Machu Picchu: the Salkantay Trek (9/21-9/26)

Since arriving in Cusco, Scott and I were relatively sure we´d like to visit a nearby site of Incan ruins, accessible via various treks or by bus-train combo. The site, which the Peruvian people will tell you was definitely not ¨discovered¨ in 1911 by Hiram Bingham, but rather has been known to the local people almost since the fall of the Incan Empire, is called Machu Picchu. You may have heard of it.

To get to Machu Picchu, one can choose to take a one- or two-day bus and train to Aguas Calientes - the painfully touristy town at the base of Machu Picchu mountain, then hike or bus to the actual ruins, or one has the option of hiking. There are three hiking routes to access the ruins: (1) the infamous Inca Trail - 3 nights, must be booked months in advance, features arriving through the Sun Gate; (2) the newly-popularized Inka Jungle Trail - 3 nights, favored by young adventuresome types, can feature rafting and downhill biking segments; and (3) the Salkantay Trek - 4 nights, least popular of the access routes, features summitting a 4,200 meter pass over the Salkantay glacier one day, then dropping to the jungle at only 1,300 meters the next, passing through various eco- and climate systems.

We booked the Salkantay Trek one night at 5pm, and left the next morning at 4am.

deluxe hot lunch - ready when you are

Now, Scott and I both consider ourselves to have more camping experience than the average bear, and we spent some time seriously considering doing the Salkantay Trek by ourselves. When we added up the costs of going solo versus going with a group, though, the two were fairly comparable (solo may have actually been more expensive), so we decided to forgo our prejudices against organized tours, and go with a company. In a moment of defiance, however, we brought our own tent along for the ride...we never used it.

the (shorter) mountain next to Salktantay

In retrospect, we may have preferred doing the trek solo, but what we did do ended up being a completely new experience, at the very least. Mules and horses carried our bags the first 3 days. We slept in tents under roofs. We were woken at 5 or 6am each day to a steaming mug of hot coca tea. At lunch time, we´d stop at building or shacks along the trail, where a team of cooks had already prepared a hot lunch of soup, rice, meat, vegetables and tea. Part of one meal was comprised of delicate, sushi-like rolls of polenta stuffed with fish. There were cold beers to be bought along the trail. It was like a distant sister of camping who had never stepped in a puddle without proper rainboots had decided to organize the trek, and while we enjoyed the amenities thoroughly, the constant complaining of the majority of the group tried our patience.

Hayley, Juancito, and Scott, hot on the trail

As you can imagine, the guides and the group affect the fluidity and enjoyment of a trip to an enormous degree. Our guides, Juancito and Javier, had opposite but complementary styles. Juan was quiet, funny, shy but engaging, and marched along stoicly no matter the conditions. Javier was loud and outgoing, but disappeared frequently and inexplicably, and only interacted with the group to say, ¨Ok, Super Amigos...ok guys...ok. It is a tradition...to give a little tip. So we all give a little tip. Ok? Ok Super Amigos...ok.¨ The guides, then, were fine. It was the other 16 people on the trek that made it truly interesting.

Nearly half the group was Israelis who had recently finished their time in the army, which meant they were all in beastly good shape and enjoyed jogging down the trail and complaining in Hebrew. While they were uninterested in interacting with the rest of the group, we did manage to catch their names: Angry Boy, Captain Israel, the One that I Don´t Like, the One Who Looks Like the One I Don´t Like, the Boyfriend, and Silent Girl.

Goofing off while waiting for the rest of the Crew to catch up

Another large subset of the group was the effervescent Commonwealth Crew. This group of med students was so-called because of their various nationalities: Australian, Scottish and English. While generally friendly and cheerful, they were also rather cliquey, and always situated themselves as far from the Israelis as possible at breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner tables, creating a strange constrained space for those of us in neither clique, of which there were only five of us. Scott and I mostly associated with the Canadian couple on their honeymoon and the German girl traveling by herself, as well as the less-entrenched members of the Commonwealth Crew.

