This is the
last post from Lima. I’m not yet going home to Germany but with the exams
coming up it’s almost time to hit the road for good. Where exactly it will take
me I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. This is an account of the last +/-30
days and whatever comes next is future Jakob’s problem…
Ok, so here
it goes again. After the trip to Huaraz there wasn’t too much time for regular
life. That following Thursday I was off to Cusco and with only one day layover
back in Lima to get fresh clothes I was back on the road to Huancayo and
Huancavellica. Before all that, however, we had to celebrate a birthday. Lisa
turning 22 was a great excuse to go all out. We prepared a feast with
everything you could wish for. Mountains of bruschetta, tortillas, chifles, rice,
beans, chicken, and of course cake. It was awesome. The whole house was filled
with balloons and photos and we even had a confetti cannon... which I got right in the face. (That is an extreme understatement by the way. When I got in the shower the next morning I had confetti sprinkled all over my body. I looked like New Years Eve and "My little pony"'s love-child.) After a few too
many drinks and the obligatory house-karaoke the night ended with everybody
happy and sleepy.
The following Friday I started my trip to Cusco. The Lima
airport provided the first entertainment already. I got to see Osuna, one of
the biggest reggaeton stars in South America. For all those who don’t know what
that is, just check it out on youtube. The dance style to the music I would
describe as…. dry humping while standing… yes, I thinks that’s pretty accurate.
But only after the whole celebrity situation had resolved itself, things got
really shaking. Literally. The whole airport rattled and shook to the tune of
an earthquake. While some people ran to the official safety areas, I stayed
seated in my spot. Not because I wasn’t nervous or anything, but I just had too
much stuff lying around, and I didn’t want to leave all of it alone. I
definitely did not want to pick all of it up… As always, for better or worse,
my laziness won out. The flight itself was very comfortable because they assigned me the emergency exit seat. Nothing in front of me but ample free leg space.
(Naturally on the way back I asked them to change my seat to an emergency exit one. All I had to do was assure them I speak Spanish well enough to follow instructions.
As they say: Once you go leg, you never go back.)
Once I got to Cusco I started making my way around town. Outside
of the touristic center Cusco is a very interesting city. There’s tons of
markets and quite a few nice Inca relicts and sites. The city is in a valley
enclosed by a mountain range. Since I didn’t have anything better to do I started
hiking up towards the ridge and walked around Cusco. Up there is a big
touristic archeological site and a big white Jesus statue. But honestly, none
of them was really that interesting. Further along the ridge you get to some
less visited, slightly hidden archeological remnants and those are much, much
more fun. In one of those places I relaxed for a while. And when for half an hour nobody else showed up I decided to take a little nap. A "park ranger", or whatever you wanna call him, roused me out of my dreams. He explained to me that I had to leave... now. Apparently you're not allowed to sleep on ancient ruins. Who could've guessed?
Later that day my travel mates met up with me and we started our trip
to Machu Pichu. We made one overnight stop in Ollantaytambo, a small town with
a few nice hikes around. That was a great choice because that weekend they
celebrated their 142nd town anniversary. All people were dressed in
traditional clothing. There were marches, bands, presentations and tons of
street food. The next day we arrived at Hidroelectrica. That is where the train
to Machu Pichu pueblo leaves. We’re poor though and the train price is
ludicrous, so we started hiking along the tracks. Through the jungle we went (A
huge surprise to me, because as always I did zero research into this trip, so I
didn’t even know Machu Pichu was in the middle of the Selva. It was a nice
surprise, though). The hike was really nice with scenes that could have been
taken straight from the jungle book. For example the river flowing next to us
the whole time. We started the hike pretty late so we ended up walking in pitch
black darkness for an hour or so. It was pretty cool. We saw tons of fireflies
and the noises in the jungle change a lot once nighttime comes. After a 3 hour
hike we finally ended up in Aguas Calientes, where we grabbed a quick bite to
eat and went to bed because the next morning we had to get up extremely early
for the trips highlight: Machu Pichu.
And once again our lack of budget made us
walk more than you’d have to. The bus to Machu Pichu, like the train before, is
way overpriced and if you are even remotely able to walk like a normal person I
suggest you do that. Starting at 5 in the morning we climbed stairs for about
an hour and a half until we got to the Machu Pichu site. Pretty straining walk,
but at least we finally made it, right? WRONG! Being the good tourists that we
are we also bought the ticket for the Montana Pichu, from the top of which you
have an amazing view down on the whole valley and Machu Pichu itself. That
meant another hour (2 for some) of climbing rough giant stone steps. While
those fuckers never seemed to come to an end (like me writing this entry…) I
considered if the whole damn thing was actually worth it (like you reading this
entry…). Verdict: It most definitely is.
