Machu Picchu

So, Machu Picchu: It was incredibly beautiful and hard to get to. First the getting there part: We took an overnight bus from San Pedro to Arica, the northernmost city in Chile. Our arrival time was supposed to be 7am, but there was an accident so we were sitting on the bus from about 6:30-9:00am. We were on the side of a mountain in the desert, and all we could see to our left was clouds. When we finally got to pass the accident, we saw that it was a truck carrying fish that had crashed, and there were fish all over the road and right up to the edge of the cliff. Very bizarre.

We crossed the border in a taxi and got to meet a Peruvian couple who were both doctors coming back from a conference in Argentina. The really stressful part began when we arrived at the bus station in Tacna, the first city in Peru. All our sources had informed us previously that it was only going to take 10 hours to get from Tacna to Cusco: in fact, it takes 16 with a stop. The bus left at 12:30 (luckily there’s a time difference of an hour between Chile and Peru, because we arrived in Tacna at 12:30 Chile Time), and was to arrive in Cusco at 6:00am. Our train, which we had already paid for and is the only way to get to Machu Picchu, left at 6:30. So, if the bus were late at all, we weren’t going to Machu Picchu! It was terrible and also meant spending a second night in a row on the bus, but in the end it all worked out, because we got there on time and everyone we met was really helpful.

Then we were finally in Machu Picchu! We stayed one night in a hostel in the town of Aguascalientes, which is not much but is where you have to stay when you’re there. The next morning we took the bus up the mountain; it’s a narrow dirt road that has switchbacks all the way up, and if there’s a bus coming down when you’re going up, somebody has to pull over to the side—a little scary! It was raining in the morning, but we wanted to get in there and climb Waynupicchu, which is the mountain behind the citadel, which doesn’t look so tall in the pictures, but it is! It was an hour of climbing on stone steps (exhausting!) and we were in a cloud the whole time. When I first caught a glimpse of Machu Picchu through the clouds, it was breathtaking.

When we were coming down it started to clear up and we could get an idea of how high up we were: very high! Besides the fact that the Incas made almost no engineering mistakes in the architecture of Machu Picchu, its being perched on top of a huge mountain is also incredible. We were allowed to walk all over the city; there are some suggested routes, but you can explore by yourself, too. A tour guide, Ernesto, was nice enough to invite us to join his group, some Americans from a financial company in Mississippi (really), so we followed them around for a while. We also met two women from Belgium who had been helping to build a school in Peru. The weather turned out to be perfect, too. Near the end of our day we went up to the other side of the city and sat for a while where we could see the postcard view, and hung out with some llamas. I think it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world, and I’m really thankful I got to go. It was worth all the challenges to get there and back!

When we got back to Arica, we had a morning to see the city before our flight back to Santiago (good decision not to take another 35 hour bus ride). Arica is getting famous for its surfing; we stayed in a hotel called Arica Surf House and got meet some of the surfers, two women from England and New Zealand. There’s a huge rock formation by the beach called the morro, which was impressive. And, it was 19 September, which in Chile means Fiestas Patrias! We missed the 18, which is independence day, but Chileans party all weekend. All over the country they set up ramadas, which are stands with games and typical food. Emily and I had asado de pollo (grilled chicken, very tasty) in a ramada called “Ramada Las Chicas Superpoderosas” (Powerpuff Girls Ramada). I don’t know why they all have cheesy names, but it was pretty funny. On our flight back, we had the most Chilean airline meal ever: empanadas de pino, bread, a salad with just tomatoes and onions, and a dulce de leche cake. Also we made two stops—we had three takeoffs and three landings within four hours.

Since then I’ve been studying and enjoying the fact that the weather is getting warmer. Next Saturday we have a tour of Santiago that highlights the political history of Chile. On Wednesday I had my first day as a volunteer at a girls’ school in Valparaíso helping to teach English. It was not easy because the girls behave so badly that the teacher can hardly do a lesson at all. But I got to talk with some of them who really wanted to learn, and I think working with them will be fun and worth it.

San Pedro de Atacama

I’ve had quite the week traveling in the north of Chile and in Perú. I feel like, after doing this, I can pretty much travel anywhere and survive. The total time traveling by bus was at least 84 hours, plus taxi time to cross the border twice, 8 hours total in a train, and a flight back with a total time of about 4.5 hours (we had two stops, so it was a 35 min flight, a 45 min flight, and a 1 hour 45 min flight—very strange). Out of 7 nights, Emily and I spent 4 in buses. The only time we weren’t traveling in a desert was when we finally got to Machu Picchu. And yet…it was completely worth it!

We arrived at San Pedro de Atacama on Friday night and found our hostel, Hostal Florida, which turned out to be not up to our standards but we toughed it out for two days and two nights. In San Pedro there were 7 of us gringos, plus various other gringos from Valpo and other places—it’s a very touristy place, even though it’s so isolated. The Atacama Desert is supposedly the driest place in the world: it never rains ever. There are no living things at all for miles around, only in the small oasises—San Pedro is one. I started to really like being in the desert because it seems like a different culture. The weather was absolutely beautiful, warm sun and cool breeze.

