I'm Back!

Hello my friends. I have returned. Yes, I realize that in order to have a successful blog, one should not post irregularly and then disappear for three months. The problem with maintaining a travel blog is this: if you don't have a device that connects to the internet it is extremely difficult to post! The last time I traveled (in 2006), internet cafes were ubiquitous and most hostels had computers for guests to use. It was extremely rare to see someone dragging around a heavy laptop. However now, with the advent of netbooks and "smart" phones (I use quotations because I doubt the intelligence of this inanimate object) most hostels and public transportation hubs offered.... wifi! Alas, aside from a camera and ipod nano, I was free from technology during the 2.5 months I spent in South America.

I'm not going to give a complete recap of my travel experience right now, rather I will refer back to certain events along the way as they relate to my current life trying to adjust back into society. In a nutshell, in Peru I learned how to be ME again, to live in the moment, and how to love. In Ecuador I encountered disaster after disaster and learned to have patience (a difficult endeavor). And in Costa Rica, I finally felt inner peace and equanimity and was fully able to embrace the now.

And now I'm back! I arrived back in Northern California in mid-August and I'm trying to find work. I feel the effects of the recession as I try to look for jobs. Formerly paid jobs are now unpaid internships, and competition is extremely high among jobs that I'm overqualified for anyway. So I've been picking up odd-jobs. Yeah, I make next to nothing and have hardly any hours a week, but I'm happy. I have no regrets about quitting my financially stable career at a desk where I was miserable so I could travel the world. Even though I'm home, every day continues to be an adventure.

Home Sweet Home

Lago Titicaca

As transcribed from my journal on July 2, 2011:

Floating Island

I`m writing this on a boat crossing Lake Titicaca. Unfortunately, it`s rather unimpressive. I had heard how beautiful this lake was, but it appears that these people have never visited on a cloudy, dreary, rainy day. We visited Isla Oros whih is actually about 60 or so tiny islands constructed from reeds by the Aymara people. Apparently, you can do alot with reeds- build islands, build houses, eat them, etc. I signed up to go on the day trip with Scottish James. We are the only two people in my hostel. Such a change from the party hostel I just left! James is in the same place in life as I - quit his job to go traveling after everyone told him it was a bad idea. Poor guy has to put up with little sick me. Yes, I got sick (with a cold, not food poisoning). It`s very curious that I`ve been in Peru for almost a month and haven`t gotten food poisoning, even though I eat everything I`m not supposed to: street food and raw fruit and vegetables. No, I caught a cold from a girl on the Inca Trail. Luckily I got sick AFTER visiting Machu Picchu. Coincidentally, the weather got really bad in Cusco the day after I finished with Machu Picchu (once again, lucky for me!).

Boat made from reeds on Lake Titicaca

My last day in Cusco was quite fun. Scottish Andy (who was my friend for all the time I spent in Cusco) and I took advantage of the rainy day by continuously finding places to eat at. I think we shared about 5 meals together that day as the Inca Trail had expanded both of our stomachs! We even found a coffee shop. A REAL coffee shop. It`s very curious that Peru exports delicious coffee beans, but everyone here drinks instant coffee. They also drink tea, or mate (meaning herbal tea). Here are your choices for tea: black tea, chamomile, anis, lemongrass, and coca. Peruvians believe that coca leaves cure EVERYTHING. Anyway, Scottish Andy and I went dancing at the bar in the hostel until 2am, which seems late but since the bars in Cusco close around 5am (if ever), it really wasn`t that late. We kept joking that we were the only ones who could actually appreciate the 90s pop music they were playing because we were a proper age when the music originally came out and the 19-year-old gap year kids in the hostel had barely been born!

One benefit of visiting Puno was learning more about the strikes during the month of June. A kind woman working at my hostel explained to me, albeit in spanish, that the majority of people in the Puno area are farmers. Apparently, the government based in Lima signed a document granting a foreign company the mineral rights in the agricultural lands around Puno. Therefore, the farmers and inhabitants of Puno went on strike. A number of people were killed and you can still see the aftermath of the protests (broken windows, etc). Downtown Puno is a ghost town right now as far as tourism is concerned because people are too afraid to visit. However, hooray for the protesters because the government signed a document saying that they will no longer sell the mineral rights. YAY! As I learned in my rangeland class, mining in third world countries can have an extremely negative effect on the agricultural land which the local native people need to farm in order to survive.

Anyway, Lake Titicaca proved to be rather disappointing. It`s cold (freezing!) and I hate being cold, dreary, and over-commercialized. I`ve been in many tiny villages in Peru, but I got the impression that the native folk on these islands were faking it for the tourists. So I`m going to take my frozen self and head north. I hear it`s warmer near the equator.