Overall, it was an enjoyable crowd, and the more people complained about the daily eight hours of hiking, the more Scott and I reveled in our physical fitness and our stoicness in the face of adversity. We did climb to and snow-camp at 4,800 meters on a snow-capped volcano in Ecuador, after all.

Ghost-Hayley climbing the stairs in the fog-rain to Machu Picchu

The trek itself was mostly upwards at the start, then once we crossed the snow-capped Salkantay pass it was almost entirely downhill; we dropped over 3,000 vertical meters in the span of a day and a half (Fun Fact: according to Juancito, no one has ever summitted the Salkantay mountain itself, and the only people who tried were caught in an avalanche with no survivors). While the first night was rather cold, the second was positively temperate, and the third slightly warm. Also on the third night, we visited the Santa Theresa hot springs, which lie alluringly at the edge of a river, and in which I met a girl who went to Rancho Cotate High School in Rohnert Park (she knew a girl I played volleyball with in high school, small world). I also sustained some incredibly bizarre insect bites on my ankles, which bubbled up into delicious-looking blisters by the next day, and later oozed into my socks.

Dawn at Machu Picchu

The final (4th) day of hiking before Machu Picchu saw us laden with our packs, since horses can´t cross rivers. The morning was desolate, and our path was a scorching, dusty highway running too high above a roiling river replete with hydroelectric spillways. When that ended, we hiked several hours along railroad ties, and only once were we obliged to jump into the bushes to avoid an oncoming locomotive. The track was interminable, broken only by the occasional glimpse of a terrace high above the valley, veiled in clouds, that marked our final destination.

We spent the night in Aguas Calientes, avoiding the 4-for-1 Happy Hours and - with the practiced idiocy that rears its head whenever hikes are involved - bought six tiny rolls and a package of wafer cookies to sustain us the entire following day at Machu Picchu.

Path up Huayna Picchu - sacred city in background

4:30am saw our entire group eating Oreos and - having lost Javier again - picking our way up the treacherous ¨trail¨ (read: vertical stone steps), our skin slippery with the early-morning fog, which couldn´t decide if it would actually become rain, but drenched us nonetheless. We entered Machu Picchu at 6am alongside the dry, well-dressed, non-sweaty tourists who had opted to take the bus up the vertical incline. One member of our group verbally assaulted a woman smoking a cigarette nearby, so thirsty were we for air and respite from the ascent.

Our first impression of the infamous Incan site was...foggy. We couldn´t see much, and our group´s tour guide, Horatio, was more interested in expounding upon his theory that South-pointing triangles in Machu Picchu must indicate that the Incas worshipped the Salkantay glacier than elucidating us on any of the actual theories about the site. His book will be coming out next year. He also had a charming way of rambling incoherently in a mixture of Spanish and English for several minutes, then announcing, ¨Ok boys and girls, girls and boys, clear the understand?¨ At which point we all giggled nervously and shook our heads.

Machu Picchu from Huayna Picchu

At 8am, having crossed most of the city, yet - due to the fog and Horatio´s unintelligible babble - having seen and understood very little, Scott and I finally detached from the group to hike Huaynapicchu (Waynapicchu), the peaky mountain that rises above the city. Only 400 people can hike the peak each day, and our reservation was for 8am, while the rest of the group went later.

Strenuous. Uphill. Cables on the path to keep you from tumbling to your death in the jungle thousands of feet below. As we climbed higher, we were able to see much of the route we´d hiked the day before. And as though the Incan gods wanted to impress upon us the beauty and sacredness of the site, a brilliant rainbow cut through the fog to illuminate the valley and river below. The ruins at the top of Huaynapicchu seem to indicate a lookout point or stronghold, although someone told us that the location was simply used by the city´s astronomers. Near the top, I met a fellow Bruin on a spiritual retreat. We giggled about comparing Machu Picchu and Los Angeles. We also ran into a South African couple we´d been leapfrogging the whole trek (they´d gone solo), and took one of the funnier MySpace-style pictures of all time (four heads and the lost Incan city captured on an iPhone on top of the world - not bad).

post-napping in the Picchu

While the mountain was relatively peaceful and scenic, upon reaching the very pinnacle, we found ourselves surrounded by about 30 Japanese tourists, all tittering and giddy. It was probably the most surprising location for a party atmosphere I´ve ever imagined. Scott and I tried to wreck their pictures by making faces in the background, but we got caught and were obliged to participate in a Japanese jumping-spinning video I hope we get to see someday.

