Thursday, August 5, 2010
the FINAL post! Sorry it took so long...
7/12-15/2010
During the week, we didn’t do very many exciting things. We talked to Eli about sending people directly to her, rather than having them go through a volunteering agency. She agreed that it is better for everyone involved to be in direct contact. The family isn’t paid very much by the companies, and the program contact in Peru didn’t do anything very helpful for us. We also talked to the nurse Doris about the health center contact. She said they would be happy to help people directly, and that she also knows families that would be interested in hosting students. We took some final pictures, and got Doris’ email on our last day.
We also went to the agency to pick up our information about the trip. They gave us a map, and we met our guide, who explained the trip to us and what was to be included.
7/16/2010
On Friday morning we woke up at 4:15 so that we could be in the Plaza de Armas at 5AM. We were sitting on a bench waiting when a woman came up to us with a piece of paper that had our names on it. We went with her to meet the bus to Mollepata. We got on a local bus, and waiting while she went to retrieve the other members of our group. We then met our guide on the bus, Miguel, who was not the guide we had met at the agency. After being a little surprised that we were on a local bus with a guide we hadn’t met (after paying $335 each… which is a lot in Peru), we realized that this trip was going to be very interesting. The bus ride was pretty cold but uneventful. When we arrived in Mollepata, we were herded into a tourist restaurant where they had breakfast for some ridiculous prices. We then gave our bags to the cooks and horseman before heading off for our first day of trekking.
We began hiking up a dirt road. The guide told us about the different cactus’ of Peru, Ayahuasco and San Pedro being the most famous, for their hallucinogenic/spiritual properties. He also showed us some Eucalyptus and Muña plants, as well as other herbs that are used for medicinal purposes. He said Eucalyptus is used by indigenous people to lower fevers. The people in our group were Andres and Marta (Spanish couple), Alvin (from Little Rock, Arkansas, now lives in NYC), Anna (Belgian), and Virginie and Jonathan (Belgian friends). Jonathan was the most out of shape, and through a misunderstanding of the allowed weight of his bag, ended up carrying his backpack for the whole first day. We all spent a lot of time waiting for him to catch up, but felt bad that he was having such a hard time. For lunch, the cooks made me an egg instead of the meat the others got with rice. We also had some soup and took a nice picture with the view. We walked for another few hours after lunch on a mostly flat road (14km total that day). During the last hour and at the campsite, we were engulfed in a cloud and it got a bit damp and cool.
When we arrived at camp we saw our tents set up underneath a larger tent/tarp setup to block the wind and the rain. We were served some popcorn and tea to warm up before dinner. We lay down in the tent, since Elijah wasn’t feeling well before a dinner of chicken, potatoes, rice, and a vegetable sautee. We went to bed early that night to get ready for the big second day.
7/17/2010
On day 2 we woke up at around 5:30 for breakfast. We had bread, a pancake, and tea for breakfast before packing our stuff to head out for the 23km day. When we left the camp, there was still a cloud over everything and we were all bundled up in our hats and mittens. We hiked gradually up for about an hour before we reached a kind of flat slushy area. We could see then that we were heading towards a looming snow-capped mountain. We started up the switchbacks slowly. Elijah was feeling especially crappy this day, so we were moving very slowly and getting very wet. After what seemed like an eternity, we made it to another flat pass. This time we could barely see where the path went, and just saw more snow and mountain ahead. Behind us, we could see a cloud beginning to clear and the sun on one of the snow-capped mountains (the Lord of the Rings looking pictures). We were pretty cold by this time so we tried to just keep moving (albeit very slowly). On our way up this part our guide caught up to us to ask us to wait when we met the rest of our group at the top of the 4600m pass. When we finally reached the top, we were so cold and wet that we snapped a very quick photo of the sign (which you can only barely read) before running down the other side of the mountain. We met up with the Spanish couple Marta and Andres a little ways down the other side and walked with them to our lunch site. We began to see some more green and feel the air getting warmer, but it was nearly impossible to warm ourselves at lunch because it was still raining and pretty windy. The second half of the day was long, tiring, and painful on the knees. Elijah was feeling better though so it wasn’t too bad. When we reached the camp we hung up some of our stuff in hopes of it drying. However, our tent was getting a bit wet at the corners and the top so we didn’t have much hope for our stuff, or our sleeping bags. Dinner that night was ‘pollo milanesa’, pounded and fried chicken with some pasta and potato dishes as well. In the middle of the night it actually stopped raining and began to dry out a bit. When I went to the bathroom at about 2AM I looked up and unexpectedly saw a million bright stars. It was so pretty I woke Elijah up to go look at them.