Plaza de Armas - Arequipa

UPDATE July 3, 2011
This morning I arrived at the bus station in Puno with a bus ticket to Cusco in hand. But at the last minute I decided I didn`t want to go back to Cusco. So at the very last minute I bought a ticket to return to Arequipa. I figured that if I was going to be sick somewhere then it should be somewhere familiar and comfortable, not as cold, and at a lower elevation. So I jumped on a local bus (as opposed to the swanky tourist buses that I`ve been taking) and made the journey back to Arequipa. The bus was disgusting and packed with people, and if I hadn`t been sick then I would have appreciated the culture. But finally, after a 6 hour bus journey and taxi ride later, I arrived back at Casa de Avila. I walked into reception and was immediately greeted with, ´´Melanie! You came back!`` followed by a big hug. At that point I knew I made the right decision to wait out my sickness in Arequipa. I`ll head north when I feel better.

Machu Picchu

Due to popular demand, I am going to rewrite my blog post about my Inca Trail adventure. Be prepared, it`s kind of long.

View from my tent.

DAY 1 - I was picked up early in the morning (5am) and loaded onto a bus with my fellow hikers to embark on a 4 day backpacking trip along the Inca Trail. They call it the Inca Trail, but it is only one of several trails that the Incans paved with stone to travel from Cusco to Machu Picchu. It appears that the tourist-marked Inca Trail follows the path that Hiram Bingham took when he discovered Machu Picchu 100 years ago. Anyway, there were 13 people in my group and coincidentally 11 of us were Americans. The other two were a couple from Ireland. I was the only one in the group traveling by herself, which hasn`t been an infrequent situation for me. I rarely meet other girls traveling by themselves. I often get asked if I get scared traveling along and am lectured how dangerous it is for me. But the thing is, I never feel scared. Maybe I am too trusting, but it seems that most people are genuinely kind and helpful. I`ve definitely felt way more afraid walking home alone on West 9th Street back at home than I`ve ever felt in Peru. However, I digress. The bus dropped us off at a place they call ´kilometer 82` where we met the porters to begin our hiking journey. We had two guides: the flamboyant Fredy who was the tallest Peruvian ever, and Cesar, a wry yet flirty twenty-something.
For 13 hikers we had 18 porters! Each porter carried a ridiculously heavy pack of 25 kilos. We, the hikers, barely carried anything aside from water and layers. It`s kind of hard to call it backpacking when you`re not carrying your own pack. Apparently, only about 6 years ago a law was passed which limited the amount of weight porters could carry. Up until then, some companies would weight each porter down with packs weighing upwards of 40 kilos!

Toilet on the Inca Trail

Porters

The first day hiking was pretty mellow but long and we arrived at camp around 4:30pm. We felt lucky that our group aged from 19-34 and were all quite fit because along the trail we passed many elderly folks struggling to make it up the hills. When we arrived at camp we realized why there were 18 porters needs for 15 people. The porters set up all the tents, including canopies for eating with tables, chairs, and silver cutlery! They brought us warm water in buckets with towels to our tents to wash our faces and brought hot cocoa and popcorn to our tents so we could relax while they cooked for us! Talk about luxury. I`ve always wanted to be treated like a princess, but in reality having "servants" is really awkward and classist. Our group felt guilty most of the time when it came to the porters waiting on us. I became good friends with the coordinator of the porters, Ricardo. I think he liked me because I would speak Spanish with him. I shared a tent with Jessica, the token single girl in her group of friends and we had a great repoir. The porters cooked us a delicious 3-course feast and we ate like kings, and then went to bed.

The group plus porters.

My tentmate Jessica and I reading aloud :)

