Se Acaba Bien Todo Lo Que Empieza

We're on our way home! This trip is over. Crazy. More on that later. First, we have a lot of catching up to do, so excuse the exaggerated length of this post. 

We last left off in Cuzco, Peru, which seems like forever ago. Cuzco is a nice city, but bone chillingly cold. From there we explored the surrounding Sacred Valley of the Incas with our German friends Kai and Nadja while we planned our route to Machu Picchu. 

We spent the days exploring the valley on foot, taking long hikes through small Andean villages and checking out the ruins along the way.

This as an ancient salt something. Something something, something. Yeah. We didn't really figure this one out. The salt is PINK!

There are several ways to get to Machu Picchu: Perhaps the most common way is the Inca Trail. A 3-4 day group trek which takes you through the valley along what is called the Inca Trail, ending up at Machu Picchu at sunrise on the last day. This option requires a small fortune, but even more important for us, months and months of advanced planning, which you may have gathered from this blog, is not exactly our “thing.” The next most common way is to take a train from Cuzco to the city at the base of Machu Picchu. This however also requires a small fortune. So, the four of us headed out on what we dubbed “The Poor Man's Inca Trail” and followed the train tracks on foot. This turned out to be fully awesome, as you are able to take in all of the scenery etc. with none of the cost, and 100x more danger!

We got to Machu Picchu on one of the first buses of the day and were able to watch the fog clear and reveal the ruins at sunrise. Kind of the most spectacular thing you can witness with your eyes.

There's a lot about Machu Picchu that nobody ever tells you. For example, there are tons of little chinchilla-like creatures scurrying around and hiding between the ancient rocks.

Even funnier than these little guys was Alayna's impression of them, which, for her sake, we omitted from the blog.

There's also a llama petting zoo! So. Frikkin. Soft!

After Machu Picchu we got an early start the next morning, retracing our tracks from the day before. This is the first of two tunnels we passed through on our way. Just before entering the second tunnel, Alayna and Nadja both expressed their concern about going in. Meanwhile, Nick and Kai both insisted that this tunnel was very short and that according to the schedule the train shouldn't be passing through for a while still, and that there was really nothing to worry about. So this is us, heading into the tunnel. Right in the proper middle of this tunnel, equidistant from the beginning and the end, we hear a a very train-like sound. We all pause for a moment in disbelief, searching for some kind of explanation or reassurance on the face of the person closest to us, who of course we couldn't see. All of a sudden the train's powerful headlights cut through the darkness of the tunnel and we all take off running like our lives depended on it, cause they actually did. We made it out, but just barely in time. It was incredible!!!!

The narrow escape. 

 We made it back to Cuzco and hopped a night bus to Puerto Maldonado where we would spend a few days in the Amazon Jungle then take a boat across the border and enter into Bolivia in the north.

Puerto Maldonado is a really fun port town. Probably the coolest thing about it is that it is still relatively unvisited by tourists, so its charm is still intact.

  We contracted some young local guys to take us into the jungle for 3 days and show us around. We saw tons of monkeys, birds, caiman, piranha, flora and fauna. We also spotted some giant river otters and got the chance to watch them for a bit while they fought over a fish. It was amazing.

(Just to clarify, this is not in the jungle, but rather at a rescue center nearby working to raise awareness of the threats to these animals and their habitats)

The Crew

Here we are at the best spot in town to wait for your cargo boat to Bolivia.

All along we knew that crossing the border into Bolivia by boat was going to be a complicated matter. We ended up waiting in Puerto Maldonado for days while the guy who agreed to take us got his act together. We even got to bribe someone for the first time!

Our Ride. Although he never told us once, our captain Freddy was planning all along on shuttling 14 other people and crates upon crates of supplies up the Rio Madre de Dios into Bolivia with us. An unimportant detail he insisted. We made our nest between the months worth of yogurt supplies and the barrel of spare gasoline.

Captain Freddy. All joking aside, this was a beautiful voyage.

At the border. This is where a shirtless soldier gave us our entrance AND exit stamp, complete with the date written in by hand. As we learned when we were trying to leave Bolivia, this stamp was completely and totally illegitimate. Shocking. All we had to do to fix it was pay 100 bucks! Not so shocking.

