The Coastal Lowlands: Nazca to Trujillo

Brice and I had a hell of a time getting along in Nazca, so I'm just going to cut to the interesting stuff. We arrived at around 4 AM, so we decided to track down a hostel and sleep until 9 or 10. A man was kind enough to unlock for us, and we took a nice, long nap. There are plenty of cheap hostels around the Plaza de Armas, and there are tons of tour guides operating out of the town. If you walk around for 10 minutes in any direction, you'll probably find 3-4 of each.

We meant to take a bus out to the observation tower to view the Lines, but we couldn't figure out which bus we wanted. We ended up contracting with a taxi driver to take us out the tower and back into town. It wasn't too expensive, but it costs quite a bit more than the bus would have. I thought the Nazca lines were really cool, but Brice was less impressed. All in all, we were glad we didn't waste our money on one of the over-priced fly-overs. It would have been an interesting experience, but we had just as much fun climbing up the rickety observation tower and exploring the "ruins" around the area.


I really liked The Frog, one of the more famous, smaller geoglyphs at Nazca. It actually looks kind of like a frog, if you tilt your head a little bit. We saw a large mound of dirt from the top of the tower, and had our taxi driver take us to an access road. We climbed up the large hill of shale, and Brice did some more exploring on the top while I listened in on an English-speaking tour guide (guiding a lone British student at the remote location) explained that the large lines running out from our hill acted as a pre-Incan calendar.


After touring the lines, we hired a car to take us out to the aqueducts on the outskirts of the city. The Nazca culture built these underground aqueducts to pipe cool water from the Andes to their dry, dessert-like home. Roughly 2,000 years ago, they devised the spiral window system to keep the air flowing through the channel: this served to keep the water flowing smoothly and to regulate its temperature. All the Nazca people had to do was slow the flow once a year so that they could crawl through the short spaces between windows and remove the accumulated debris. In 2,000 years, the aqueducts never failed. They're still an integral part of this region's agriculture.

After the aqueducts, our guide took us to another geoglyph - the thread and needle, and then we saw the remains of an adobe Incan administrative center. There wasn't much to look at, really, but we walked all the way around it, despite the oppressive midday heat. As with Chan Chan (coming!), the adobe bricks had all but melted away from the seasonal rains.

We left Nazca on a mid-afternoon bus for a larger city a bit further north on the coast: Ica. Ica is like one big circle, and it's probably the most modern-looking city we visited. Their Plaza de Armas had a very "Modern Art" feel to it. As far as we could tell, the inhabitants spend most of their time driving around in circles honking at each other. Still, it wasn't as bad as La Paz, and we found a nice hotel with pretty cheap rates for a hot shower.

I put Ica on our itinerary because all of my reading and research told me it was the heart of Peru's grape-growing region. And it is. BUT (there's always a but) they are more famed for their Pisco (a white grape brandy that tastes like turpentine) and the wines generally tasted like over-ripened grape cough syrup. That didn't stop us from trying though, so we bought a bottle of a local Cabernet (that was a mistake) and booked a tasting tour for the surrounding vineyards for the next day (also a mistake).


They force-fed us several shots of turpentine-esque Pisco at each vineyard, got really offended if we didn't drink the whole glass, and then followed it up with a series of vaguely palatable dessert wines. I really didn't mind some of the sweeter ones, but they tasted more like fortified koolaid than viticulture. Worst heartburn of my life? Check. Basically, if you want to experience Ica, we can lock you in a garage with a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 and honk at you for a few hours. But you don't get to drink the Mad Dog; we just break the bottle on the floor to provide the proper atmosphere.

That evening, we hopped a bus to Pisco (the town, not the drink). We heard Pisco was a great starting point for excursions to Las Islas Ballestas and Las Paracas National Preserve, and it is, but that's pretty much the only reason we stopped there. The bus took us most of the way along the Pan-American Highway, and we took a taxi from the highway into the town. As soon as the taxi dropped us off in the center of the Plaza, an army of travel agents started swarming to sell us an excursion. We went with a couple of well-dressed men who had a small office in the Plaza, and they set us up with a good price for admission, travel, and accommodations in Pisco that night. It worked out really well.

An earthquake ravaged Pisco in 2007, so the church was mostly abandoned and boarded up. (along with half of the town). We explored some of the wreckage, found a rather exciting black market, and had some pretty decent food while watching a soccer game in a local cantina. Brice tried to explain it to me, but I still only understand the basics.


