First of all I apologize for not writing since April! I sometimes loose track of time down here (it´s true I often forget what day it is, sometimes what month but the worst I ever heard was when I heard a volunteer say “what year is it?”) and all the strange and funny things I experience that used to seem so blog worthy have become my everyday life. The little idiosyncrasies of Paraguayan culture have been accepted as just the way things are here. For example, on my way to the internet café to post this blog I was stopped by a car and a man got out with a video camera and asked if he could please interview me for the local news. I shrugged and said “I am in kind of a hurry, can we do this next week?” and he said that would be fine. I never even thought twice that these things NEVER happened to me back home. However, spending the last couple weeks hanging out with an American who is visiting from the states and is not a volunteer has helped shed some light that our lives really are kinda crazy down here. Watching her laugh hysterically as a pig comes into my kitchen as I’m cooking, or singing songs and dancing around in a classroom of kids made me realize peace corp volunteer’s lives kind of are like a funny reality TV show. I’ve written an extremely long blog about the Peru trip that I hope people can get through but I promise to keep you all more updated on the happenings of Paraguay in the month to come!
This is the Story of my 13 day trip to Peru and the 50 miles I covered in a hike to Machu Pichu.
Day 1-Wed night, Thursday
Another volunteer, Sarah and I took a 6 hour, overnight bus from our sites (both up in the department of Concepcion) to Asuncion. We arrived in the morning; spend a couple hours at the Peace Corps office, checking email and freshening up for our next leg of the trip-departure from Paraguay. We took a cab to the airport with our big backpacks and were as excited as two teenagers going to the DMV to get their license. We checked our bags in and went to our gate. It was 9:45 and our flight left at 10:00am. When I looked at the gate and didn’t see anyone boarding, I thought we surely must have missed our flight but then I saw a flight attendant approach the gate. I asked her about our flight and she said “oh no you didn’t miss it. It’ll be boarding any minute” Which in Paraguay means any day now. I laughed and thought “why am I not surprised that even the airport in Paraguay functions as relaxed and late running as everything else” We ordered a coffee while we waited to board our plane. We had a short, one hour flight to Buenos Aires and connected to another flight to Lima, Peru. It was an 8 hour flight, which made me realize just how far away Paraguay is from everything. We arrived at 11:45pm in Lima and met Sarah’s sister, Gretchen at the airport. She had just flown in from Cincinnati to meet Sarah. It was a fun, yet tired meeting. We still had another flight to catch, to Cuzco and that wasn’t until the next morning so we settled into a spot on the ground floor of the airport and started to doze off. I decided to explore the upstairs level of the airport to find toothpaste and toiletries since my toiletry bag went missing in the flight. When I went upstairs I thought I must have been hallucinating. First I saw a starbucks, then I saw a dunkin donuts, a Mc Donalds, a Papa Johns and several other American treats. I went into a little store and was overwhelmed with the amount of options for soap and toothpaste. I ran downstairs and woke sarah up. I couldn’t even express the excitement of what I had found, so I eventually stumbled out with “dude you have to come upstairs, it’s like Disneyland up there”. We migrated upstairs with our bags and each got 2 doughnuts, and a starbucks coffee. While we sat munching on sugar and caffeine, I said “ I LOVE Peru”.
Day 2-Friday
After a restless yet indulging night in the Lima airport, I got on a 5:30am flight to Cuzco. Sarah and Gretchen had to stay behind in Lima to go the Paraguayan embassy so Gretchen could get a Paraguayan visa so she could come back to Paraguay with us after our time in Peru. I arrived in Cuzco and took a taxi to our hostel. I was immediately in love with the city of Cuzco. It was bustling with life, restaurants, shops and lots and lots of tourists. After spending a year and half in the most non touristy country I’ve ever been to I was so glad to be somewhere where everything you could ever want to have on vacation was right within reach. I checked into our backpacking hostel, which was really nice, good priced but also felt somewhat like a college dorm. Who knew, that people who love to trek for miles and miles in the Andes mountains were also some of the biggest partiers I’ve even seen. Our hostel was even complete with a full bar and theme parties. I saw a sign advertising a Friday the 13th party that night. My room wasn’t ready yet since check out time wasn’t until 1pm. I put my bags in a storage room and took a nap in a hammock outside in the patio area. I slept for 2 hours and woke up with a sunburn on my arm but feeling well rested. I checked into my room and shortly after Sarah and Gretchen arrived, feeling exhausted but happy because they had obtained the visa. We explored Cuzco a little bit that night and found a great Mexican restaurant that also served Peruvian food. I quickly discovered that Peru makes amazing cream soups. I ate a cream of asparagus soup and the best veggie enchilada of my life. We went to bed early even though we could hear the buzz of the Friday the 13th party down the hallway of our hostel.