7/18/2010
Day 3 was pretty cold in the morning, but a bit more dry which was a nice change. After an omelete and bread for breakfast we started out again. We were finally able to see the sun this day! We saw a number of water falls as well on our hike. We stopped for a snack of passion fruit at a woman’s trail-side stand. They are orange on the outside and peel to a white-fuzzy looking inside. Even inside that there are a bunch of seeds covered in little casings of delicious fruitiness (and you crunch the seeds). The woman also had a pet turkey who was ruffling its feathers to protect his house. When he became a bit of a nuisance, she came out and picked him up, pet his weird-looking beakish thing and took him inside. Another snack spot had some very cute and snuggly puppies that I hung out with for a bit before we moved on. When we arrived for lunch our cooks made us a delicious vegetable stir fry, a quinua salad-like thing (kind of like pasta salad), and a scallion pancake/omellete thing. I ate a lot, Elijah ate nothing. After lunch, we waited around for a while before a bus came to meet us and take us to Santa Teresa. It was nice to be off our feet since we were all quite sore from the day before.
When we arrived in Santa Teresa, we all got changed into our bathing suits to go to the hot springs. Elijah and I had been there before, so we convinced everyone it was worth it and that we shouldn’t have to pay more than 5 soles each for a taxi there and back (a convenient piece of information to have). When we arrived at the hot springs, it was much more crowded than we had expected. After only a week, people had dug it out to almost twice the size we had seen it when we passed through. We could now see some of the left-over rock walls from the big resort that used to be there. Some people from the town had brought carts with drinks and snacks down as well (good idea!). There were quite a few gringo’s there (presumably from hikes like ours), but some locals as well. After soaking our muscles for a bit we went back to camp for dinner. While Elijah went to bed early, I sat by the bonfire with a few of our group members. One of the men working at this campsite owned a little monkey named Pancholoco. He made a lot of sqeaking noises and ran around quite a bit. While we were sitting by the fire, he kept coming to play on our chairs. As I am quite well-versed in the viruses of monkeys, I was very scared at first. A monkey bite can actually be lethal if you don’t get the proper treatment quickly. The monkey, however, was having none of it. He jumped right into my lap and snuggled up against me with his tail wrapped up over his shoulder. When he got uncomfortable, he moved to the other leg and held onto my arm with his little furry hand. All this time, I was as rigid as possible to avoid scaring him and making him bite me! Luckily, after only a few minutes his owner came over to take him to bed.
7/19/2010
We were allowed to sleep until 7:30 the 4th day, before hiking to the hydroelectric station. Because the horsemen and cooks left us on this day, we paid a few soles each to send our bags in a car to meet us at lunch. We hiked along a very sunny road for a while before coming to the hydroelectric station where we had to check in and show our passports. This is a common way to get to Machu Picchu, as there is a train from here to Aguas Calientes. After lunch, we walked along the train tracks (carrying our bags this time) for another 3 hours before reaching the extremely touristy town of Aguas Calientes. Supposedly this town also has hot springs, but we never saw them. We stayed in a hotel the 4th night, so we were able to get 5 minutes of a hot water shower before the hotel ran out. Of course we then had to put our dirty clothes back on. Elijah and I walked around a bit before dinner, and used the internet (which cost 4X more than in Cusco!). After dinner, we sorted out some problems with our agency because they hadn’t told Miguel that the bus to Machu Picchu and back down was supposed to be included for us. They had also already given us train tickets back to Cusco, and not told him. I found a phone that I could use the last few minutes of my phone card on to call Nick for his birthday.
