More Peru: There's Kinda A Lot To See

7/12/2011

With my Machu Picchu trek only days away, and the entire city of Cusco to explore, I find myself at a loss for summarizing the past week of my journey. As I sit in our hostel's internet cafe, with the sun pouring down on the crowded Plaza de Armas only minutes away, I can't help but want to throw together a blog as quickly as possible, and then partake in a solid session of people watching/beer drinking. Then again, with what has happened in the past 7 days, it doesn't seem fair to rush through it too quickly. Regardless, we'll see how this goes.

Leaving the mountainous peaks of Huaraz behind, my journey continued back to the coast, visiting the overly-populated capital of Lima. A city described by many as a place "to leave as fast as you arrived," our brief 8 hour stint in Lima between bus journeys actually afforded a decent view of this infamously unpopular location. After several hours of wandering the "upperclass" Miraflores neighborhood (high-end shops and casinos galore), an amazing $10 sushi lunch (probably top 5 in my life) and a visit to the highly-Americanized seafront mall (they had a TGI Friday's AND a Chili's if that says anything), I give Lima the following verdict: Amazing food, "eh" everything else.

After departing from the hazy fog along Lima´s coast which apparently plagues this city 364 days of the year, the next stop on the never-ending exploration of Peru took us to Huacachina - A literal oasis in the middle of the desert. Comprised of all of 100 citizens (I'm starting to enjoy these ridiculous small villages overrun by tourists), Huacachina is known for one thing, and one thing only: Sand Boarding. For $15, you are provided with a 2-hour sand boarding experience which includes taking a 12-16 person dune buggy at ridiculous fast speeds over towering sand dunes, before throwing yourself down these hundred foot sand mountains (best substitute I could find for sand dune) on a modified snowboard. My fondest memory of this amazing experience is the look on our drivers face, as he grinned with glee while taking us airborn over the dunes. Literally the best job ever.

Other highlights of Huacachina:

Restaurant where kitchen = microwave. It was not good.
16-bed dorm room situated directly next to disco (i.e. we shared the same wall). Exhaustion from Santa Cruz trek, and sleepless Lima bus voyage provided me with a perfect night's sleep, despite, what I've been told was thumping bass until 6AM as well as the following drunken conversation between Laura and a friend: Drunken Convo Reenactment

After several days in the desert, our path led us back into the Andes, where my journey shall remain for at least the next month. Arriving into Arequipa, a beautiful city known for it's... beautifulness, I leave you with the highlights:

Go-Karting - Our hostel´s ¨activity of the day,¨ $4 bought our group 4 races around the track. All I can say is car #17 is unbeatable, car #6 is the worst, and a small 10 year old kid who´s parents obviously dumped him off at the track for the day dominated everyone.
Monesterio de Santa Cantalina - Regarded as the most awe-striking sight in Arequipa, while quite pretty, I was not overly impressed by our 2 hour tour of "nunery quarters" -- Empty rooms comprised of uncomfortable beds, and various pots, pans and kerosene lamps. Best part of the day was joking that there was probably a disco in the monastery, and walking through a locked door to find a... disco in the monastery. Amazing. A literal South American Sister Act every night I can only imagine.
Colca Canyon Trek - 2-day trek into the 2nd deepest canyon in the world, a trek about which I would normally blog in significant detail, yet instead, I leave you only with the photos below and some brief "sub-highlights":
- Wake-up at 3am to catch our bus to the canyon, after a more-than-entertaining night spent in the baño thanks to whatever disease plagued my food the day before.
- Stop off at "Cruz Del Condor" - A viewpoint of the famous Andean Condor (wingspan of over 10 feet) which basically entails several dozen tour buses of people staring into the distance as small black objects float through the sky (after of course waiting 30 minutes for them to actually appear).
- Hiking Day 1 - 2 hour hike down into the canyon before being treated to a fairly appetizing lunch of pizza-flavored soup and alpaca stew, 3 hours hiking more, arrive at our "oasis" at the bottom of the canyon where our group partakes in a freezing cold swim, some card playing, a carb-friendly dinner of pasta, potatoes and rice, and then sleep.
- Hiking Day 2 - Wakeup at 5am to partake in the "grueling 3-3.5 hour" hike back out of the canyon. As I am now officially an acclimatized hiking machine, I dominate in 2 break-less hours.
- Additional Post-Hiking Activities: See some Llama's and Alpaca's, eat some Llama's and Alpaca's, visit some more Llama's and Alpaca's.