts, I felt a lot better.

I made it to camp that night, tired and sore, but feeling more confident. Day two still scared me, but I didn't want to turn around. I took some cold medine from our first aid kit and slept solidly through the night.

Day 2:

Our porters woke us up the next morning around 5AM with a tap at our tent and hot cups of coca tea (which is good for dealing with the altitude). I was suprised to find that I was not as sore as I expected to be. Eric and I packed up our tent and joined the others for breakfast, which I ate heartily.

Now may be as good a time as any to note that Inca Treks blew our minds with the quality of food they provided. We had read that they would, but it's still incredible and very appreciated when you're on the trail. Breakfast always involved bread or toast, usually some kind of fruit and a pancake. Lunch always started with a veggetarian soup, sometimes another treat (such as an avocado), and then a heaping family style spread of proteins, pastas, rice, and such. Dinner was much the same. All meals were followed with a cup of tea. One day we were treated to jell-o made in a mountain spring, and on the final day we were suprised with a steamed cake!

As I mentioned, Day Two is typically described as the difficult day since over half the day is an assent to the first (and highest) mountain pass - Dead Woman's Pass at 4200 meters. Without a doubt, this aspect of Day 2 was difficult, but once you get past the pass there is no turning back, and I already didn't want to walk back over where I had come from. I was feeling a bit better having slept through the night and eaten, and we started out the day hiking with the British/Scottish girls who I had hiked with during the afternoon of Day 1. The morning of Day Two is also absolutely gorgeous, weaving through wooded areas over and around mountain streams rumbling below you. Like the State of Wisconsin, my motto was "Forward." ("Slow and steady wins the race" and "I think I can" also bounced around.)

We had a light lunch just before we started the incredibly steep asent to the pass; you´re not supposed to hike to high alititudes on a full stomach. And then we got going.

The porters are all walking along the trail with you, or, I should say, past you. They're amazing. They cook breakfast in the morning, breakdown the tents while you're eating, clean up after you head out, pass you on the trail with about 60 kg on their backs, set up the lunch spot and cook before you get there, clean up after you're done, pass you on the trail, set up all of camp and cook dinner before you arrive, and then horse around with a ridiculous amount of energy whie you're eating. As one of our fellow hikers said at our good-bye ceremony on the last night, "You [the porters] make it look easy, and we make it look... ridiculous."

On the assent to Dead Woman's Pass, we noticed that the porters were also taking regular breaks, which make us feel a bit better. Eric noticed one porter from another company that we were sort of playing leap frog with: He would pass us when we were taking a break, then we'd get up and pass him sitting. Eric started chatting with him when we would pass one another, and when we got closer the top and were passing him, Eric joked that we might win. We never passed him again. Any time we got close when he was sitting, he'd get up and start hiking onwards and upwards again. Who wants to lose a race to a gringo? :)

The top of the pass was beautiful, but very cold. Max had warned us, so we pulled out our hats, coats, and mittens to bundle up while we took pictures and waited for others. The British girls and a few others were quite a ways behind us, but some others in our group had already been at the pass for over an hour. Jose, the assistant guide, arrived about 15 minutes after us, and told us to continue. We were going to meet there and do a group picture, but it was more important to keep moving than to wait for the others and get sick in the cold in the meantime.

Now it was time for down, which, I will argue, can be more difficult than up. When climbing up, you at least feel justified in taking breaks and stopping for water. When going down, your knees just hurt. Porters and Europeans kept running past us, the latter with two walking poles each like they were skiing down the mountian. The whole way down was a stairway, which we thought was the original Incan road, but it turns out was built in the 1990s by order of the goverment, who thought that gringos would need it and that they were very tall, so they had the stairs build to be very tall. The actual Incan travelers of yesteryear followed a road around the summit of the mountain: flat as possible. We had lunch, tea time, and dinner at our campsite, which was still at high alititudes so it was quite cold there. I took more cold medicine before bed, and slept soundly through the night in my cozy sleeping bag.

I had made it past the point of no return, I was holding my own around the late middle of the pack, and I was looking forward to the two more days to come. (And Eric was still carrying all my stuff that didn't fit in my porter bag.)

Days 3 & 4 to come soon!

Machu Picchu - Quick Update

meghan — Sun, 7 Nov 2010 11:05:00 GMT

Just wanted to let everyone know that we made it back safely from our hike on the Inka Trail to Machu Picchu. It was a difficult and rewarding trek with a great company and guide, a great group of other hikers, and unbelievably perfect weather the entire time. I'll follow up with a more specific rundown and (hopefully) picutres soon.

We're planning to be in Cusco for just one more night. We're going to head to Lake Titicaka/Puno area next and then on to Arequipa after that. Some other hikers in our group did a day trek at Colca Canyon, the second deepest canyon in the world, and really enjoyed it, so we're thinking of doing that. So, we need to get busy buying bus tickets, booking hostels, reattempting this laundry thing, and still try to see some of Cusco before we head out. More soon!

Dear Cusco, What did I ever do to you?

meghan — Tue, 2 Nov 2010 22:00:00 GMT

Well, friends, to be honest, life in Cusco has been a little rough. But we leave on the Inca Trail bright and early tomorrow, so let us consider that a positive at the moment. [Assumed Editor's Note from my Mother: Please remember as you're reading this that Meghan can get just a tad dramatic at times.]