The following morning, we left our hostel and headed for the coast in a van full of tourists. The dock for Las Islas Ballestas hosted a flock of very angry pelicans and a flock of very eager boys trying to sell us fish to bait them with. It was kind of disgusting, but Brice fed them a bit so I could take some pictures. We boarded the boats in the middle of that gorgeous, sunny day and started our tour. Brice had the theme song from Gilligan's Island stuck in both our heads by the time we left the harbor.

Our first stop was the Candelabra, an interesting geoglyph made by pirates to indicate safe harbor, and then we cruised out along the beautiful coast to the islands. This thing is massive; it's over 180 yards long! But getting back on track: Las Islas are one of Peru's greatest resources. Tourists love to look at the wildlife, and the wildlife -mostly birds - leaves a rich deposit of guano that is exported for fertilizer. The birds were so thick in places that you couldn't see the rock underneath them. We saw more pelicans, boobies, Inca Terns, and penguins. Yes, penguins. No one believes that part, but they were SO CUTE. You're looking at a photo of the candelabra right now because Brice thinks that's more exciting than penguins.


Las Islas also house dozens of sea lions and Pacific bottle nose dolphins, which we saw in abundance. I loved watching the sea lions sunning themselves on the rocks, especially the babies. When it was time to turn around and go home, we followed a pod of dolphins in to the harbor. They seemed to be playing with each other most of the time, and we saw some of them jump almost entirely out of the water. Absolutely breathtaking.

The boats returned us to shore, where we spent a bit of time doing touristy-things on the pier. Then we got back into the van and drove a bit further up the coast to Las Paracas National Reserve. Las Paracas had dozens of beautiful beaches and some interesting fossils, but our favorite part was the lunch break.


The sea food was fresh and... well, sea food. In the broadest sense. I think I ate a barnacle. But after lunch we went climbing on some of the rocks along the coast, and that was really fun! We saw sea urchins, crabs, and a wrecked boat. I only fell down once, and the scar's still there (she says bitterly, seven months later). Before we left the park, we stopped to see a flock of Chilean flamingos. I don't know why the Peruvian government is so worried about protecting Chilean flamingos, but we weren't allowed to get within half a mile of the stupid things. Decidedly not the highlight of my day.

One long, long bus ride (and a changeover in Lima) later, we found ourselves in Trujillo: a large city on the northern coast of Peru. I missed some of my meds that night and was in a complete daze, so I bought myself a bed in a small hostel to sleep it off while Brice killed time in the city. We met back up in the Plaza de Armas at noon, insulted each other a bit over lunch, and started looking for a minibus to Chan Chan.

Since I haven't yet, let me take this moment to tell you all something about combis and minibuses in Peru: if it's a busy time of the day, don't plan on having room to breathe. In fact, there is a very good chance you won't even be inside the vehicle -- they might just make you hang out the door and hold on. These rolling sardine cans provide cheap, reliable transportation, though and we really couldn't beat the price for one-way fare out to the ruins.

When they dropped us at Chan Chan, they really dropped us right in the middle of Chan Chan! The ruined city spans for nearly 8 square miles, and we had to walk about one mile, through an archaeological dig, to get to the tourist center. The portion of the ruins open to tourists is tiny, largely because it's an entirely adobe structure. That means that every time it rains or the wind blows, parts of the buildings erode away. For a city that old, it means that most of Chan Chan is nothing more than a series of low-walls and lumps.

But the place they show the tourists looks fairly well preserved. They managed to shelter some of the walls from the weather, and both their size and detailed carvings left a really huge impression on us. These things dwarfed any man-made structure we had seen so far, and I think Brice really enjoyed wandering around in the labyrinthine passage ways. We visited the remains of a royal tomb in the middle, and saw a man-made lake. The size was simply unbelievable.

We decided to go on to Cajamarca, in the northern mountains, after Trujillo, but couldn't get a bus until the following morning. We found a hostel, went out to a movie (Terminator: starring Batman), and crashed for the night.