7/20/2010
We woke up at 3:45AM the 5th day to make the final hike to Machu Picchu. There is another mountain behind Machu Picchu (that you can see clearly in the pictures- the ‘nose’ of the man’s face in the mountains) called Waynapicchu, and we wanted to climb it. It’s supposed to have incredible views, but only 400 people are allowed to climb the mountain each day. The first buses to Machu Picchu from Aguas Calientes leave at 5:30, so by climbing we were hoping to beat most of the people there. We hiked with flashlights in the dark straight up a very stair-like path for 45 minutes before we got to Machu Picchu and stood in line. Of course people got in line in front of us (as is always the case with lines), but we were able to get our tickets stamped to climb Waynapicchu. Miguel gave us a 2 hour tour and explanation of Machu Picchu (see pictures) before we climbed Waynapicchu(more stairs). After spending almost 6 hours at Machu Picchu, we took a bus down to Aguas Calientes and went back to our hotel. We then caught the train back to Machu Picchu.
For whatever reason, the train had sold pairs of tickets so that the seat numbers were sequential, but they weren’t actually next to each other. A lot of other people encountered this problem as well (almost exclusively tourists, and English-speaking on the train), so we all shuffled around so we could sit with our respective groups. Elijah and I ended up sitting with a couple of 13 year old Australian boys. They taught us a card game, and then we taught them how to play hearts. They were pretty funny, so it made the trip pass quickly. Before we reached our destination, the train stopped and said everyone needed to get off. Apparently there had been a landslide somewhere on the tracks ahead. They shuffled us onto buses to take us back to Cusco. We arrived very tired around 9:30 PM and promptly went to bed.
7/21/2010
We woke up early the next morning to go to the airport. When we arrived, our airline (TACA) told us that our flight was delayed 4 hours and that they were putting us on the flight of another airline since we had a connection we needed to make. We were hurried onto a LAN flight, where we both had to sit in the middle seat of separate isles. Once we got to LIMA, we got on our connecting flight in time. However, our reserved seats were for some reason unavailable, so we were hoping to ask people to move so we could sit together. Turns out Elijah’s seat was double booked, so the other guy got to move to first class. Once we got to San Salvador, our flight was delayed (again!) for 3 hours and we didn’t arrive in NYC until 2AM. Luckily, Nick and Kyle were still awake and came to pick us up at the airport.
We’ve now both started our new jobs (Elijah in a cancer lab at Brown in Providence RI, and me at a Malaria lab at Harvard School of Public Health, in Boston MA).
During the week, we didn’t do very many exciting things. We talked to Eli about sending people directly to her, rather than having them go through a volunteering agency. She agreed that it is better for everyone involved to be in direct contact. The family isn’t paid very much by the companies, and the program contact in Peru didn’t do anything very helpful for us. We also talked to the nurse Doris about the health center contact. She said they would be happy to help people directly, and that she also knows families that would be interested in hosting students. We took some final pictures, and got Doris’ email on our last day.
We also went to the agency to pick up our information about the trip. They gave us a map, and we met our guide, who explained the trip to us and what was to be included.
7/16/2010
On Friday morning we woke up at 4:15 so that we could be in the Plaza de Armas at 5AM. We were sitting on a bench waiting when a woman came up to us with a piece of paper that had our names on it. We went with her to meet the bus to Mollepata. We got on a local bus, and waiting while she went to retrieve the other members of our group. We then met our guide on the bus, Miguel, who was not the guide we had met at the agency. After being a little surprised that we were on a local bus with a guide we hadn’t met (after paying $335 each… which is a lot in Peru), we realized that this trip was going to be very interesting. The bus ride was pretty cold but uneventful. When we arrived in Mollepata, we were herded into a tourist restaurant where they had breakfast for some ridiculous prices. We then gave our bags to the cooks and horseman before heading off for our first day of trekking.
We began hiking up a dirt road. The guide told us about the different cactus’ of Peru, Ayahuasco and San Pedro being the most famous, for their hallucinogenic/spiritual properties. He also showed us some Eucalyptus and Muña plants, as well as other herbs that are used for medicinal purposes. He said Eucalyptus is used by indigenous people to lower fevers. The people in our group were Andres and Marta (Spanish couple), Alvin (from Little Rock, Arkansas, now lives in NYC), Anna (Belgian), and Virginie and Jonathan (Belgian friends). Jonathan was the most out of shape, and through a misunderstanding of the allowed weight of his bag, ended up carrying his backpack for the whole first day. We all spent a lot of time waiting for him to catch up, but felt bad that he was having such a hard time. For lunch, the cooks made me an egg instead of the meat the others got with rice. We also had some soup and took a nice picture with the view. We walked for another few hours after lunch on a mostly flat road (14km total that day). During the last hour and at the campsite, we were engulfed in a cloud and it got a bit damp and cool.