Yep! We were there...Either that or I´m good at Photoshop

From Huaynapicchu, there were signs indicating something called the Gran Caverna, and we decided to take the challenge and check it out. We climbed down stairs for the next hour, and I would guess that about 1% of all people who visit Machu Picchu even know this place exists. Because of this, we thought we were sneaking off the Gringo Trail to see a hidden treasure at Machu Picchu...Instead, we briefly peered into a cave with some brick structures, and then spent 30 minutes being spiritually uplifted by a bored park caretaker. The spiritual uplifting involved having our earlobes rubbed, massaging our own buttocks, and sitting in the back of a cave pretending to meditate while secretly keeping my eyes slightly open to ensure out backpacks weren´t being pilfered. When we finally escaped his relatively innocent clutches, he suggested we tip him. Having essentially been kidnapped and forced to meditate (seems counterintuitive, I know), neither of us was particularly inclined to do so, but I ended up reaching into my pockets and giving him the only thing I encountered, which was a Canadian two dollar coin, or ¨toonie,¨ the Canadian honeymooners had given me the night before (sorry, guys!). Reflecting, I was strongly reminded of last summer in Morocco when I bought a couch from a man named Couscous (¨they call me Couscous because I am very fat¨) for some quantity of dirhams plus one U.S. dollar. Bafflingly, the man at the Gran Caverna was thrilled upon receipt of the coin.

Double rainbow on our way down from Picchu

Back in Machu Picchu several hours and sweaty stair hiking later, we´d finished our meager snacks and it had started to rain. Many of the more fickle tourists left at the first drops, so when the sun broke out stunningly 30 minutes later, Scott and I were sharing the place with a fraction of the thousand tourists who enter each day. Being hungry and warm, naturally, we took a nap on the precipitous walls of the sacred city.

At around 4pm, and 8 hours in the infamous place, we made the (now-rainy, but also rainbow-y) hike back to Aguas Calientes, where we managed to convince a restaurant to give us a 45 sol pizza and a 1.1 liter beer for only 30 soles. Our negotiating is getting muuuch better.

Back to Cusco meant taking a train (with gourmet snax - parmesan crackers and chocolates!) to Ollantaytambo, where - of course - Javier had abandoned us, and we had to pay a colectivo (shared taxi) to take us back to Cusco. I was annoyed, and took it out on a Peruvian man for not making space for me on his row of the colectivo.

Cusco: a break from the norm (9/6-9/21)

22 hours and many films (El Campeon, Beer Fest, Unknown, The Switch, Meet the Fockers, Gifted Hands...I really cannot figure out how they choose films to show) after we left Lima, we found ourselves pulling into the Terminal Terrestre de Cusco. Naturally, I wanted to go to an internet cafe to watch the ¨Cuzco Theme Song¨ from The Emperor´s New Groove, but instead we decided to get a bit of food and walk the mile or so to the Plaza de Armas, otherwise known as ¨the place where you can´t walk more than two feet without being offered a massage, having wool hats shoved in your face, or accidentally ruining a tourist´s ideal photo op.¨