Day 3-saturday
We took a city tour of Cuzco, touring the cathedrals that the Spaniards built after tearing down the Incan temples, and some Incan ruins around the town. The streets of Cuzco are mostly cobblestone and the plazas are beautiful so in many ways it reminded me of being in southern Spain again. I enjoyed seeing the sites of the town but our tour guide was a jerk with a capital J. He wouldn’t allow us hardly any time to take pictures and kept telling our group that if we didn’t make it to the last site of the day it was our fault because we weren’t moving fast enough. We also missed half of what he was saying because he spoke so fast and he was speaking in Spanish. The English speaking tour was sold out so Sarah and I had to translate for Gretchen the whole time. Our translating skills became worse and worse as the tour went on. Eventually, I just told Gretchen “this painting, or this building is really old” and “he said something about the Inca’s again” We had another great dinner involving cream soups and a lot of cheese and hiked the 2 blocks up a stairway to our hostel. Luckily the altitude was not affecting me like I feared it might. Sarah and Gretchen on the other hand struggled up the steps, having to stop every 3 or 4 steps to rest and breathe normally. I did notice my heart was beating a lot faster than normal but I did not feel like I was struggling for oxygen. This put me at ease, knowing that in less than 48 hours I would be going on 5 day hike.
Day 4-Sunday
We originally had planned to take an all day tour of the sacred valley of the Incas (which extends miles outside of cuzco) but decided instead to relax, sleep in and make sure we were prepared for our trek the next day. The trekking company came to our hostel to show us a map of our trek, collect our money and inform us they would pick us up from our hostel the next morning for the trek. The best party of this day was when Sarah and I went for a short jog around the plaza and ran into a Peace Corps volunteer that finished her service in April and had been traveling in south America every since. She was a volunteer that even served a hour away from my site, who I used to hang out with a lot! She informed us there were 2 other volunteers that we knew who were in Peru too. They were on the same hike that we were going to start the next day!
Day 5
4am, Sarah’s alarm goes off and we quietly climb out of bed, get dressed and start to head out the door to put the things we will not need on the trek in the 24 hour storage room when sarah realizes her alarm clock is still on Paraguay time so it was really only 3am. I lay down in my bed again fully clothes and slept for another hour. The trekking company picked us up at 5am. While we waited we drank tea and chatted with other backpackers waiting for other companies to pick them up for their treks. We also watched amusingly as drunk partiers came back from the bars. One girl looked at me and said “wow, you guys are in a totally different state of mind, you’re like just getting up and starting your day for a trek and I’m like drunk and just going to bed” (she later asked someone if the hostel bar was still open) We got into the van and met the two other people that would be in our trek group. Criss and Hailey, both doctors from Nashville who were on a one week adventure vacation. Criss, short for Christine and Hailey-commonly a female name joked about how their names always caused a laugh.We drove about 2 ½ hours to a small town at the start of the trek. We ate breakfast and had our first lesson on coca leaves. Apparently coca leaves are great herbs for helping your body adjust to the altitude so we were served coca tea to help us get ready for our trek. We chatted with our new company a little bit and got to know each other. We were pleased to see that we were in great company, not just in the case of emergencies and in need of medical attention but because Criss and Hailey were world travelers, experienced trekers and very interested in hearing about our life in Paraguay. They had both run marathons and when they found out sarah and I were training for one in October gave us a lot of great tips. We had a great first day of hiking, it was mostly uphill but nothing too steep. In addition to having a great group we were pleased to see our guide was great too. He was a very friendly, intelligent 24 year old guy named Pabel, (though we called him Pablo the entire time because we thought that’s what he said). He told us in order to be a guide you have to study in the University for 5 years. They must learn about the culture, history, nature, how to deal with difficult people, basic first aide, and become conversational in English. We were impressed not only with the amount of education he had but with how much he really loved his job, and how passionate he was about the Incan traditions and history. He was a very spiritual person who enjoyed sharing all his knowledge with us. I don’t know what I was expecting on a 5 day trek in the Andes but I was so impressed with the service we received. Our big packs were carried on mules by the porters so all we had to carry was our day packs with our cameras, water and jacket. We hiked approximately 4-5 hours in the morning, ate a prepared lunch, always with soup, coca tea and a delicious main course. Then we continued through the afternoon until almost dark when we arrived at our camp site to find our tents already set up and our afternoon snack being prepared. We weren’t able to bathe but we were able to rest, change clothes, snack and then sit down to a delicious dinner. After dinner we crashed, our bodies feeling exhausted and our minds a bit pensive at the thought of the most challenging day of our trek laying ahead of us, hiking up to approximately 14,000ft.