When we arrived at camp we saw our tents set up underneath a larger tent/tarp setup to block the wind and the rain. We were served some popcorn and tea to warm up before dinner. We lay down in the tent, since Elijah wasn’t feeling well before a dinner of chicken, potatoes, rice, and a vegetable sautee. We went to bed early that night to get ready for the big second day.
7/17/2010
On day 2 we woke up at around 5:30 for breakfast. We had bread, a pancake, and tea for breakfast before packing our stuff to head out for the 23km day. When we left the camp, there was still a cloud over everything and we were all bundled up in our hats and mittens. We hiked gradually up for about an hour before we reached a kind of flat slushy area. We could see then that we were heading towards a looming snow-capped mountain. We started up the switchbacks slowly. Elijah was feeling especially crappy this day, so we were moving very slowly and getting very wet. After what seemed like an eternity, we made it to another flat pass. This time we could barely see where the path went, and just saw more snow and mountain ahead. Behind us, we could see a cloud beginning to clear and the sun on one of the snow-capped mountains (the Lord of the Rings looking pictures). We were pretty cold by this time so we tried to just keep moving (albeit very slowly). On our way up this part our guide caught up to us to ask us to wait when we met the rest of our group at the top of the 4600m pass. When we finally reached the top, we were so cold and wet that we snapped a very quick photo of the sign (which you can only barely read) before running down the other side of the mountain. We met up with the Spanish couple Marta and Andres a little ways down the other side and walked with them to our lunch site. We began to see some more green and feel the air getting warmer, but it was nearly impossible to warm ourselves at lunch because it was still raining and pretty windy. The second half of the day was long, tiring, and painful on the knees. Elijah was feeling better though so it wasn’t too bad. When we reached the camp we hung up some of our stuff in hopes of it drying. However, our tent was getting a bit wet at the corners and the top so we didn’t have much hope for our stuff, or our sleeping bags. Dinner that night was ‘pollo milanesa’, pounded and fried chicken with some pasta and potato dishes as well. In the middle of the night it actually stopped raining and began to dry out a bit. When I went to the bathroom at about 2AM I looked up and unexpectedly saw a million bright stars. It was so pretty I woke Elijah up to go look at them.
7/18/2010
Day 3 was pretty cold in the morning, but a bit more dry which was a nice change. After an omelete and bread for breakfast we started out again. We were finally able to see the sun this day! We saw a number of water falls as well on our hike. We stopped for a snack of passion fruit at a woman’s trail-side stand. They are orange on the outside and peel to a white-fuzzy looking inside. Even inside that there are a bunch of seeds covered in little casings of delicious fruitiness (and you crunch the seeds). The woman also had a pet turkey who was ruffling its feathers to protect his house. When he became a bit of a nuisance, she came out and picked him up, pet his weird-looking beakish thing and took him inside. Another snack spot had some very cute and snuggly puppies that I hung out with for a bit before we moved on. When we arrived for lunch our cooks made us a delicious vegetable stir fry, a quinua salad-like thing (kind of like pasta salad), and a scallion pancake/omellete thing. I ate a lot, Elijah ate nothing. After lunch, we waited around for a while before a bus came to meet us and take us to Santa Teresa. It was nice to be off our feet since we were all quite sore from the day before.
When we arrived in Santa Teresa, we all got changed into our bathing suits to go to the hot springs. Elijah and I had been there before, so we convinced everyone it was worth it and that we shouldn’t have to pay more than 5 soles each for a taxi there and back (a convenient piece of information to have). When we arrived at the hot springs, it was much more crowded than we had expected. After only a week, people had dug it out to almost twice the size we had seen it when we passed through. We could now see some of the left-over rock walls from the big resort that used to be there. Some people from the town had brought carts with drinks and snacks down as well (good idea!). There were quite a few gringo’s there (presumably from hikes like ours), but some locals as well. After soaking our muscles for a bit we went back to camp for dinner. While Elijah went to bed early, I sat by the bonfire with a few of our group members. One of the men working at this campsite owned a little monkey named Pancholoco. He made a lot of sqeaking noises and ran around quite a bit. While we were sitting by the fire, he kept coming to play on our chairs. As I am quite well-versed in the viruses of monkeys, I was very scared at first. A monkey bite can actually be lethal if you don’t get the proper treatment quickly. The monkey, however, was having none of it. He jumped right into my lap and snuggled up against me with his tail wrapped up over his shoulder. When he got uncomfortable, he moved to the other leg and held onto my arm with his little furry hand. All this time, I was as rigid as possible to avoid scaring him and making him bite me! Luckily, after only a few minutes his owner came over to take him to bed.