We recovered fairly quickly from the cramped and whirling bus ride up here, but Eric and I both developed some "traveler's sickness" and difficulty with the altidude on arriving in Cusco. Not knowing this would happen and having stayed at very quiet and not terribly social hostels in Lima, we decided to book the hostel that was described as the "packer's party pad" in the book: Hostel Loki Cusco. Now, if you'd like to stay awake until 4am drinking (and only speak English with Brits, Aussies & Americans), this place is lovely. This was never what we wanted or expected, as "party hostels" Eric's stayed at in the past have respected the ancient tradition of sleep and simply headed out of the hostel at the appropriate hour.

So... after not sleeping (and not getting better) for two nights, we summond the energy to pack up and walk a few blocks to another, quiet, lovely hostel. Hostel Mallqui. There's also a TV in our room, which has been a much appreciated luxury.

We had planned to arrive in Cusco serveral days before our trek since we've heard and read plenty about needing time to acclimate to the altitude. The effects were far more that I expected. Basically, I felt like I couldn't take a full breath for several days, developed a small cough, my heart raced, and I felt wiped out after a small set of stairs or a walk down the hall. On Monday, after our first night at Mallqui when we both felt a bit better, we decided to try to walk around Cusco. We wanted to determine if we were able to do the trek and needed to pay our balance by 7pm that day if we did. After a visit to the main square and a few attempts to find the Peru Treks office, I felt like I was going to faint and/or die. We stopped for lunch as the afternoon rain had just started, and I couldn't really go further. We started talking about not doing the trail and just taking the train up to see Machu Picchu.

We returned to our hostel, and I finally decided to give the altidude sickness pills I had had all along (and was supposed to start the day before going to a high altitude area) a try. (I know. I know. I know. I know.) We watched TV for an hour or two and then decided to try finding the Peru Treks office again, just to talk to them about the situation and learn our options. By the time we reached the end of our block, I realized I wasn't weazing, wasn't asking Eric to slow down, didn't want to die. I was actually walking faster than Eric and was less winded. In less than TWO HOURS! I felt great. We found the office this time, made sure they knew my concerns about how I had been feeling, and paid the remaineder of our bill. We're going, even if they have to drag me off the mountain. Yay!

And then I woke up today with a sore throat. Not too bad, but just another thing.

And then we took our laundry to a store around the corner, and they told us it would be ready at 5pm. We went back at 4:58 and the store was closed. We looked at the bill and the address only gave the street name which was several blocks over, no phone number. We went to that street to try to find it, thinking that maybe you pick up someplace else. No. We asked another laundry service on that block and they sent us back to the first street. Another laundry service was open on that block, so we asked them if they knew if they'd be open later or how to reach them (we leave at 5AM tomorrow) and they said it was closed. We went back to the hostel and ask the hostess. She made some calls to try to track our stuff down with no luck. Let me also explain that at this point I pretty much only had on what I was wearing plus a jacket and a free t-shirt from Peru Treks.

At 7 we decided to go into town to buy some essentials for me: socks, undies, and a spare pair of pants (needed in case it rains). I was half expectint to be mugged the whole time were were out, just because that'd be the cherry on the cake. We were fine. We finally found everything I needed (Eric had enough to get by) and headed back. On the way home, Eric joked, "You know they'll be open now." As we walked by that street, I looked up the hill and their sign was back out. "They're open!" I jumped, mostly happy, but still so, so frustrated. The store owner started apologizing as soon as we walked in. Apparently she had received a few calls about us. She explained that in Peru stores will close for part of the afternoon and reopen later. We knew that can happen, but the other store up the block said she was closed for the day. We told her it was fine; everything worked out. I think she told Eric we didn't have to pay or pay in full, but of course we did. We had our stuff back, and I have some... extras.

We greeted our hostel hostess with our two bags, smiling. She had offered to pick our stuff up tomorrow and put it in storage with our other things here until our return on the 6th, but now she didn't have to. We finished our packing, and here we are. In sum, Cusco for me has been the inside of hostels, whirling assents up paved roads, and perscription medication, and laundry held hostage. Cusco and I have some stuff to talk about, but it'll have to wait, because I have a date with a big ass mountain.

I'm still not feeling 100%, and I don't think Eric is either, but we're certainly on the mend. Our guide assured us, and we've heard from others, that you can go your own pace on the trail and there's a guide who stays with the front and a guide who stays with the caboose. Consider me your little red caboose, and think happy thoughts for me as I chug along.

Pictures when I return!

Love,

Meghan & the guy who deals with all her whining and for some reason still loves her

(Eric doesn't actually read these before I post them, so I can say that.)

Estamos en Cusco!

meghan — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 19:00:00 GMT

We safely arrived in Cusco a little after nine this morning, meaning that we we nearly two hours ahead of schedule, and THANK GOD! Twenty hours in a bus was absolutely no fun. I definitely got motion sick during the night, but Eric saved me with some calming music to put me to sleep for a while. It´s amazing what having something different to focus on can do. But the constant swaying of a bus plus switchbacks for, oh, 17 hours of the trip did it´s number on me.

And since Cusco is a mountain city we´re also adjusting to the altitude. Between that and the bus ride we decided to sleep all this afternoon to recover, which is what The Book say to do. Now we´re exploring our hostel, Hostel Loki Cusco, which is much more of a young, Aussie crowd from what I can tell. We´re up on a hill overlooking the city and the view is GORGEOUS! I can´t wait to watch a sunrise-it may rival my favorite in Athen´s Greece, but that´s a pretty high standard. I´ll upload pictures when I can.

We´re hanging out in Cusco for about 5 days before we head out on the Inka Trail.

Much Love,

Meghan & Eric

Photos: Lima

meghan — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 13:07:00 GMT

Out and about around Lima