We disembarked at a tiny village in the north of Bolivia. Place was packed!

From that tiny village we caught a bus to a slightly less tiny village where we parted ways with Kai and Nadja, and made our way to La Paz. This is La Paz.

The first thing you notice about La Paz is that almost everyone is of indigenous heritage. The next thing you notice is that it is really hilly. Then you notice that you just walked a block and you can barely breath. La Paz sits at 11,975 ft above sea level! Vibrant colors, lots of markets, and good bit of superstition mixed with religion, La Paz is cool. 

Dried llama fetuses. What? They're good luck.

In Bolivia we stayed mostly in central cities because we were on a serious time crunch. All of them were nice. It's a shame cause we were really excited about Bolivia, but then again, now we have a reason to go back. We did take a day off from flying through the country to ride some ponies in the desert. This is supposedly where Butch and Sundance came to retire. Not bad, not bad at all. From here we booked it to Iguazu Falls.

In Iguazu we met up with Nick's parents, Reuben and Denise, and went to the falls with them. Good times were had, as the bottle of wine implies;)

The falls are amazing. Two times bigger than Niagra they say, and you can't help but laugh at how good it feels to have your mind blown like that. Like Machu Picchu, pictures do not do this place justice. It's more about the feeling when you're somewhere so incomprehensible. It just makes you wanna shout.

We got on that Boat!!

One more night bus from Iguazu and we were finally in Buenos Aires, our final destination. Our plan in the beginning was to travel for three months, live in BsAs for three months, and then we'd have a month and a half extra to play around with. We ended up traveling for six months and staying in BsAs for almost two. We stayed in a nice apartment with Nick's parents for a week while we explored the city with them, then we found our own place and started getting settled.

San Telmo: Our barrio. Supposedly the neighborhood that's most typical of Buenos Aires: cobblestone streets, plazas and shorter, older buildings. We loved the old-timey feel of our neighboorhood, but apparently so do the tourists- A starbucks was being erected in the main plaza on our last day:(

Calle Defensa at night.

Sunday night Feria. 

Life here was great. We found a nice room and our schedules were wide open. On Sundays we went to the "pulga" (flea market) in Almagro early in the day, then we would go to the "feria" (artisan fair) in San Telmo in the evenings. It makes for a fun day because all the Argentines are out drinking their mate, wine or beer and enjoying their weekend. Ideal for drinking beer, relaxing all day and buying things for 2pesos.

We also went to free tango classes once a week and made some progress in our tango skills. Our teacher was a typical porteno: extremely passionate... about himself. Alayna took pilates and ceramics classes at a cultural center downtown and worked with a small NGO that's just getting started here in BsAs. Nick finally landed a restaurant gig that turned out to be really cool. Aside from that, we pretty much spent a lot of our time here wandering around, catching buses and undergrounds, criss-crossing the city and her neighborhoods, searching for and finding the things we like.

Our building. We lived on the ground floor of this handsome old building which we shared with folks from Colombia, Argentina, Peru, and Brazil. Good times.

Do they look like just some tourist scheme? No way. Tango is alive and well. We promise. 

This giant sculpture opens and closes with the sun.

Just an hours train ride away from BsAs exists the fantastical land of Tigre: a giant delta full of small islands connected by canals where people build their houses on stilts and buy their necessities from boats that circulate selling their wares from the water.

Even though BsAs is good, most of its people are less than friendly. We decided to go to Cordoba because of its reputation for a warm and playful population, and to take a visit to the campo once more before we left for home. It's true what they say about the people there too: we had a guy invent a joke on the spot about us being from San Francisco. The joke bombed, but the point remains: they've got a good sense of humor. 

Before leaving Cordoba we spent a day in the campo in a pueblo called Mina Clavero. It's full of small town charm and tons of little swimming holes. It was the perfect place to kick back with some sandwiches, soak up some sun, swim, and then get ice cream and take a nap. It was good to get out of BsAs and see more of Argentina before we left. Just before Nico jumped, all the kids at the swimming hole asked Alayna what his name was so they could start calling him a wuss in spanish. The power of peer pressure...
BANSAI!!