My favorite thing in San Pedro was going horseback riding; I did it in Olmué for the first time, but here I got a bigger horse, we went faster, we went down big sand dunes (scary!) and the surroundings were incredible. I really felt like I was in a Western. Especially because I got to wear a hat. Our guide took us past the Cordillera de la Sal, hills made up mostly of salt, and we stopped at the oasis of Quitor, where there were pre-Hispanic ruins from the time of the Atacameña indigenous people. As it’s a desert, the buildings were preserved amazingly well.

Our two organized tours were to Valle de la Luna and the Tatio Geysers. Valle de la Luna is called Valley of the Moon because it has an unearthly surface that looks as if it’s covered with craters, and strange rock formations, at least one of which was over a million years old. The thing to do here is climb up a ridge and wait for the sunset, when the desert turns different colors because of the minerals in the dirt. Plus there was an almost-full moon, so it was just extremely strange and beautiful. There was also the hugest, smoothest sand dune I had ever seen.

The next morning we woke up at 3:30am to go on a tour of the geysers. I had heard it was going to be cold, but I was so not prepared for how freezing it was up on top of the mountain. I think it was at least -20°F, and I only had two sweatshirts on. That combined with the thin air, and I was walking pretty slowly. The picture is of Emily and me warming our frozen hands in the steam from the geysers. After having been to Yellowstone, I was surprised that we were allowed to walk around freely in the geyser area—not the safest thing in the world—but in Chile things are different I guess. As the sun was coming up, they gave us hot chocolate, and it started warming up quickly after that. So much so that just 15 minutes later we were all in our bathing suits swimming in a hot spring—it was still cold, don’t get me wrong, but it had to be done. Being a tourist in another country can be very weird, because you’ll be doing something ridiculous like swimming in a hot spring at 7am on top of a mountain in the middle of the desert, and there will be people speaking several different languages all around you doing the same thing.

Anyway, after that we got back in the bus and on the way down saw some wildlife including desert rabbits, flamingos (apparently this is their habitat??), 1000-year-old cacti, and llamas!! Bizarrely, after getting out to take pictures of the llamas, our next stop was an extremely tiny village with a population of about 50, where we had the opportunity to buy llama kebabs as we sat and watched them grazing on the hills. I couldn’t do it, but some of my friends did: “I’m never going to be able to look at a llama again without salivating.”

The second half of my voyage—Machu Picchu—I’ll save until next time.

Chocolate and celery?

Yesterday we had a program tour which involved eating chocolate! We went to a small chocolate factory in Curacaví, which is a little town in the foothills, and we met the founder of the chocolate workshop, Félix Brunatto. He explained to us about how he uses unconventional—and very fresh—ingredients to make the chocolates, which are then shipped throughout the world in beautiful boxes, also handmade. We had chocolates with celery, cloves, oregano, lemon, grapes, cheese, hot pepper, and more. All of them were delicious! I actually think I liked the oregano one the best. They use ingrediants that the Aztecs, Mayans, and Tolmecs used, and also traditional Chilean recepies, and they grow all the herbs they use right there (there they are in front of me on the porch). Also they have a store in Manhattan so I'm totally going...

Then we went to Isla Negra, another one of Pablo Neruda’s houses. It’s not actaully an island, but it has a beautiful view of the ocean. He designed it himself and filled it with all his collected things, like figureheads from the front of the prows of ships, insects under glass, photographs of poets, ships in bottles, paintings, shells, books, and a giant wooden horse. There was also a steam engine out front. He really liked things—just things in general. I think it’s ridiculous that he three houses absolutely full of random stuff, but I love him for it, too.

I’m going to read his poem “Alturas de Machu Picchu” this week, because next week I’m going to Machu Picchu!! I’m really exicted and a little nervous; I’m going with just one friend and we’re taking the bus all the way up there. First we’re going to San Pedro de Atacama (leaving on the bus Thursday evening, arriving Friday evening…ugh), which is a desert in the north of Chile and one of the best places on Earth to see the stars. Also there are gysers and salt flats and the Valle de la Luna. It’s turned out to be a lot of work planning trips like this by ourselves, but it’s also fun and going to be worth it!

Tomorrow I have my Television Journalism class, which is going to be a huge challenge, I’ve found, because the idea is to learn not only how to use the cameras and write news stories but also how to—eek—announce the news, which I often can’t even understand. But hopefully it will be a good kind of challenge. The other thing I got myself into is English Opens Doors, so once a week I’ll be assisting in an English class with students at a school in Valparaíso. I don’t know what age yet or how it’s going to work exactly, but I think it will be difficult but fun.