Arequipa, The White City

Ripped from the pages of Tolkien and decorated in the bittersweet trappings of colonial splendor, Arequipa contains echoes of the Gondorian golden age beset by Smaug's ominous mountain. It stands in the shadow of El Misti, a conical volcano, and its name comes from the Quechuan (Dwarven?) phrase "Are, quepay" -- city under the mountain. The city's eponymous color comes from a stunningly white, volcanic stone called sillar; at any time of day or night, the stones stand out brilliantly against the black pavement and muddy cobblestones. Geographically, Arequipa lies very near Colca Canyon. Unlike the Grand Canyon, Colca Canyon has gently slanting, hilly sides. While we did not make it into Colca country this time, I'm led to believe that - in addition to the Canyon's most popular Andean Condor watching excursions - it hosts some of Peru's best white-water rafting, horseback riding, hiking trails, and some massive, remote ruins preserved better than those at Machu Picchu.

I can't even begin to consider the long, exhausting bus ride we took from La Paz into Arequipa, so I'll cut to the arrival. Arequipa's central bus terminal mirrors the rest of Peru; though smelly, chaotic, and crowded, a fleet of taxis is always waiting outside to shuttle you off to La Plaza de Armas. And what a plaza! We hadn't eaten much for a day or two, so we allowed ourselves to be hustled into on of the many open-air, second-floor eateries surrounding the square and enjoyed that delicious Peruvian cuisine we had missed so much in Bolivia. I honestly can't remember what we ate that first night, but the set menu at any of those restaurants offers a great value; we spent the whole meal observing the softly illuminated fountain, cathedral, and crisp, white buildings. Oh, and watching the Ghostbusters. Really, there was a car with a hodgepodge of extra gadgetry attached to its exterior with a similar shape and siren quality to the Ghostbusters car running through the center of town throughout the course of our meal.

Neither of us bothered to reserve a room in Arequipa, so we had to find a hostel on the fly (which isn't really that difficult in Peru). We can't remember the name of the place we finally settled, on, but it was located on the left side of the Cathedral, two or three blocks away from the plaza (as are most of the nice, affordable hostels in Arequipa). Once sheltered, we bathed, sorted our dirty -- wet and moldy, since that awful washer woman in Bolivia -- clothes, and went to bed completely exhausted.

Brice and I spent our first full day in the White City wandering the streets and taking in the sights. We started with the churches surrounding the plaza, and toured the Cathedral as well. The Cathedral in Arequipa, though its exterior architecture is beautiful, has a very protestant interior. All of the earthquakes and volcanic disruptions that plague Arequipa took their toll on the original structure's interior, so they settled on a minimalistic approach to cathedral artwork. Brice found some hatch-backs with (count them) two spoilers, so we stalked them through the streets hoping to get a photo for all of his gear-head friends back in the States. That was actually a pretty fun pass-time, looking back.

The greater part of our day took place within the walls of the Santa Catalina Convent, a labyrinthine compound in the middle of the city lacking both an Ariadne and -- we hoped -- a minotaur. Letting ourselves get lost in the winding passages and expansive court yards, we took the opportunity to learn about the lives of the nuns who inhabit it. Santa Catalina began as a sanctuary for upper-class women dedicated to the church; they brought all of their worldly luxuries into the convent, and generally employed female slaves in their daily service. But in 1871 a strict Dominican Mother Superior joined the convent, and the women were quickly reformed. Today, the nuns inhabit only the northern corner of the convent where they lock themselves away from the prying eyes of tourists.

Scores of wood ovens dotted the rooms and passages, and there was no absolute divide between where 'courtyard' ended and 'kitchen' or 'habitation' began. We climbed some stairs onto the roof of one of the cells, and took in the stunning view of Arequipa and El Misti from the best vantage point in the city.

Looking back on Arequipa now, I mostly remember floating from one interesting thing to the next. We viewed the Juanita Ice Maiden (she is NOT a mummy), sacrificed on the peak of El Misti at the peak of the Incan empire; we wandered into the suburbs of the city, and followed the winding streets; we journeyed out to a monastery with a remarkable library, and saw some school boys moving a statue of Jesus in the back of a pick-up.

At some point in there, we bought Brice some hard-hitting antibiotics (all drugs are over the counter in Peru, as far as we can tell) at a local pharmacy. Whatever form of gastrointestinal death he caught in Bolivia, we soon beat it into submission. We also did laundry and some other necessary chores - bought some severely understuffed Oreos, crackers, chokosodas, and more toilet paper. I remember feeding pigeons some roasted corn kernels they put out in the restaurants.. we tried to eat them ourselves, but since we were always dining al fresco we decided it just HAD to be pigeon food. Seriously, why would you feed that to people? Like I said, the details all blur together into one fuzzy, happy sensation.