Day 6
We were woken up at 5:30am by the porters. They brought coca tea to our tents so we could drink the tea in the comfort of our sleeping bags and start to wake up. We packed up our stuff and met a small picnic table for breakfast. We informed we needed to drink a lot of coca tea and chew on the dry coca leaves as much as possible because today we would be climbing to approximately 14,000ft to the Salkantay pass on Salkantay mountain. Gretchen had been having problems the previous day with her asthma and decided it would be best to ride a mule named Pepito up to the pass. The rest of us, huffed and puffed and took baby steps all the way up the pass. We felt accomplished and tired and completely in awe at how beautiful the mountain was. It snow covered and the air was thin. Pabel led us in a small Incan ceremony that involved blowing coca leaves into the air to the east, west, sun and earth and then made a wish and put the leaves under a rock. We took a group picture and started the descend. We ate lunch and spent 5 hours hiking in the afternoon to our next camp site. We were exhausted but informed the next day would be completely downhill and we would walk through a completely different eco-system, descending into jungle.
DAY 7- Wed MY BIRTHDAY
The night before someone had informed the guide it was my bday the following day. We were woken up at 5:30 with coca tea like normal but when we sat down to breakfast Pablo told me the cook had a special treat for me. The cook, nicknamed David Copperfield brought me out a birthday cake that said in English Happy Birthday Jill! It had frosting and sprinkles and everything and was made without an oven in the middle of the mountains. I was so impressed and we all enjoyed a piece of cake with our breakfast. Hiking downhill was less challenging than climbing up the pass but it was still hard on the knees and the toes. My feet were covered in blisters, one that was “one of the biggest Pablo had ever seen”. Luckily at the end of the day, we camped at a site where we were able to take a bus to some hot springs, where we were finally able to soak our tired bodies and feel somewhat clean again. When we returned to our campsite we were treated to a feast for dinner. We drank a few beers and bought a few for Pabel too in celebration of my birthday and then went to bed.
Day 8-Thursday
We woke up and packed our stuff up. We were given the option of hiking in the morning for 4 hours along a fairly unsenic route, then take a train to the town of Aguas Calientes (near Machu Pichu) or take a bus in the morning and then walk along the train tracks to Aguas Calientes. We decided it sounded like more fun to walk along the tracks so we waited for a mini van to come pick us up from our campsite. While we waited we took pictures of a baby monkey that has a reputation of roaming around the campsite looking for food. It was cute but I was not stupid enough to touch it. When we got to the train station, we ate lunch and said goodbye to our porters and our cook. We tipped them generously for their hard work and enjoyed one last meal from David Copperfield. After lunch we walked for about 3 ½ hours along the railroad tracks to the town of Aguas Calientes. Aguas Calientes (which means hot waters-because there are hot springs here too) is about 5 miles from Machu Pichu. Our trek included a night’s stay in a hotel here and a dinner in a restaurant. Agues Calientes is a tourist trap town packed with restaurants, bars, shops, street musicians and venders everywhere. We loved it. It seems the economic stratedgy of this town was to offer 3 for 1 and 4 for 1 drink specials in every restaurant so as to keep the tourists nice and intoxicated. Everyone knows intoxicated tourists spend more money. Most of my souvenir purchasing happened here, not just because of that but because Peru has such amazing Artisan crafts. Everything is so colorful and wonderful. There are sweaters, socks, mittens, and hats made of Alpaca which is so warm. There are beautiful tablecloths, rugs, purses, plates and beautiful traditional flute musicians performing and selling their CDs everywhere. We told Gretchen to go ahead and get all her souvenirs here since Paraguay offers very little in the way of shopping. We ran into the two other peace corps volunteers in this town, they were a day ahead of us on the trek and had just finished their tour of Machu Pichu. We were going to Machu Pichu the next morning.
