Arrival in Peru and Chicken Feet Stew

Border crossing made easy.  This was my thought during our 3 a.m. arrival at the the Ecuador-Peru border.  Crossing consisted of everyone getting off the bus together, getting an exit stamp from Ecuador, walking across a bridge, filling out a form giving your name and such, getting an enterance stamp from Peru, getting back on the bus with everyone else, and continuing the journey South.  Not too shabby.  However, I´ve come to the decision that I must have pissed some sort of Ecuadorian Bus God off or something, because every time I got on a bus in Ecuador, the person in front of me inevitably leaned their seat back as far as it would go, which was generally just about touching me, because the seats were generally broken.  As you may imagine, this was rather uncomfortable during overnight busses through the mountains.  This border crossing bus was my particular favorite, as the man in front of me not only leaned his seat completely back, but also proceeded to reach his hands over the seat and creepily hold them within inches of my face for a solid two hours.  This made it a bit difficult to sleep.  Though I´m sure the laughing fit that it sent K.T. and me into made it a bit difficult for everyone else to sleep too...  It´s nice to have finally hit the bed busses in Peru.  Blankets, pillows, snacks, seats that lean back without getting all up in anyone elses business, and movies dubbed in Spanish.  They´re better than some of the hostels I´ve stayed in.

We hit the coastal towns of Chiclayo and Trujillo for the first couple days in Peru and did the super-tourist thing because we heard about some interesting museums and ruins that we just absolutely had to see.  It was interesting, that´s for sure, but I can only do so many tours with one guide for a huge group of people who are all taking the exact same photos before growing tired of it.  Now we´ve landed ourselves in the mountain town of Huaraz, where we did one more tour to see some more ruins, and then tried to spend our time with the locals instead of the rest of the tourists.

Everyday the same conversation takes place between K.T. and I.  It goes a little something like this:

Person 1: So, do you think we should actually leave tomorrow?
Person 2: I don´t know, what do you think?
Person 1: I mean, I would stay one more day. Maybe we´ll go climbing again.
Person 2: Yeah I´d stay another day too, but let´s buy bus tickets at some point so we actually leave.
Person 1: Ok, good idea.  I agree.

Yeah sooooo, we haven´t actually made it to the bus station to buy tickets yet.  Oops.  But you try leaving a place that´s surrounded by huge mountains, has crazy amounts of hiking and ruins around, and more than anything, where you´ve made local friends who climb all the time and take you with.  It´s a bit difficult.  And so, we´re still here in Huaraz.  We say that we are going to leave tomorrow, and I think we actually might this time, but we´ll see what happens.  I love this place.  I haven´t found many places in my travels where I could imagine myself living for an extended period of time, but I most definitely could spend awhile here.

And to close.  Since the principal wonder of humankind toward other cultures generally revolves around food, I thought I´d give you all a little insight into what I´ve been seeing and/or eating since arriving in Peru.  I think a good example story is one from the market.  K.T. and I made a lamb dish for dinner one night, and went to the huge market to get all the fresh ingredients that we needed, including the lamb, which still had a bit of fur left.  When K.T. asked the lady if she could take the meat off the bone, the woman grabbed her hatchet, put the leg of lamb on some sort of stool or table and hacked away at it until the hoof was severed off.  It was a pleasent experience, to say the least.  The photos this time are both the things we´ve been doing and seeing, as well as the food.  Enjoy.

Finally made it here.

The Chavin de Huantar ruins.

Our first and most likely last look at the Peruvian coast this trip.

The meat here is fresh. Real fresh.

The Laguna Churup hike.

Huaraz. Right now, the love of my life.

Lead climbing in Huaraz. Maybe only a 5.6 or 5.7, but I care none. It was amazing nonetheless.

A norm here. Not really my favorite.

Last Days in Ecuador

We spent our last days in Ecuador in the gringo valley of Vilcabamba, where the land is lush and the white people know it.  We got some insight about this from a 92 year old man sitting in the main park who claims that the people  from the U.S. have overtaken Vilcabamba, bought the land, and locked out the local people.  After seeing the mansions built on the rolling hillsides, I´m pretty positive this is true, whether the accused realize it or not.  We didn´t stick around too long, but long enough to hike a bit, do some horseback riding, and appreciate the insane natural beauty of the place.  I can see why people flock there.  During the last days, K.T. and I also picked up a random traveller named Harry, who when we couldn´t understand his name through his thick English accent, said´"you know, like Harry Potter".  So naturally, I immediately said he could travel with us.  Talk about a language barrier within the same language.  I possibly understood more of what the people here say than deciphering Harry´s accent and vocabulary.