The view from the top is breathtaking.
That is, if you have a view at all. The weather there changes extremely
quickly. For me at least that was part of the great experience. You get up
there and all you see is fog. No other mountains, not the valley, and certainly
not Machu Pichu. And in 5 minutes, just like that, you have sunny, clear, blue
skies. The whole movement pattern of the fog is a spectacle in its own right.
When we had made our way back down we visited the site. Lots of interesting
things to see and learn there, if you take a guide. They are not that cheap but
if you’re in a group they are affordable and the experience is much better.
Trust me, I know. Because we didn’t pay for a guide. But once I, by pure
coincidence, ended up next to different groups and just happened to overhear
the guides talking it became a much more interesting experience.
Back in Lima I
had a day to pick up fresh clothes and then I went on a school trip into the
Andes. The first day we went to Huancayo. We didn’t really do anything there
except eating and sleeping. On our way there we made a pit stop at Laguna de Paca. A big lake
that had a couple really interesting stories surrounding it. The shortest one
is this: There a two small island in the lake. One called “Isla del amor” the
other one its counterpart the divorce island. If two go to one island only one
will come back. If they go to the other they will be 3 or 4 when they leave.
Not sure if I believe that, but there sure as hell was no shortage of kids
running around the lake ;-)
The next day we took a long train ride along a canyon. The track was really something to see and the train itself was like it was stuck sometime back in the 60s. Finally we came to the Hacienda San Juan, our home for the next 2 days. It's a beautiful estate in the middle of the Pampas Valley. The owner of the hacienda is a major producer of fresh milk products and employs many people in the valley. Then again there’s not much else to do other than farming. The next slightly bigger city is hours away. That place was an amazing getaway from the constant noise and pollution of Lima. Hell, at night we could actually see a completely non- lightpolluted black sky. Well not really black. There was a sea of stars lighting up the firmament, and Venus (or so I’m told) was so bright it was almost blinding.
The days were spent with visiting the stables – old fashioned with hand milking, and a modern one with machines – milking cows ourselves, and making the acquaintance of the youngest calves. We were told to stick our hand in their mouths, and so we did. WEIRD… I was one of the last ones to actually do it because apparently I chose the shyest calf in the country. Everybody else was getting it on with a whore-calf, willing to chew on everybody’s hand, but I spent like 10 minutes just to make mine even come close to me. Although once she finally licked me, it made me feel kinda special ;-) Aaaaanyway, as I said, weird feeling. The weirdest. It was like the calf tried to swallow my hand whole but didn’t quite have the strength to do it. Of course it felt warm and icky. And the tongue was really rough, like sandpaper. Once she got hold of me the calf lady didn’t ever want to let go again. Pulling out took a lot of effort. (If that paragraph felt oddly double entendre-ish to you, you have a dirty, dirty mind. Let me assure you I only had the purest of intentions.)
The second day we did a long hike over the mountains, following the principal Inca trail to an archeological site of a farming society. The hike was really fun, because it wasn’t just a normal walk. From time to time you actually had to climb a bit or search for the way – or a way, more like. Was not always clear how to go on. On the way back to the bus a couple of us got lost. Not because of orientation issues. We just followed orders. “Follow the road down the hill” they said. So we did. Apparently we just followed quite a bit too far. Some way down the road finally one of us noticed the bus standing a considerable distance uphill in a different direction. It couldn’t have worked out better for us, because to get us to the bus quickly we got picked up with an atv. So that was cool. On the way back to Lima we stopped by a stone forest with lots of very intriguing rock formations. One actually looked like a lama. After climbing around that “forest” for a while we arrived back in Lima.
Ever since then I had to prepare term papers and presentations. Of course I didn’t, or at least not with any time to spare. As usual I procrastinated until the last possible moment and spent my time with more fun stuff. I went to the beach a couple times because the sun finally came out for good! Lima in the sun is just waaay better than the usual mix of smog and clouds. I also spent half a fortune on going out to fancy Lima restaurants which I avoided so far to go easy on my budget. But since I’m almost leaving I figured it was about time. Also it gave me an excuse as to why I just couldn’t prepare my presentations. Exams will start next week. But before that happens the house has one last trip planned to a plateau in the mountains to go camping under the stars. With bonfire, marshmallows and everything.
Jungle Book anybody??? Machu Pichu from up top
The Inca "farm" small part of stone forest