We found the hostel we´d be working at for the next several weeks, checked in with the bar manager, and by 7pm that night Scott was already working his first shift. It´s somewhat difficult to characterize our time working at the bar, as routine is always harder to sensationalize than constant new experiences, but I´ll do my best. We each worked either during the day (a 5- or 6-hour shift) or the night (a 7- to 10-hour shift, depending on if the bar closed at 2am or 5am), and spent the rest of our time in the city sleeping, eating, visiting various attractions (the infamous and incredibly difficult to find Choco Museo and the nearby Incan ruins of Saqsaywaman (see picture), or ¨sexy woman,¨ being the highlights), buying costume pieces for the various parties at the bar, or hanging out in the meat aisle of the nearby warehouse-style market (I think it was all those years as a vegetarian, but I am completely entranced by the pig heads being chopped to bits, mysterious entrails lying on dirty counters, the old women sipping soup contentedly in the midst of horror-movie gore...).
At the hostel, we worked almost entirely with some groups of traveling Aussies, who often convinced us to go out until the morning light. The nights were filled with boisterous guests and weird, 6-year-old-boy antics, while all the while we tried to save money - and inevitably failed - by resisting purchasing giant beers for beer pong or as pool bets. Some of the more notable incidents:

- One night, for lack of anything better to do, several (all?) of the male employees doused their heads in sambuca, then stood in a row. Someone lit the first guy´s head on fire, which he then rubbed on the next person´s head, and so on, until there was a row of seven or eight troll-like fire-heads behind the bar. Scott´s almost didn´t go out, and his eyelashes definitely got burned.

- At some point most nights, there would be a mass exodus for the backyard, where someone would each time come up with a stupider, more dangerous way to set off large amounts of fireworks.

- I was apparently the only person in the bar who could make a chicano, a pisco-based drink that two girls from Lima ordered about five of everyday for the entire week they were there. Of course, I only knew how to make it because they showed me...but it meant that even if I wasn´t working, I was making chicanos.

- Various theme parties, which systematically meant all of the employees and one or two long-term guests dressed up in any of the myriad costumes from the secret costume boxes. Some themes: Ladies Night (featuring boys in dresses and cartoonishly oversized balloon breasts), toga party (reminiscent of my college days...ahh), 80s Night (ideal because when I put on John Farnham´s ¨You´re the Voice,¨ all of the Aussies actually sang along, also because everyone had drawn-on facial hair by the end of the night), and Fetish (lots of feather dusting).

- For about a week, I tried to put together a Pub Quiz. I had the questions. I had the enthusiasm. It got written on the theme board about five different times...and each time it got killed by the bar manager in favor of things like lighting each others´ hair on fire or making people drink beers with cigarette ash in it. I ended up asking my 125 questions to Scott and one other guest on a slow night.

- Movies. Scott and I relished the nights when someone would cut the crazy techno music, turn off all the lights, and put on a film. Those were the easiest times to work, since even the lights in the beer fridge were turned off. Films usually featured Mila Jovavich, the weird Russian chick from Resident Evil.

- One of the many strange items at the bar was a tazer, which - for the first part of our stay - had no batteries, and was therefore harmless. At some point, however, someone invested the 4 soles in order to terrorize the rest of us - I got tazed while sitting at the bar drinking tea one afternoon...
- Towards the end of our stay, both the numbers of guests and workers began to dwindle, and Scott and I began to wonder what we´d be doing to occupy the nights. As it turned out, we needn´t have worried. An alarming trend of taking large quantities of Jaeger bombs in a row (a shot of Jaeger dropped into a glass of Red Bull, then consumed with maximum speed) and then receiving tattoos developed. The tattoos occurred throughout the bar - on tables, couches, stools - and ranged from Incan Sun God faces to BACKWARDS initials (JB inadvertently received ¨BJ¨ in 6-inch tall letters on his shoulder. Whoops).
- One day, when Scott and I were feeling a particular urge to be outside of the hostel, we walked to the Plaza de Armas, and took a seat on the sidewalk near some ladies selling massages. After listening to their lackluster ¨masaje-masaje?¨ for a few minutes, we decided to help. We began aggressively and somewhat furtively offering massages in Spanish to all the white tourists, who were somewhat nonplussed by our apparent inability to speak English. Several of them tried hard to understand us, saying loudly, ¨Only English, sorry!¨ then getting upset when we continued repeating ourselves. Scott started offering people his California driver´s license, whispering enticingly in faux-broken English, ¨...to look is free...¨ Whenever anyone got frustrated and walked away, we´d call imploringly after them, ¨mai-bee lay-ter?¨ Needless to say, the masaje-masaje ladies loved it. We started thinking that perhaps we should come up with our own ¨hustle,¨ since people all over the city sold small batches of everything from papas rellenas to bruschetta. I decided to see how well it would work if we sold brownies, by suggesting ¨brow-nees?¨ to a passing Peruvian man. It got confusing when he thought I was referring to his skin tone...I decided to change my tactic and instead offered him ¨pan kekes,¨ and he was incredibly relieved that apparently all the gringa was trying to say to him was the word for pancakes. It was this day that we also developed the incredibly effective ¨spin tactic¨ - when someone offers you something and you´d rather not have to be persistent in your refusal, simply continue walking past them, but start spinning in a slow circle. It has the effect of both perplexing and amusing them, while removing you from an awkward situation.