But what really stands out to me, above all the rest, is the night we spent at El Viñedo. Located at 319 San Francisco street, this is -- bar none -- the best food in all of Peru. Viñedo means "vineyard," and they do have a respectable wine list, but this place really earns its keep with its steak. Maybe you could find a better piece of meat in Argentina. Maybe. Having never been, I couldn't say. But let me tell you this: you will NOT find a better steak in Peru. (Believe me, we tried. Even a hugely expensive restaurant in Lima that specialized in steak couldn't compare.) I ate a medium-rare cut of tenderloin with garlicky mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli, and light drizzling of red wine sauce; Brice had ostrich kabobs with fresh-cut pineapple and bell pepper, hand-cut steak fries, and mixed vegetables. Especially after the fried chicken horrors of Bolivia, we were seriously ready for an evening of self-indulgence and leisure. After dinner, we hit the town and let our hair down for the rest of the night; it felt great.

When we finally did leave Arequipa, it was on a bus for Nazca and the coastal lowlands. After spending so long in the mountains, I didn't really know what to expect on the coast. Brice and I had a couple of rough days in and around Nazca (animosity), but I'll try to be nice in the next post.

Puno & Lake Titicaca

We arrived in Puno on our frigid night bus from Cusco just in time to see (but not appreciate) the sunrise over the smooth surface of the sleeping lake. We took a motorized rickshaw into the center of town, found a hostel through sheer dumb luck, and hit the sack until a more civilized hour (like 9:30-ish).

Puno, located at an impressive 3,850 meters (2.3 miles) above sea level, doesn't have much in the way of entertainment. Its biggest draw is Lake Titicaca (pronounced Tethicalka by the locals). It is the world's highest navigable lake, and the view is stunning if the observer has woken up enough to enjoy it. Puno does serve as an important point of embarkation for many popular excursions, though. The cathedral was worth looking into, but it really only takes about 20 minutes to see the whole thing. If you find that you're spending a day or two in Puno, try to book a home stay on some of the more remote islands of the lake; missing that experience is one of my few real regrets about this trip. I've also heard rave reviews of La Isla del Sol and La Isla de la Luna, but we didn't get to see those either.

Brice and I took a short tour out to Las Islas Flotantes, and spent our day seeing the remnants of the Uros culture up close. The Uros are a pre-Incan civilization who were pushed off of their lands surrounding the Lake and forced to take refuge on the lake itself. To cope, they built islands out of the lake's thick reeds and peat. The islands floated freely for much of their history, but now all 42 are anchored and remain mostly stationary. Any tour company in Puno will sell you a voyage out to the Uros islands, so don't be afraid to haggle or ask them to include transportation to the docks in their fee.

Our excursion began with a bus that took us to the Puno port, thick with lime-green aglae. After a troubadour collected a few coins from us, we began our 30-minute boating trip out to the islands. In fact, I think this troubadour may have been our first and best encounter with the famed Peruvian panpipe flute. He really was the best performer we heard on our trip, even though they all play some variation of the same 2 songs (Guantanamera and Flight of the Condor). Along the way, our guide explained much of the area's history and lore. Traditionally, the people of the Uros islands eat the mallowy core of the lake reeds, fish, and water fowl. They speak a variant of the Aymara language, and - nowadays, at least - tourism is their main industry.

The Uros sustain their islands by constantly drying and adding new layers of totora reeds. Really, the totora is the life-blood of their culture. Without it, they would not have shelter, food, clothing, or transportation. I was amazed by the ingenuity displayed in their many uses for the reeds, even if the examples we saw were geared more towards souvenir shopping than survival. (But really, it's still one-and-the-same for these people; they could not continue to live as they do now without the tourists, but the tourists have warped them into a depressingly superficial facsimile of their former selves. For instance, we were sent away with a somewhat disturbing combination of Twingle Twigle Libble Star and hula dancing, topped off with a round of "hasta la vista baby!") They gave a really interesting demonstration of the peat-cutting and reed stacking process, even allowing us to try a bite of the reeds. It wasn't very flavorful, but I would go so far as to say the textures were quite enjoyable. It was kind of like eating soft sugar cane, minus the sweetness.



Our island hosts took us on a quick trip on one of their traditional reed canoes. They packed about 20 tourists onto that thing; it was actually pretty impressive.