7/19/2010
We were allowed to sleep until 7:30 the 4th day, before hiking to the hydroelectric station. Because the horsemen and cooks left us on this day, we paid a few soles each to send our bags in a car to meet us at lunch. We hiked along a very sunny road for a while before coming to the hydroelectric station where we had to check in and show our passports. This is a common way to get to Machu Picchu, as there is a train from here to Aguas Calientes. After lunch, we walked along the train tracks (carrying our bags this time) for another 3 hours before reaching the extremely touristy town of Aguas Calientes. Supposedly this town also has hot springs, but we never saw them. We stayed in a hotel the 4th night, so we were able to get 5 minutes of a hot water shower before the hotel ran out. Of course we then had to put our dirty clothes back on. Elijah and I walked around a bit before dinner, and used the internet (which cost 4X more than in Cusco!). After dinner, we sorted out some problems with our agency because they hadn’t told Miguel that the bus to Machu Picchu and back down was supposed to be included for us. They had also already given us train tickets back to Cusco, and not told him. I found a phone that I could use the last few minutes of my phone card on to call Nick for his birthday.
7/20/2010
We woke up at 3:45AM the 5th day to make the final hike to Machu Picchu. There is another mountain behind Machu Picchu (that you can see clearly in the pictures- the ‘nose’ of the man’s face in the mountains) called Waynapicchu, and we wanted to climb it. It’s supposed to have incredible views, but only 400 people are allowed to climb the mountain each day. The first buses to Machu Picchu from Aguas Calientes leave at 5:30, so by climbing we were hoping to beat most of the people there. We hiked with flashlights in the dark straight up a very stair-like path for 45 minutes before we got to Machu Picchu and stood in line. Of course people got in line in front of us (as is always the case with lines), but we were able to get our tickets stamped to climb Waynapicchu. Miguel gave us a 2 hour tour and explanation of Machu Picchu (see pictures) before we climbed Waynapicchu(more stairs). After spending almost 6 hours at Machu Picchu, we took a bus down to Aguas Calientes and went back to our hotel. We then caught the train back to Machu Picchu.
For whatever reason, the train had sold pairs of tickets so that the seat numbers were sequential, but they weren’t actually next to each other. A lot of other people encountered this problem as well (almost exclusively tourists, and English-speaking on the train), so we all shuffled around so we could sit with our respective groups. Elijah and I ended up sitting with a couple of 13 year old Australian boys. They taught us a card game, and then we taught them how to play hearts. They were pretty funny, so it made the trip pass quickly. Before we reached our destination, the train stopped and said everyone needed to get off. Apparently there had been a landslide somewhere on the tracks ahead. They shuffled us onto buses to take us back to Cusco. We arrived very tired around 9:30 PM and promptly went to bed.
7/21/2010
We woke up early the next morning to go to the airport. When we arrived, our airline (TACA) told us that our flight was delayed 4 hours and that they were putting us on the flight of another airline since we had a connection we needed to make. We were hurried onto a LAN flight, where we both had to sit in the middle seat of separate isles. Once we got to LIMA, we got on our connecting flight in time. However, our reserved seats were for some reason unavailable, so we were hoping to ask people to move so we could sit together. Turns out Elijah’s seat was double booked, so the other guy got to move to first class. Once we got to San Salvador, our flight was delayed (again!) for 3 hours and we didn’t arrive in NYC until 2AM. Luckily, Nick and Kyle were still awake and came to pick us up at the airport.
We’ve now both started our new jobs (Elijah in a cancer lab at Brown in Providence RI, and me at a Malaria lab at Harvard School of Public Health, in Boston MA).
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