Around the World

Lake Titicaca

Yes, I know—Lake Titicaca, get the giggles out now. Chris still remembers snickering with the other boys when his middle school geography teacher said “Lake Titicaca”. He never imagined actually visiting the highest navigable lake, so he was pretty excited when we finally set our eyes on its crystal blue waters.

Yesterday morning, we set off to the dock find a local boat to take us out. The Lonely Planet recommends this over a tour operator as the money spent goes directly to the local people. As soon as we get out of the rickshaw, we are surrounded by people trying to sell us on their boat. Oh no we think, not this again. We are immediately grabbed by two men and shuttled off to a boat to look it over. It is rundown and old; the engine looks like it is on its last leg, but the boat is full of local islanders so we think it might be an authentic experience. The men see us glancing at the touristico boats which look like yachts compared to this dingy and immediately start telling us those are touristico boats and this boat is local and better for the people. They preyed on our sympathetic nature, and in the end we agree to take their boat.

Lake Titicaca is home to 30+ floating islands of the Uros People. The islands are made of layered totora reeds stacked on top of each other. They were originally built to escape the Incas and preserve the Uros culture. Walking onto the islands was like stepping on a firm water bed; with each step we sunk a little. As we did not have a guide, one of the islanders improvised for us and invited us into his home and showed us how he lives. His home consists of two beds for four people. It is a simple way of living, but he has a garden of potatoes and other root vegatables growing underneath the reeds. The communal kitchen has three large cast iron pots over a clay stove. We did not see any livestock on the islands, so we assume they eat mostly vegetables along with duck and fish from the lake.

From the floating islands, we motored across the lake for 3 hours to reach Isla Taquille. As our boat was full of locals and piled high with goods, we climbed the 500 stairs to the top of the island with them. I spent most of the climb in awe of the women easily carrying 50lbs on their backs up the stone steps. Stone fences marking property lines and pastures, sheep wandering the cobblestone walkways, and the bright garb of the locals were memorable sights. Stone archways marked the main path to the town square, as other cobblestone paths spread throughout the island. It is possible to spend the night with a local family in this tranquil setting, but we opted to return to Puno.

On our return trip, we second-guessed our decision to take a local boat. It was by far the slowest boat in port and midway through the return trip the captain began emptying bucket after bucket of water from the bilge. As usual, I had an escape plan which basically just consisted of a life jacket and jumping overboard. Admittedly, not much of a plan. Chris mentioned when we made it to dry land that he was glad we made it back. It is a good thing he did not say anything while we were on the boat or I may have entered into sheer panic.

Colca Canyon

From Arequipa, we traveled to Cabanaconde to hike the cousin of the Grand Canyon, the Canyon del Colca. It is one of the world’s deepest canyons at 3191 meters (9393 feet). It was an amazing trek down the steep slopes of the canyon walls. It was hot and dusty, but we finally made it to the bottom in about two hours. The walk passed quickly due to some fellow travelers that hiked with us. Ivan and Ivana are also traveling around the world, and they are great story tellers. We hope to meet up with them again in Asia.

We were not exactly sure where they came from but at the bottom of the canyon there were several streams that must be underground. These streams help form an oasis of green grass and palm trees. We stayed at one of the four sites in the oasis. Our room consisted of a thatched hut with a dirt floor. A broken chair and a bed with who knows how many bugs were the only other amenities. But the view of the canyon and a nice pool outweighed the issues with the accommodations.

We knew going down that the trek up would be grueling, but it had to be done. We awoke at 5:00am and were on the trail by 5:30am hoping that we would escape the scorching sun as it creeped along the canyon walls. It was slow going and we took a few short breaks but we made it up to the canyon’s rim in about three hours. Many people say this particular hike is much more difficult than Machu Picchu. As this was another one of our “training hikes” for Machu Picchu we are feeling pretty good about how the Inca Trail will go for us. Our Inca trail trek is exactly a week away, just enough time to be fully rested and read to go again.

Tons of tour groups in Arequipa try to sell the Colca Canyon trek as impossible to do on your own. However, it is quite simple and you do not need a guide. We were glad we did not pay the $55-$200 per person for a guided trip. If we were to do it again, however, we would start off early from Cabanaconde and trek to San Juan de Chuccho to stay the night, and then hike onto Malata and finally the Oasis. We only had one night to spend in the canyon, however, so we took the direct route down and up. It is also possible to hike to San Juan de Chuccho, Malata, and on to the Oasis in one-day, but with the scorching sun blazing down on you we think it is more reasonable to break the trip into two nights. As always, our recent photos can be viewed on Chris’ and Jodi’s flickr pages.

Monasterio de Santa Catalina

From Trujillo, we took the happy bus (post below) to Lima. Upon arriving in Lima, we decided the large city did not have much to offer us (except Starbucks on every block), so we caught another bus directly to Arequipa, Peru. Arequipa is a cultural center and also serves as a jumping off spot for the Colca Canyon, the Grand Canyon’s cousin with a depth of 3191 meters.

