Life at 2380 meters

Eating in the land of carbs
Some of you have heard my stories about eating in Argentina - all beef all the time - and the fibre/vegetable withdrawl that I went through when I was travelling there. Well Peru is exactly the same but replace meat with rice and potatoes. I realized very early that Peru was not exactly going to be vegetarian-friendly; despite the plethora of vegetables, lentils and beans grown here...they don´t eat them! I have a new theory about why much of the produce in North America comes from South America: they don´t eat it so the only alternative is to export.

In one of the photos you will see a picture of a meal my host mum cooked for us and her family (I took it for you Gloria). After over a year of pushing healthy eating at HHS, that food plate (and now Frisbee) is burned into my brain. In essence: half your plate should be vegetables, one quarter starch and the other protein. This particular dish was half white rice and half french fry-tuna hash...and there was a side of white (croissant) bread. From a public health perspective, Peru must be a diabetes gold mine.

That being said, the food is fairly tasty...although, you´ll be hard pressed to find a dish that doesn´t include meat, cheese, milk and potatoes (and of course rice). My "travellers diet" has been somewhat compromised by the massive quantities of carbs and the incredibly cheap baked goods sold everywhere.

There are somethings that you should NEVER do when you don´t have a VERY firm grasp on the language...getting a haircut is one of them.

I should have realized that it would end badly when instead of pulling out scissors, the 50-something hairdresser started blow drying/styling my semi-wet hair. But I was stubborn; I desperately needed a hair cut, I wanted to practice my Spanish and the price seemed right - only 6 soles, $2.20. You know how people say that somethings are too good to be true, well this was too cheap to be good. I may be exaggerating slightly, but I think it looks like a grown out mullet. Off the back, she took only half an inch. Off the front...about 4. From my chin, my hair now makes roughly a 45 degree dissension to the "party in the back". Apparently "layers" has a whole different meaning in Peru.

The debate now rages: do I risk another hair cut to try to match the front (bringing along a bilingual helper) or would a hat be a better investment. Clearly I need more Spanish school...

Venturing into one of the deepest canyons in the world:
Mike and I decided to do the colca canyon trek without a guide because all the books and people we talked to said that doing it yourself perfectly safe and easy. And so, with our not-to-scale map in hand, we boarded the bus at 1 am on Friday night. Not only was the bus freezing, but whenever it neared even the smallest village or turned a bend on the zig zaggy road, the driver would lean on the horn. (I´ve since learned that on the buses here, the horn is foot pedal; this makes being really irritating that much easier). Also, as we stopped in these little towns, more and more people crowded onto the bus. Around 2:30 am Mike and I woke up to this obviously impoverished Peruvian woman sitting on the floor next to me and starring at Mike and I.

Buses in Peru are never places where you feel completely safe. However, when I packed for this trip, I took only the things that if they got stolen, it wouldn´t be the end of the world. The memory card for my camera is the exception to this...especially when I forget to back up the pictures. So, as I tried to sleep on the frigid honking bus with the semi-sketchy lady sitting next to me, I decided that she could steal my camera if she wanted, but my memory card would be safely stashed in the ever useful hidden travellers pocket...my bra. At 5:45 Mike wakes me up because we have reached Cruz del Condor, the viewing point for Condors at the start of the trek. We stumbled out of the bus, I was barely able to open my eyes because my contacts were so dry and at 3000m + it´s cold at 6am.

The sun wasn´t up yet and there were no birds in sight, so I walked a bit down the road to go pee. By the time I got back, the mountains and sky looked totally magical, a definite Kodak moment in the making! I went to take a picture, realized that my memory card wasn´t in there and tried to retrieve it...but...it...wasn´t...there. In retrospect, I´m not sure how I didn´t throw up on the spot. 5 weeks of photos, all of Machu Picchu, were on my memory card. I thought it must have fallen out on the bus (meaning that the semi-sketchy woman would have won), so the park official was trying to call ahead to the next town while I rechecked my pockets over and over again. Mike, totally calm despite the fact that I´d just erased our trip, suggested I retrace my steps. Back I went to the pee spot...and there it was! No I didn´t pee on it, it was in the middle of the road, but I´m now convinced that good camera karma is the most essential thing to have when you´re travelling.