- One day, we decided to actually put one of our ¨hustle¨ plans into action. We bought cake mix and a pineapple, and built an incredibly burnt cake in the hostel kitchen, using Rita Smith´s painfully sweet water-and-powdered-sugar frosting recipe. The piña cake was good, but didn´t hold together too well, so we ended up feeding it to everyone at the hostel, who unanimously agreed it was ¨muy rico.¨ (This is what you say when you don´t know what else to say about a food item.)
- Gambling. As I´ve mentioned, Scott likes to gamble, and there were two casinos directly next door to the hostel. One of them specialized in delicious cappuccinos, tiny but scrumptious sandwiches, and little plates of delicate chocolates, so we played lots of roulette in exchange for these ¨free¨ treats.
- As a parting gift, Scott and I signed my Cuenca jersey and wrote various ridiculous but signature sayings on it (including a rendering of the BJ tattoo, the saying ¨Rest in Piss,¨ and ¨Pete! Pete! Pete!¨), then hung it on the wall above the bar for all to see. Wonder how long that´ll stay there...
Overall, it was quite an experience, and although it wasn´t difficult working at the bar (it mostly consisted of handing out beers, watching TV, making a mojito once a week, and running down to the kitchen to bring people food), it was nice when we finally broke out of the routine of going to sleep after 3am and waking up after 11am. It just felt like a healthy decision the morning we woke up at 4am to leave for a 5-day hiking trek to Machu Picchu.

Huaraz & Lima (9/1-9/6)

After being dropped off about a half-mile past the Chimbote bus station (whoops) at 8:10am, we made a quick turnaround, and by 8:30am we had snacks and were on our way to Huaraz via Cañon del Pato (Duck Canyon).

Now, we weren´t sure exactly why they´d specified the route, except that perhaps there were multiple routes up to the secluded mountain town and trekking oasis. As it turns out, this was exactly right, and the Cañon del Pato manifested as an incredibly bumpy, dusty dirt road that wound through a deep canyon, the towering cliff faces devoid of vegetation, dropping steeply to the river far below. The bus moved slowly (no movie this time, categories were ¨Tom Cruise Movies,¨ ¨Bill Murray Movies,¨ and ¨Famous People with the First Name John¨), frequently ¨ducking¨ through rough tunnels hewn out of the sandstone.

We passed a hydroelectric facility, but other than that few inhabitants lived in the shadows of the canyon walls - we only saw a few roadside stands, made of fiberglass sheets that glimmered faintly through the all-consuming dust. We stopped briefly for lunch, then continued on, completing the 8-hour trip late in the afternoon. We threw ourselves from the bus, but didn´t have enough energy to fend off the myriad locals who descended upon us immediately, offering lodging and special deals on the most famous trek in the area, the 4-day sendero (trail) de Santa Cruz.