DAY 2 - We awoke that morning to a beautiful mountain view from our tents. My new friends from the midwest (namely Kansas) exclaimed that there was nothing this beautiful in Kansas. "Come to California!" I said, shocked because I`ve woken to picturesque mountain views countless times in California. I`ve traveled all over the world but I still think that California is the greatest place on earth. Anyway, after breakfast we started trekking uphill past gorgeous creeks and through riparian zones, increasing in altitude until we passed tree-line and summitted the first mountain. It was a tough climb, but after hiking the Misti Volcano it seemed like a breeze! The terrain on the first mountain was dry and covered with chaparral and cactus. We observed llama, white-tailed deer, and vicuñas grazing. By the way, vicuñas are my new favorite mammal - they`re like weird Andean deer with super long necks. As we summited the second mountain, the terrain changed to grassland. Perennial bunch grasses carpeted the hillsides and I imagined that this is what the Bay Area looked like before invasive annual grasses out-competed the native fescue. As we hiked, Cesar would challenge me by asking the scientific names of plants that I`d never seen before in my life! He`d say, "I`m not even an ecologist and I KNOW the name of this plant". I told him to come to California and I`d tell him the scientific name of every oak tree. As we descended the second mountain in the late afternoon, the vegetation changed once again to cloud forest.
We explored various Incan ruins along the way to our second campsite which was more cloudy, chilly, and rainy. After another delicious meal, we were surprised with... hot toddies! Yes, I felt guilty that the porters had to carry in two bottles of run for us, but I must admit, it was pretty awesome. That night as we snuggled into bed, Jessica read aloud the Incan excerpts from "The Motorcycle Diaries" and we patted ourselves on the back for being such good little tourists.

Incan terraces

stone paved Inca Trail

 DAY 3 - This was the most beautiful hike I`ve ever been on! We began walking on the actual stone-paved Inca Trail which took us on a leisurely stroll through the cloud forest into the high jungle above the Amazon basin. The walls were covered with a dense moss that you stick half your arm in before it reached rock, orchids everywhere, and ancient ferns. The trail was lush, green, and moist and took us past sweeping vistas of snow-covered mountains and riverine valleys.

In front of Touching the Void moutain

Fredy pointed out the mountain where "Touching the Void", a climbing documentary, took place. We arrived at camp midday and from our tents we could see the backside of Machu Picchu - so close! We shared some beers outside a lodge we were camped near and at dusk went to explore some more Incan ruins. I was down in the Incan runs with only my headlamp when it became completely dark. The ruins are like labyrinths and very easy to get lost in. Not to mention, the huge stone walls are very forboding in the dark. I kept seeing flickers of light and assumed they were the flashlights of my friends. The lights came closer and I called out to my friends. No response. I called out again, a little more panicky this time, and again, no response. Convinced that these were the ghosts of Incans murdered by Spaniards intenton taking revenge on those of European descent, I raced through the labyrinth, found my way to the path, and ran up 100+ stairs to the top of the hill. Heart racing and completely out of breath, I found my friends who immediately exclaimed, "Hey Melanie, did you see the fireflys?!"





DAY 4 - We were woken around 3am to pack our bags, eat breakfast, and hit the trail. Of course, we hiked about 5 minutes before hitting the checkpoint where we had to wait until Machu Picchu opened at 5am. And then we hit the trail again, walking through the dark jungle toward one of the wonders of the world. It was light when we reached the sun gate, but the sun had not yet drifted over the mountain. At first, Machu Picchu was covered in clouds, but as the sun began to shine on the ancient city, the clouds passed and we were awarded with breathtaking views.
I`ve wanted to see Machu Picchu since the 5th grade when I learned about its agricultural terraces and irrigation channels, and it did not disappoint. The place is magical. We took our time walking down from the sun gate toward the ruins admiring it from every angle. The cool thing about Machu Picchu is that it is the only Incan city (found so far) that was not destroyed by the Spanish when they arrived around 500 years ago. Therefore, the only damage to the city is from fault activity, jungle taking over, and looters. So basically, it`s in pretty good shape. Also, "Machu Picchu" isn`t its true name. Hiram Bingham, the archeologist, got confused when he asked the local Quechua people if there were any Incan ruins nearby. The Quechua people pointed and said there where ruins on the big mountain. "Machu Picchu" means "big mountain" in Quechua. Anyway, Fredy took us on an informative guided tour of the ruins and then we waited in line for tickts to hike Wiñay Picchu, the famous pointy mountain behind Machu Picchu.

While in line I hear, "Melanie? Is that you?!" The world starts to feel really small when you run into friends in the middle of nowhere in South America. I chatted with Andy and Rose for awhile until I found out that my group arrived too late and wouldn`t be able to climb Wiñay Picchu after all. The rest of my group was burnt out and headed back down towards the town of Aguas Calientes, but I stayed to explore Machu Picchu for the the last couple hours that I could. I ran into British Joel, a gap-year kid we`d befriended on the Inca Trail and who preferred our group to his. Together we explored the fallen city, getting lost in the ruins. I told him about the movie "Labyrinth" (which he`d never heard of!) and how I half expected to turn the corner and see David Bowie, the goblin king. It ended up being okay that we missed Wiñay Picchu because we discovered a meadow being grazed by llamas! So of course, Joel and I took the rest of the time taking photos of each other posing ridiculously with llamas while continuously chanting, "What time is it? It`s llama-time!".

LOOK!