After leaving the lake behind, we returned to Puno and found a decent, albeit impossibly cheap, lunch at the mercado central. The rest of our day passed in a blur, wandering aimlessly in the streets of Puno and wishing we had planned something - anything - interesting to do in the evening. We decided, after about 2 hours of lallygagging, to start making dinner plans. 'Pick the restaurant' was another of those games we could drag out for as long as needed, and we played it often. Since Puno was so much cheaper than Cuzco, we decided to try one of Peru's most iconic (but over-priced) foods: guinea pig, or cuy.


Cuy al horno (whole roast guinea pig) is traditionally served at feasts and carnivals, but the more remote villagers still cultivate them as a major dietary staple since they're both relatively simple maintain and a very cost-efficient protein source. We hoped to try cuy al horno in a small restaurant we found in our wandering, but after a very long wait it finally became clear that they didn't have any of the menu items we were interested it so we paid for our drinks and left. We opted to try for a nicer establishment the second time, and we actually had a pretty decent dinner. Brice ordered a pizza, I ordered an Andean nouveau cuisine take on the old classic, and we split the portions between us.

Instead of cuy al horno, I got deep-fried guinea pig legs, the head, and a salad of boiled potatoes. For the record, guinea pig has the texture of turkey and the flavor of limey sea food. If it hadn't been for the crispy skin, there wouldn't have been more than 2 or 3 mouthfuls apiece. As it was, we were hard-pressed to pick out the small bones, especially arond the rib cage. But still, it was definitely a learning experience for us. I mean, you can't go to Peru and not eat the food, right? Right.

The next morning, we were up bright and early for our Odyssey into Bolivia. I'm not going to get into it right now, but let me prepare you for that post with our motto about Bolivia: When it comes to Bolivia, things could be worse; after all, "a woman could cut off your penis while you're asleep and toss it out the window of a moving car" (Fight Club, 1999).

Machu Picchu by Brice

Brice was nice enough to volunteer his services for a blog post (or two?), because it really is high time I finished this thing. He'll be telling us all about Machu Picchu as soon as he gets around to it. In the mean time, I'm going to cut right to Puno and Lake Titicaca!




* 26 September 2009 - Brice thought about writing his post today.
* 2 October 2009 - Brice didn't write his post today.
* 12 October 2009 - Brice got his journal out of storage today!
* 15 October 2009 - PUBLISHED!

Macchu Picchu.

It was cool.

Have some pics.

THE END

[Cheeky]

We had to get up freaking early, but it was ok because our hotel which was a hostel kinda sucked. I mean, it was cool in that third-world-country walk through the restaurant and up the unfinished back stairs kinda way, but that's all. [On the bright side, it was cheap and close enough to everything. Also, reasonably clean room.]

Anyways, we were planning on catching a bus up before the trains started getting in, along with lots of other people. I just looked up the numbers. 6.30 am, and it was the 15th bus up. We passed the rest on our way up - plenty of switchbacks. Luckily MP is pretty huge up top, so no real worries.

We got up in time to watch the sun rise, which was cool, but not really as awe-inspiring as it coulda been. But since we cut across the front to get to where the best view would be, we ended up doing the entire thing in reverse. [No complaints here; I saved my feet until the worst of the climbing at the end.]



It was cool. They had alpaca's grazing in the middle (and people to yell at tourists who got to close to thier tourist attraction). At one point you could go up to the very top (ray elected to stay near the room showing the earthquake damage) to see the sundial. I met up with some of the people we'd met on the death march up there, and we all caught up some more.


It was finally beginning to get crowded, and we had to wait for people to move out of camera shots, tour groups to pass, or people to stop scaring the animals (scary looking bunny, lizards) away. We did see a cool door though, and then went up to the top. [The top of Machu Picchu (old mountain) was awesome, but I nearly killed myself trying to climb all the stairs and small outcroppings; it would have been more fun to climb the smaller Wayna Picchu (new mountain), but they only let the first few bus loads of tourists into that area of the park, and we didn't feel like wasting our morning at Machu Picchu waiting in line for something we MIGHT be allowed to do.]


The top had more steppes [I think this is the wrong word] [he means terraces / tiered farm land], one of which I convinced Ray to climb, and I wandered out the "back" side on some steppes to capture a few shots of the impressively steep drop off to the river on this side.






We got bored though, and had a few hours before our train, so we went back down, played around on the rocks at the town (washed our blisters in the stream), and perused the market for a while. Ray bought.... a necklace? [Llama charm for my bracelet.] I think a necklace. I do know that is was s/20 [US $6.75-ish] though. I remember all the worst parts.