Day 9-Friday
We woke up VERY early and met our group at 5am. We were led by Pabel to a line than ran down the street for blocks. This was the line for the buses that run to Machu Pichu. Buses run every 15-20 min and every one is packed with tourists from all over the world. We boarded a bus and rode a very windy 30 min ride up to the entrance of Machu Pichu. Because Machu Pichu is considered Incan territory we got Machu Pichu stamps in our passports. Pabel gave us a concise explanation of what Machu Pichu was and a brief history: It was a city where the higher class incans lived. It’s called a “Lost City” but it was more like a sanctuary where priests, high functionaries, craftsmen, servants and virgins chosen to dedicate their life to the sun god lived. The Incans ruled in the 1300 and 1400s but Machu Pichu wasn’t even discovered until 1911, when Hiram Bingham basically stumbled upon it. The city took approximately 50-70 years to build but it was only used for less than a 100 years because the Spaniards conquered the empire in the 1500s. The Spaniards found and torn down many Incan temples but they never found Machu Pichu. They built it on a steep mountain that was practically invisible from the trails below. Although it was on a slope but the Incans still managed to farm the land on narrow terraces. The houses had straw roofs (the same kind which Sarah laughed she actually has on her house in Paraguay) which are long gone but you can see the outline of the roof still in stone. The stones that the Incans used were carried often from miles away, we’re talking HUGE stones that were pulled and pushed using a system of ramps and poles. It was hard to imagine how they must have moved the materials in the type of landscape we were in. It’s no wonder the Incan culture looked down so much on laziness, if you were lazy there is no way you could have survived in those mountains. Everyone had to carry their own weight. What amazes people most about this place is the way the rocks were cut and assembled. Eveywhere you look, in every room there are hidden secrets in the construction. There are shapes of llamas in the walls, still functioning aqueducts, special windows that allow the sun’s rays to cast through at certain hours of the day or only on the solstice for celebrations and religious activities, alters where llama sacrifices were done and tombs. You could spend days looking for all the details in every room but I enjoyed just walking around and imagining what it must have been like for Hiram Bingham to come across this place. It was covered in vines and debris when he found it and there were two families living in a part of it who said they did not disturb any part of it other than their house because they didn’t want to anger the spirits. He brought back an expedition to help clear away the vines and clean it up. They thought it was inaccessible until they discovered the Inca trail that cuts through to the valley in the 1940s. The city was abandoned and all the mummies and gold were taken into the jungle when the Incans fled from the Spaniards. It’s a miracle it was never found and survived in such great condition. We enjoyed the day walking around and said goodbye to Pabel our guide. When he was leaving he told us that the next day was the winter solstice and he invited us to come with him to a solstice celebration in the morning. We accepted the invitation.
Day 10 –Saturday
We woke up at 4:30 and met Pabel at 5:20 in the plaza. Gretchen decided to pass on the solsitice celebration to sleep in but Sarah and I climbed sleepy eyed and cold into a taxi with pabel and Criss and Hailey for a 40 min ride to Sacasayhuaman, a military complex overlooking Cuzco built by the Incas. Every year on June 24th there is a huge solstice celebration here but Pabel informed us the real Incan tradition was to celebrate it today, the 21st. The Spaniards apparently changed the date later. Pabel was part of small organization that carried on the original celebration of the Incas. We were the only 4 tourists there (other than a photographer who looked like he might be working for National Geographic or something like that) and had to bribe someone to be allowed to participate. We stood around in the cold, dark morning wondering when it would start. When the sun started to rise a group of men and woman dressed in costumes and carrying props gathered in a group and raised their hands to salute the sun. We followed the example. Then the chief (or leader of the group) said a prayer in the traditional language of Quecuha (so we didn’t understand a thing). He then led the group through a small opening in a cave. Pabel told us they were going to crawl though the cave and come out the other side of the rock to be reborn into a new year. We asked if we could do it too and he said yes so we got in line. I was behind Pabel and the first of the gringos to enter. I soon had to duck down low and within seconds everything went pitch dark. I could no longer see Pabel or anything else. I heard his voice say “stay to the left”. I put my hand on the wall and suddenly felt claustrophobic. I was crouched down so low I almost had to put my hands on the ground and I had no idea how much smaller the space was going to get or how much further I had to go. A few seconds later I saw light begin to enter the tunnel and breathed a sigh of relief as I was reborn out the other side. It was my favorite part of the ceremony, though a little scary. We then gathered in a big circle and listened to various prayers. Someone passed out 4 coca leaves to each person in the circle and we watched (a little bit in horror) as we realized each person in the circle had to go up to the chief, bow in front of him , then blow the leaves in the 4 directions and put them in a fire and make a wish. We were allowed to go in pairs. Criss went with Pabel and I watched closely because I was next. Hailey (a 6’4 red head) and I walked up to the chief bowed, then blew our leaves to the east, west, north and south. We then put our leaves in the fire and went back to the circle. I took pictures of Sarah when it was her turn but she said she was so nervous she forgot to take pictures of me. Criss said hailey and I looked great because we were so in unison. Criss whispered to me “I air-balled” meaning her leaves fell onto the ground instead of the fire. We giggled as we watched the rest of the ceremony. No wonder tourists aren’t allowed. We did great at the next part though, which was when a woman blew on a giant shell horn and we danced and hopped as we ran in a circle. I heard one onlooker laugh and say “look at those gringos!” but we didn’t care, we were having a blast. When the ceremony was over pabel offered to give us a tour of the sacred valley (for a fee of course) but we liked the idea of going with him instead of a big group. Criss and Hailey had to catch a flight back to Nashville but Sarah and I agreed to meet pabel at 10:30 for the tour. We went back to the hostel to get Gretchen and eat breakfast, then headed out for our tour. We toured more Incan ruins and a llama farm where we got to feed and pet all different kinds of alpacas and llamas. We finished our day at 8:30pm and immediately crashed.