And that's it. That's us on that little airplane, flying back to the states after 231 days, 7 countries and more than 3,000 games of Boggle for iTouch...

Oh right! And a lifetime of beautiful memories of the most rewarding experience of our lives.
We're Back!
See you guys soon. CIAO!

Ecuador: The Perfect Bowl of Porridge

Yeah yeah yeah. We know what you´re all thinking. This is some blog. Two posts in five months....

What can we say? We´re traveling, we´ve got better things to do;) So, without further ado, the pictures. Hooray!

One view of the vast expanse that is Cotopaxi National Park.



This one requires a little imagination. Right behind us, hiding in that massive cloud of fog, lies the perfectly conical and enormous snow-capped volcano mountain Cotopaxi. This was going to be THE money shot, but for the three days we were there the fog never lifted and this was the best view we got. Lame nature, very lame.





The insanely beautiful Quilotoa region of Ecuador. We hiked in and out of these gorgeous patch-work valleys for three days, overnighting in little andean mountain towns. For us, this was definitely a major highlight.




Our map of the trails. Take it from us, never trust someone who hands you something like this and tells you,
¨No no no, you can´t get lost.¨




After three days of hiking some really, really steep mountain trails, we reached this.



Definitely worth it.

This little camioneta is everywhere in Ecuador. It´s the perfect cross between a car and a truck, wrapped in that classy 70´s style. We want one!

Monkey Business: One Week as Volunteers

After completing our hikes in Quilotoa, which were amazing and exhausting, we decided it was time to try our luck at volunteering again. This time, instead of ¨working¨ at an ¨organic farm¨ we headed for a refuge for animals who have been victims of mistreatment and illegal trafficking.


The first thing that comes to mind is how incredibly unique this experience was. How many times in your life to you have the opportunity to cuddle with monkeys, go fishing with a baby otter and stroke a coati´s belly? Futhermore to know that you´re helping animals that need you, is like nothing else. Ever since we left the reserve we often talk about these critters like they´re our good friends. And we think they are. It was hands-down the most fullfilling part of the trip. Pardon our enthousiasm, but we´ve included a ton of photos, because they say more than we ever could. Enjoy!

The meet and greet.
This is Mauricio The Coati and Dorita the Wooly Monkey.



Sisa the Monkey says, ¨Oy! Wat u duz der?¨




Yeah. We jammed. Monkey thought I was doing it all wrong tho:/

 

The handshake. Monkey style.
This was literally the minute we showed up. And we were worried the monkeys might not like us...
 The best is to look at this photo and the following as a sequence.

Milton doesn´t like to be told what to do.

Feeding time!
What you don´t want is to be the poor sucker carrying the plate of fruit outside from the kitchen (ie. Alayna.) Look at their faces! They´re in extasy! You don´t want that on you, trust us.  

The Setting. We were in some thick jungle.

Curious Milton

Giddy´up!

This is Adam the baby river otter.
He looks vicious but actually he squeaks like a rubber ducky and comes when you call his name. So. Frikkin. Precious!

Pretty much, after you´ve cleaned all the monkey shit, this is how you spend your day.

Both of my girlfriends. But shhh, don´t tell either of them ;)

No caption necessary.

Dorita. Alayna´s baby.
She would eat like, ten bananas a day. Just like Alayna! Zing!

I know it looks like he´s trying to escape, it´s cause he is. Clever monkey.

Nico and Martina.
She would hang on the kitchen window and rub her belly and make noises while I would make lunch. We got close.

Paulita.
Baby monkey eating a butterfly. Cute or tragic? 

Alayna´s National Geographic photo of Dorita.

The coaties, along with the other critters at the monkey reserve, had convinced themselves that they too were monkeys.



Yeah that´s mud under my eyes. We were hunting. Jungle style!



Nocturnal Monkey

Last day cuddle session. Awwww. We love you Monkeys!



Mercado in Cuenca, Ecuador.




Very cool graffiti in Cuenca. The city was alright. Gran cosa no era. But the food in this city was easily the best we´d had in Ecuador. It seems like all we did was eat.




