So the biggest news first - as always, there is some terrible music playing in this internet cafe, some sappy spanish love song laid over 80´s electronic melodies and the occasional discordant honking-beeping noise... however, this time... wait for it... I recognized a CONJUGATED verb!!! Fantastico! Mission accomplished, headed home. Well, not quite, I guess we are only about halfway down the continent and several months ahead of the scheduled departure date. Well then, bring on more verbs!
The spanish studies kinda took a nosedive in Huanchaco, perhaps due to the utter laid-back-ed-ness that results from a sun drenched, surf and food inundated lifestyle... but its back up and running in our most recent home - Huaraz-of-the-mountains. We really had no idea what to expect, and as usual, had a bit of an unexpected delay in getting here... stayed in Trujillo for a night (goes on the list of really pointless places to be) and a day, which luckily ended the supreme fashion that the nomadic lifestyle sometimes provides... we found ourselves knocking on a dark wooden door, inset into the wall of buildings on a side street, bordered by a little golden plaque inscribed with the single word ¨stradavarius¨. After the third knock, a man appeared at our elbow, and happily produced the key... let us in and proceeded to open up the whole bar, put on some seriously needed jazz music, and deliver a couple of delightful cocktails. Oh, and Trujillo also had a three room Museo Del Jugete - Museum of Toys, which was totally unexpected and to anyone who knows me and my 10 year obsession with building minutely perfect dollhouses, quite obviously a great find.
Y despues... a nightbus (Peru´s buses are like airplanes... they have leather seats and meals, and never, ever speed. I love them) to Huaraz. We landed in early morning, which turns out to be the best time to get a full 360 degree view of the Himalayan-like peaks that surround this bustling metropolis in a valley. Really, there is no way to describe the magnificence of this place. We read that the peaks are anywhere from 5k to 6.5k meters... or a little over 16 - 22 thousand feet high. You can see creeping glaciers, the size of entire mountain faces, covered with what looks like whipped cream (and according to Touching the Void are actually called merengues and cream puffs) and sheer jagged peaks that are blindingly white in the sun that shines for the first half of every day. On one side of the valley is the Cordillera Negra, y al otro lado es la Cordillera Blanca. Although we were immediately inspired to strap on our silly sneakers and book laden packs and start hiking, good sense prevailed and a fantastic little cafe with REAL CHAI distracted us. The next day we just couldn´t wait, and set off, well-equipped (in Spencer´s opinion) and woefully unprepared (in mine) for the 6 hour hike that followed, through a pretty field in the foothills, over a happy, sunny ridge, and then up a screamingly steep, waterfall drenched, white knuckle rock face that at one point (though the memories have been supressed in an effort at self preservation) found me bawling, hanging onto Spencer´s ankle for dear life, and cursing my own stubborn inability to turn around when the going gets tough, i.e. vertical. Turns out it was worth it (since we lived)... the turquoise blue lake with totally clear water and deep green underwater grasses at the foot of a snowy incline and a glacial valley was quite the sight. If there is a god, that is my church.
Por supuesto, it took two days of wandering around Huaraz, and debating the voices in my head, to get me back out on the trail. The choices were either 1. pay $42/day for a guide, a cook, 3 fancy meals, a table and chairs, dining tent, sleeping tent, donkeys to carry our gear, and all the free hot chocolate we could intake, or 2. rent gear, obtain a hand drawn map, and ask a series of 8 people around town just where the overcrowded collectivo took off from to get us first to a spot on the side of the road, and then in another taxi (think a station wagon with 10 people in it) to the most out of the way, picturesque little village about an hour up into the mountains - aptly named Honkopampa, and boastign ruins that I thought were cooler than any we´ve seen before. There were all these big arched doorways that clearly led to alternate dimensions in space and time, but to my deepest shame, I just couldn´t quite step through them... even after a childhood spent devouring the fantasy novels in the young adults section of Latah County Public Library. Man...
The backpacking trip was just what we needed to remind us exactly of our place in this world, as nature often does. We were immediately lost, practically crawling on hands and knees through the Akilpo forest, full of red paper bark Polylepsis trees, rushing waterfalls, unidentifiable large animal droppings, and very small frogs. After battling the vegetation for a few hours, (ruefully concluding that the main character in the terrible romance novel I just read, Elizabeth Bonner, (a English lady recently arrived in the New World and wed to a dashing and brave Native American) had made it sound overly easy to immediately become a wilderness adept, weaving soundlessly and trace-less-ly through the woods... As I yelped and heaved against the millionth thorn tree I had caught my head on) we found a great big boulder right next to a huge waterfall on which to pitch the tent. We even attempted to go a little bit further up the valley, towards the fabled Lago Akilpo, but when Spencer saw the Big Black Thing in the Cave with the Eyes Shining Out, and made the mistake of TELLING me, I was charging back to the tent to zip myself in for the day and night, fruitlessly convincing myself that the rain that started about an hour later would keep all bad things away, because as everyone knows, animals with teeth, malevolent Inca spirts, and serial killers all hate to go out in the rain, right?
It was a great trip, overall... woke up to the sun rising over the entire mountain range, found the actual path for the hike out, and also, incidentally invented Tent Yoga (which we will soon make into an instructional video and sell in infomercials on the shopping channel). Another day spent yesterday just enjoying the views from the 5th floor balcony in our hostel - and talking to a UC Boulder grad student that we found by the fireplace - discussing everything under the sun in the realm of Peruvian municipal governments and their forestry and agricultural policies. I pretty much wanted to put this man in my backpack and take him out whenever I crave political and economic discussion and Spencer is performing that incredible feat of tuning out absolutely every other noise but that one Malian chord that he will practice over and over and over and over and then look up to ask you ¨Have you ever heard anything more beautiful??¨ It´s a good thing we have similar souls, because our topics of discussion can be totally divergent!
So, its one more massive pot of chai from the California Cafe, in this oddly Nepali town in Peru, and then off on a nightbus to Lima, where we hope to catch Dan´s friend for dinner and then get our booties down to that Sacred ol´valley for some BradKira quality time and some vibing with the spirits of Macchu Picchu. Love to you all, and check out the new photos.
hollolly