Day 11-Sunday
This was our last day to enjoy Cuzco so we did just that. Walked around town, shopped, ate lunch, watched a parade in town and Sarah and Gretchen ate Alpaca meat (which they say was good and tasted like flavorful steak) Sarah debated trying Guinea pig but passed because you had to order it 24 hours in advance and pick out your own guinea pig.
Day 12 and 13-Monday- Tuesday
Rode a 22 hour bus ride to see the countryside back to Lima. Most of the ride was in the mountains, on switchback roads. Sarah threw up 3 times from car sickness but I took 2 benedryl and passed out. We arrived in Lima after a very long bus ride and when passing through Lima I felt better about not spending any time there. It looked like a big, unattractive city with no personality. The coastline looked pretty depressing but sarah and Gretchen said they saw one nice beach with surfers when they went to get the Paraguayan visa. I was shocked at the amount of KFCs I saw everywhere. I also saw a Chili’s and a TGI Fridays. (these things catch my attention now) We debated getting a taste of American cuisine before heading to the airport but decided to get Papa John’s pizza at the airport instead. Eating American style pizza after 17 months without it was like heaven and the perfect end to our trip. We boarded our plane and headed back to Paraguay. I sat next to a woman that threw up continually throughout the flight, using her barf bag and all of our surrounding neighbors but luckily I still had some benedryl to knock me out so I wouldn’t suffer too much.
When we arrived in Paraguay, Gretchen could immediately tell this was not like Peru and that she was in for a different kind of adventure. Sarah took her to spend 6 days in her site in the middle of nowhere and then brought her to my site in the city to talk on my radio show and help make play-dough with kids at the after school program I work at. I asked her what she thought of Paraguay and she said they went to many people´s houses to eat lunch, drink terere, etc and that everyone said the same thing every time. That they looked alike, they asked who was older-said that sarah looked so much older than Gretchen even though Gretchen is older, asked if she liked Paraguay and if she was happy. Gretchen said by the end of the week, she could understand the guarani because everyone said the same things in a conversation. They asked if she liked terere and chipa and asked if they had those things in the states, even though sarah has lived in that community for a year and a half and has already told them the U.S does not have terere nor chipa. She was also shocked at the amount of attention an American woman gets from Paraguayan men (in a very rude, annoying way) We just laughed and said “yeah, we’ve been having the same boring conversations with people for over a year. Paraguayans just don’t really talk about much other than the weather or small town gossip”. They will probably be talking about Gretchen for months since she´s the most interesting thing to come around in a long time. We all traveled together again to go to the 4th of July party at the American Embassy, where we met all the other volunteers and enjoyed burgers (or veggie burgers) hot dogs, potato salad, beans and beer sold by the marines. I was tempted to join them for a trip to the waterfalls on the border of Argentina but I had to pass because I need to get back to my work and relationships with people in site and stop neglecting my dog. It’s winter vacation right now in the schools and I am hosting another camp for the kids in my neighborhood next week. I brought back alpaca hats for all my host siblings and an alpaca sweater for my host mom. It’s not cold enough for them to wear them right now though because this has been an unusually hot winter. Most days I can wear a t shirt and shorts still. I miss the cold mountains of Peru already and I think I’m suffering a little from post vacation blues but overall things are going very well and I can’t believe I’m on the downhill slope. I only have 9 months left in my service and there’s still so much I want to do while I am here, starting with posting more blogs before I forget this all. Keep reading!