After Vilcabamba, my visa finally expired.  It´s hard to believe that I spent three months in Ecuador, and even harder to believe that I had to leave.  I don´t know that in a three month period of time I have ever learned quite as much as I did beginning this last Ocotober.  I progressed from feeling lonelier than I´ve ever felt to feeling like I could do absolutely anything.  I thought that I could adapt before, but I am sure of it now.  More than anything, I´ve learned more about human relationships. Communication is not always done best through use of a common language.  I think that I´ve communicted more efficiently with some people in my semi-broken Spanish than I have with many people in English.  Perhaps it´s the simplicity of it.  I´m not entirely sure.  I have met people that I will forever keep in contact with, while simultaneously discovering just how fleeting human relationships can be.  Not to sound too much like Captain Cliché, but it all wraps up into one main thing.  This trip really has been the best experience of my life.  So thanks Ecuador- I´ll catch ya later.

In case you were wondering, you aren´t allowed to bring dogs or bikes into the bus station... or goats.

This is what happens when trying to take a picture in the dark, without a flash, at 3 in the morning.

Hiking a ridge above Vilcabamba.



Viewing the World through Polarized Sunglasses

When you wear brown polarized sunglasses, everything is warmed up.  Greens are greener, blues are bluer, and everything generally looks more colorful and beautiful.  Because of this, I sometimes look at the aesthetic beauty of a place based on the difference between wearing my sunglasses and not wearing them.  Yes, I know this is strange, but try it sometime and you might understand.  Anyhow, because I have to wear my sunglasses pretty much anytime I walk out the door in the insanely bright mountains here, I can make this judgement fairly easily.  There is hardly any difference.  In fact, it may actually be more beautiful  without the sunglasses.  Ok, now onto the stories.

A few words of culinary advice for travelling through a foreign country: when unsure as to the meaning of something on the menu, and if you are not 100% positive that you are willing to try anything, be sure to have the waiter or waitress specify past "una parte de vaca", or "a part of the cow" in English.  K.T. and I did not specify this until it was a bit too late, and thus, we ate guatita, or as you all would know it, cow stomach.  The peanut and potato sauce in which it was stewed was pretty delicious, so it wasn´t until I was spitting out all the pieces of meat because they all seemed to be completely fat, and K.T. stumbled upon a piece that slightly resembled some sort of animal tongue, did we ask a different waiter just exactly what we were eating.  "Panza de vaca", with a smile and a motion to his belly explained it quite well.  So yeah, we didn´t quite finish the whole dish.

This began the new set of adventures.  After a minor bump in the road involving K.T.´s bags and the Delta airline, we discovered we were going to have to stay in Quito for New year´s, which neither of us were exactly keen on.  Oh well.  Shit happens.  We were willing to make the best of it, and we did.  We were finally able to grab K.T.´s bags and make it back to our hostel by midnight with the help of a life-saving local friend who was stuck in Quito as well.  As the three of us went out to celebrate, K.T. and I were quite glad to A. be with a guy from Quito, and B. be with a guy from Quito who has a car.  We were slightly less than comfortable with the fireworks shooting every which way through the street causing and immense haze over the city, the flaming puppets the people burn representing their last year, and more than anything, the massive fight between twenty or so guys involving beating each other with bats and large sticks.  However, as disconcerting as it might seem, all was well.  We were safe and sound inside the car, and after a few strike outs with places to celebrate that didn´t have a soul inside, we found a second floor club in Mariscal playing salsa and danced until five in the morning.  It was  a good New Year indeed.

The adventures only continued from there.  The following day we made our way a bit further north to Mindo for some zip-lining.  I can definitely see why it´s so popular.  Sailing nearly carefree above the trees is somewhat addicting.  However, notice how I say nearly carefree.  Having somewhat of a climbing background, I feel that I know a few things about, oh I don´t know, locking a carabiner for instance.  But, since only the guides were allowed to adjust anything, I could only try to explain that I would like my carabiner fully locked.  They would then spin the locker that was holding my harness to the zipline once and send me on my way, only to have it rattle open half way through.  Oh well.  I decided it was pointless to miss the views worrying about a safety feature.  Besides, I was backed up on a slightly fraying runner with another wide open carabiner anyway...so I was, naturally, completely safe.  In addition to this, I probably should have gotten the hint when our hostel had mosquito nets over the beds, but I paid no attention and wore cropped pants and chacos, and now my ankles look and feel like some sort of war between various types of insects has taken place.  The ziplines were followed by a couple days of climbing in Baños, which for me, was better than anything I could have done there.  After the desert trip I took right before I left for Ecuador, I was craving some climbing, and it was presented to me on the ash covered rock along the river in Baños.  It was a bit difficult trying to follow the beta being yelled up at me in Spanish, but it was amazing nonetheless.  That´s one thing I miss about home right now.  BUT, I think the need for playing outside is going to be filled plenty with K.T. here.  Tomorrow we continue south to Vilcabamba for some hiking and horseback riding.

K.T. on the zipline at Mindo.

Second day of climbing in Baños.

View from the climbing area.

Man in Cuenca selling goat´s milk in the street...fresh...real fresh.