Yeah! We rode horses again and it was AWESOME! This time we even galloped!

Vilcabamba was our last stop in Ecuador. This was a sad thing for us because at almost five months into the trip, we look back on Ecuador as the part of the trip where we enjoyed ourselves the most. We weren´t rushing, nor were we dragging ass. We weren´t new to traveling, and we weren´t tired of it either. We volunteered, and then  kicked back on the beach. It wasn´t too cold, but it wasn´t too hot. Ecuador is the perfect bowl of porridge and we would go back in a heartbeat.   

On to Perú, Land of the Incas.



View at ancient ruins of Kuelap, the ¨Machu Picchu¨ of the North.
One of the things that sets Perú apart is the abundance of pre-Colombian and even pre-Incan ruins. Some of them, were truly spectacular. Others, not much more than massive piles of sand. Both interesting and historically important. This one in particular was the best example of pre-Inca construction (we´re talking up to 1,500 years ago!) It is older than any Inca structure and uses more brickwork (by weight) than the Great Pyramids. 




Their main entrance at Kuelap was massive and bottlenecked to a narrow passage way thru which only one person could pass at a time.  




Old-School. That´s an afro and a mini-victrola.




Enormous coastal ruins and Chan Chan in Central Perú. Definitely a huge archeological site, but at times not much more than an elaborate sand castle washed away by the passing of time.




Trio of Ceviche at Lima´s super famous Astrid and Gaston. Such a great night. Sooo good! (Maria and Jim: Thank you so much!)




Monastario de Santa Catalina in Arequipa.
 This old monastary was home, as it turns out, to some of the most hedonistic nuns the Catholic world ever knew. Who knew? But check out this Spanish-styled villa the built inside the city of Arequipa where they lived with their servants and gold!




Night shot in Arequipa.
This city was clean. And pretty. Kind of the opposite of most Peruvian cities. We were a little tired of ruins at this point so we just soaked up the first rays of sun Perú was offering.




Another night shot of Arequipa´s super pretty arcaded main plaza. Arequipa, even though it was completely pleasant, mostly served as our jumping off point the nearby Cañon de Colca.




The thing about Andean mountain towns is that they are brutally cold. Accordingly, indigenous women (like this one) set up rolling stands in the central markets where they make hot infusions using a variety of flowers and herbs (like these ones) in super delicious and super healthy age-old combinations. To all you hippies out there, seriously, this could be the next Kombucha!



One of the things the Canyon is known for, aside from being more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, is its extensive Incan terracing.



We spent one day riding mountain bikes from one small village to another.  




This is before we really even started the hike to the bottom of the canyon, back when we were still optimistic about the day. Turned out to be a death march and a half! First you descend thousands of meters in the hot mid-morning sun. Then you reach the oasis at the bottom. Yup, you read that right, we said oasis. Picture palm trees, a series of several flowing glacier-blue pools, and cold beers. It was pretty much a Corona commercial, but for real. 




Now the hard part. Turns out it, it´s not as much fun to start your hike with the descent, a cold beer and a dip in a pool, only to dry yourself off and begin the real hike up the almost vertical walls of the canyon.  




Ancient Incan technique of dehydrating potatoes renders potatoes disgusting.




Floating Islands on Lake Titicaca.
These communities live on artificial islands made of the floating Totora reed. A long time ago, in order to escape warring peoples, they decided to live on little reed boats on the lake. Boats eventually evolved into islands that they continue to live on today. It´s unlike anything else.




Ruins at Saksywaman. A perfect example of the perecision with which the Incans would carve and fit together their unfathomably large stones. (Remember, they had no metal tools. How´d they do that?)




In the Sacred Valley of the Incas, outside Cuzco, houses are still built using adobe bricks. They look so natural in their setting you start to wonder if they didn´t just sprout out from the ground.




We don´t even know what to say about this one. We just like her sales pitch.

We´re glad to finally have this post up and running. Does a post even run? Anyway, we´re delirious from sitting at a computer for so damn long. Cusco is cold and Machu Picchu awaits.

Hasta next time, six months from now;)

y CIAO!!!