Arequipa offers much in the way of museums and interesting sites. It’s home to the ice princess, sacrificed more than 500 years ago by the Incas and preserved in ice until she was discovered in 1995. Arequipa also houses a few convents, one of which remained hidden in secrecy behind mammoth walls until its doors opened in 1970. The Monasterio de Santa Catalina was founded in 1579 by wealthy widow. Only daughters from wealthy families lived in the monastery as the families had to pay a hefty dowry to be admitted. The first year of servitude families paid 100 gold coins for their daughters, followed by 1000 gold coins the following year if the daughters chose to stay. They lived their lives by strictly following three guidelines: silence for yourself, prayer for God, and work for the community. The nuns followed strict rules of silence and were only allowed to speak to their teacher and not to each other. They were never allowed to leave the premises, and could only speak to their families through a gated wall. Today, nuns still live on the grounds. The oldest is 94, and the youngest is 18. They are allowed more freedoms than their predecessors in that they can leave the grounds for specific reasons and can speak to each other.

We found the monastery quite interesting. It’s a city within itself with small little avenues leading to tranquil courtyards. Like Trujillo, the buildings brightly contrast each other and around each corner there is another burst of color. They had a unique laundry system where a single stream of water could be diverted to different washing basins. They also used a carved out porous rock for filtering water; it seemed like a pretty good system but only one drop succeeded in making it through the rock every minute. We wondered what they did when they were really thirsty. As always, our recent photos can be viewed on Chris’ and Jodi’s flickr pages.

Trujillo and the surrounding temples

While discussing our travel plans for Peru, some fellow travelers suggested we break up the long haul from the Ecuadorian border to Lima, Peru, by stopping off in Trujillo, Peru, and touring the nearby Moche pyramids, Las Huacas del Sol y de La Luna, and the ancient Chimu capital of Chan Chan.

We visited the Moche temples first. Built around 600 AD, the Moche temple of Huaca de la Luna is a series of temples built on top of each other. By building their temples one on top of each other, the preservation of their carvings and paintings is impressive. Vibrant reds and yellow still exist in tact on some of the oldest walls. Unfortunately, the preservationist must deal with rains from El Niño years and sediment build up. It is thought that rains eventually caused the Moche people to build another temple, Huaca del Sol, further away from the mountain as a means of protection from the mountain runoff. Although Huaca del Sol is Peru’s largest Moche temple, it is not open to tour groups do to its instability. Currently, archaeologists are excavating between the two temples and have unearthed a city long buried by the rains. We only saw the outlines of the buildings, but in a few years it should be an interesting site to visit.

On the tour, we also visited Chimu temples. Eventually the Moche culture gave way to the Chimu, and the Chimu built an enormous city called Chan Chan around 1300 AD. The city contained more than 10,000 buildings and stretches as far as the eye can see. On the tour we visited one of the buildings, a palace of Chan Chan. Archaeologists reconstructed most of the rooms and carvings of the palace, so it’s hard to know what it really looked like, but fishing played a large role in much of the palace. Fishing nets, fish, and ocean waves were prominent carvings throughout the palace. Situated fairly close to the ocean, it makes sense that the surrounding environment played a large role in the culture.

We also visited a Chimu temple thought to be used for fertility rituals, the “rainbow temple” or “dragon temple”. Located away from the city of Chan Chan, it is an amazingly preserved temple due to the fact that it was covered by sand until the 1960s. Its high walls enclose the temple inside with intricate carvings of dragons underneath rainbows.

Besides touring the temples, we wandered around Trujillo’s colonial streets. We found the main plaza, Plaza de Armes, to be quite striking with its brightly colored buildings contrasting each other. The Lonely Planet does not give much props to Trujillo,but thus far it is our favorite city in Peru. As always, our recent photos can be viewed on Chris’ and Jodi’s flickr pages.

Happy Bus

Jodi has finally found a bus that she likes, of course it has leather seats, a movie, food, and free onboard internet. And, that is exactly where we are writing this post from, on our way to Lima. We are about an hour into the nine hour ride but Jodi’s smile hasn’t left.

UPDATE:

We made it to Lima and had a good bus ride, considering it was nine hours. They showed three movies (Ratatouille, Bee Movie and The Devil Wears Prada). The Internet worked great until my battery died. The food was good; breakfast was breads and coffee, lunch was chicken, rice, potatoes and peaches. Jodi really liked the leather seats that had a lot of room. We also looked at Peru pass us by; desert on the left and the Pacific Ocean on the right as we made our way south.

In fact we arrived at the bus terminal and decided to keep on moving to Arequipa, we’ve heard from a few travelers that Lima wasn’t that great for them but Arequipa was amazing. So this will give us some time to hang out there. It will be a long day since Lima to Arequipa is fourteen hours away (for a total time of 23 hours on a bus for the day), but as of now we feel pretty rested and ready to take it on. Unfortunately we won’t have the deluxe seats but we should be OK with the slightly narrower, non-leather seats. We are currently recharging the computer and my Ipod for our next leg of our journey. We should arrive around 9am, where we will promply find a hostel and sleep.