We wearily followed one of the men to a hostal, then set out, determined to make plans for the trek the following day. We´d initially heard of the trail from a British man in the refugio on Cotopaxi, who´d recommended it as an introductory or training trail before trying the more challenging Pisco peak, located nearby. However, our brief research that evening revealed that the Santa Cruz trail was usually done in large tourist groups, and that to hire a car to drive you to the start of the trail would be comparable in price. Our malcontent at this information dissipated slightly when I discovered a Scotia Bank nearby (Scotia Bank is the only sister bank to Bank of America located in South America, though I´d read it was only found in the French Guianas. Those who have traveled with me before know that I will go to great lengths to avoid the international ATM fees, and that I am an expert on the B of A sister banks in more than 9 countries).

That night, to avoid making any decision on the Santa Cruz front, we decided to try some local delicacies. We had some type of rice pudding, with bits of raisin and cinammon mixed in. We tried chicha (in Ecuador chicha is a corn-beer, made from human-chewed corn, but in Peru, chicha moreno is a bubblegum-flavored purple beverage that is served either hot or cold, and reminds me a bit of Irn Bru - a bizarre orange soda favored by the Scots that we encountered on our journeys last summer). I think Scott had another street-vended papa rellena (potato stuffed with meat, lettuce, and various sauces). And to top it all off, we had chifa, or Chinese food, which is always drowned in MSG, and ice cream, thankfully not drowned in anything.

We got back to our hotel room, and that´s when I realized that I had not yet overcome my illness. I spent the entire next day and most of the following one bedridden. I finished Dharma Bums, then moved on to the incredibly disappointing White Fang, which I think I would have enjoyed if I were a 12 year old boy (this hypothesis would be confirmed later by two American boys I met, who both loved the book when they were in middle school).

The problem with me getting sick, besides being awful in general, was that we were actually on something of a tight schedule - we arrived in Huaraz on September 1st, and we needed to be in Cusco (29 hours of bus rides away) by September 6th, to start our job as bartenders at a hostel. Me being totally incapacitated for 48 hours, therefore, effectively eliminated any chance of doing the 4-day Santa Cruz trek. We did, however, visit a trout farm and do laundry while in Huaraz, which, of course, is much cooler anyway.

Also, when I was feeling better, we were out for an evening stroll when Scott spotted the unmistakeable sight of a gymnasium through a recessed doorway. To our great surprise and delight, it turned out to be open gym volleyball! Pretty soon, we were engaged in hitting lines with a mixture of young girls, women, and two men. There was even a coach! After the hitting lines, we played a 6-on-6 match with them, and it was the highest-quality volleyball I think I´ve experienced at an open gym. It felt good to move around, to sweat, and to get our hands on some good old-fashioned sports. A fantastic evening.

But we couldn´t leave without doing any trekking. Our Cotopaxi Refugio friend had also told us about an incredible day hike, up to Laguna 69. Fortuitously, the day after I recovered mostly, a bus was leaving from our hostel at 7am, driving to the trail, then offering rides back in the afternoon for 40 Peruvian soles (approximately 2.65 soles per one USD, or one sol equals approximately 40 cents). In typical Scott and Hayley fashion, we decided we could probably do the same trip for cheaper, on our own. Plus, we knew we could catch a bus to Lima that night (the only viable route to Cusco involves traveling all the way to the coast, before returning to the mountains) from a town further back down the road towards Lima, which was the direction of Laguna 69 anyway.

Sendero de Laguna 69
We set out around 9am, took a colectivo to Yungay (about 1.5 hours) for 5 soles each, then shared a taxi (another 1.5 hours) to the trailhead with a German couple for 15 soles each (we also had to pay 5 soles each to enter the Parque Nacional de Huascaran)...it began to look like we may have made a mistake in forgoing the hostel bus. However, the taxi driver was jovial, interesting, and informative, and humored my Spanish with gusto. He also stopped to let us gaze upon a beautiful, incredibly azure lake along the way, then gave us good advice about the trailhead. When we arrived, at about 12pm, he warned us that the last buses and cars along that road would be leaving around 3:30 or 4pm, and offered to wait the 6 hours he though the hike would take us, in exchange for 80 soles.