Condors are these huge birds with a wing span of about 3 meters (10 feet). Around 630 or 7 they came out to feed. Now remember, Mike and I didn´t have a guide and knew nothing about these birds. It was really awesome to see them at a distance, but when they started flying 10 meters above our head, we were a bit concerned that WE might be breakfast... With my hiking/bird-defence stick in hand, we vamos-ed out of there and set off for the official entrance to the trek which was supposed to be 45 minutes away. An hour and 15 minutes later, we found it (TIP#1: Peruvians ALWAYS underestimate time), but the path seemed to end 100 meters from the start. For about 20 minutes we tried to figure out where to go and then decided that the path next to this random aqueduct must be it...unfortunately it was about 40 meters down and the sandy mountainside was not that easy to descend. Take a look at the photo of Mike bouldering down the last few meters...

We walked for about 30 minutes, not seeing any other tourist or local, constantly trying to figure out where the actual path we were supposed to be on was, crawling-ish through caves. At some point we decided that we were definitely going the wrong way. So we turned around to go back, through the cave/tunnel, and after about 15 minutes ran into a proper guide. Apparently the trail head started in the next town...another hour in the direction that we had just come from. So back we went through the cave (again!) and ended up at Cobanaconde. By this point it was around 12. The original trek that we wanted to do was 7 hours and involved descending the mountain on this side of the canyon, climbing half way up the mountain on the other side, walking between towns, descending again and staying in The Oasis at the bottom. BUT it was noon and we had already walked for 15 kms and, to be completely honest, I had lost all desire to see the other towns or climb any mountains. So we did a very dusty and very hot 3 hour walk, going down 1000 meters to the Oasis.

And it truly was an oasis. Unlike the mountainside we had just descended, at the Oasis there were trees and lush grass, a turquoise swimming pool and a bar serving cold cervasas! Our reed hut was 10 soles each ($3.50) and was right next to the waterfall that fed the swimming pool...heaven. Well almost. Although during the day the canyon was an oven, at night it was freezing...and reed huts are not exactly insulating. Despite 3 wool blankets, 3 layers of clothing and my hat, Mike almost had a bed mate in the middle of the night.

Sunday morning we got up early so that we could do the hike in the morning before it got really hot. TIP #2: Try to get in shape before you go to Peru. Carrying an extra 5 or 10 lbs/kilos REALLY sucks when you´re lugging it up a mountain side at 3000 meters. 3 and a half hours later we arrived dirty, smelly and probably dehydrated back at the bus having somewhat concurred Colca Canyon.

South is not synonymous with hot
I knew that I was coming to South America in their winter however in my haste to leave Sweden, I didnt do enough research abut temperatures. Even though Peru is a lot closer to the ecuator than Canada or Sweden, when you live at 2500+ meters in the winter...it´s COLD. At night it gets down to somewhere between 0 and 8 degrees which wouldn´t be so bad if the houses had insulation or heating...which they don´t. And concrete blocks don´t exactly have a cozy feel to them.

Also, Arequipa is in the desert. I haven´t seen rain for at least a month (Susan, I finally understand what you meant when you said that you missed rain in Australia). TIP #3: If you´re coming here, bring LOTS of moisturizer.

I joke that I´m allergic to Peru, but I think it might be partly correct. Between how dry everything is here, the lack of trees and rain and the inessent pollution, I have been "sick" for a month.

Other notably funny occurrences:
Yesterday, enroute to the hair massacre, I walked by a semi-briefcase like thing sitting on the sidewalk. It was only when it started clucking and crowing did I realize that in this instance, the leather satchels contained chickens.

Did you know, according to my Spanish teacher, that only "the gays" eat yogurt and granola for breakfast? Seriously. What would she think of Vancouver?

On one of the city buses Mike and I were on enroute to volunteering, the driver "power napped" at every traffic light. It´s also common on these buses for passengers to get off while the bus is still moving. I haven´t mastered/tried this trick yet.

Last night I went to a Peruvian birthday party. They brought sharing drinks to a whole new, public health nightmare, level. Plus, there was confetti, party hats, balloon animals and to many of the peruvians, the floor of this person´s house was a giant ashtray.