We thanked him, but were determined to beat someone back down the trail, then beg them for a ride back into Yungay to catch our night bus to Lima. And so we began a race to the top. The trail led down into a valley and along a small river, sloping gently upwards until the valley tapered out, with dark, snowy mountains looming at the end. The taxi driver had advised us to stay to the right of the river, so - of course - we immediately found ourselves on the left side, with no clear point at which to cross. Furthermore, a few rowdy-looking mules quit their grazing to follow us at a slow and ominous stride...

Eventually we realized we really needed to cross the river, or else we might be obliged to backtrack all the way to the trailhead, an option clearly ill-advised if we were to make it to the lake and back. Scott went for the bold step-on-the-slippery-looking-rock-and-hope-its-not tactic, which left him with two soaking shoes and wet pant legs, which was worrying, since temperatures were clearly low enough for snow (giant glaciers overlooked the trail throughout). I tried the throw-myself-across-at-the-narrowest-point-and-land-gracelessly-on-my-face tactic, which worked a bit better. Since I´m the whinier and sicker of the two, it´s probably a good thing I didn´t get wet, but Scott did.

From our crossing, the trail wound gently up the valley´s rise, passing horses, bulls, and mules grazing in the scrubby grass. The broken boulders were reminiscent of the High Sierras, the gnarled trees indicative of the harsh and windy conditions. At the end of the valley, the trail began relatively manageable switchbacks up the hillside, opposite a roaring, 200-foot cascade that looked more like rapids turned on their side. We overtook a European couple, but they were planning on camping that night at the lake, so we couldn´t beg them for a ride back. I was struggling a bit with the pace Scott was setting, breathing hard and feeling lightheaded (I certainly wasn´t at 100% health yet, but I also wasn´t about to miss this hike), so when we met a pair of Peruvian men on their way down, I must´ve looked haggard. We asked them if we could make it to the top and back down, and the man gave me the most encouraging slap on the back I´ve ever received. ¨Fuerza! Fuerza! Rapido!¨ he counselled, then pushed me on my way.

The switchbacks levelled out right beneath a surprisingly blue glacier, whose rounded leading edge teetered precariously a hundred feet above us. At the next steep uphill, which led through a gap of crumbling rock, we passed three Israelis, who said that although they didn´t have much space, we could probably catch a ride back with them.

The gap opèned onto an enormous high-altitude grazing field; a small lake opened onto the wet, cold, grassy field, cow pies decorated the trail, and a group of what appeared to be sherpas with firewood relaxed in a rocky outcrop, protected from the biting wind. We crossed the field easily, and other Israelis we passed coming down told us there was just one more incline before the Laguna 69. At the start of the incline, we´d been hiking for only about an hour and a half, thanks to Scott´s indomitable striding and our lack of breaks. Each of the switchbacks of this final set brought us closer to the impending snowy peaks, and to better vistas of the meadow, the waterfall, and the lower glaciers. And with nearly every switchback, we encountered hikers who could not summon the courage to summit, but instead sat, bug-eyed, salty-mouthed and gasping, at the edge of the trail.

We reached the top at around 2:10pm, which was fairly impressive for a supposed 6-hour round-trip hike. And it was worth it.

The trip back down only took us about an hour and a half, and we hiked with two Israelis who confirmed they would give us a ride in their bus. Apparently, South America is one of the primary destinations for Israeli youth to travel after they´ve done their time in the army, and we should expect to find a true bounty of them in Bolivia.

When we got back to the trailhead, however, we noticed a familiar-looking taxi...our driver had decided to wait for us anyway, as he was worried we´d get stuck! We had a choice: we could ride down to Yungay with the Israelis for free (although we´d have to wait for all of their group to make it down the mountain), or we could pay our driver 15 soles to drive us back to town. In a shocking and uncharacteristic display of not being cheap, we went with our driver, as I think we were both a bit touched by his loyalty.

On the drive, we passed a British couple about our age, who gladly hopped in, and turned out to be hilarious. Then, just outside the park entrance, we stopped and picked up three young Peruvian men, bringing the total in the five-seater sedan to eight. Needless to say, the ride down was greatly amusing, and when we arrived in Yungay, we were in such good spirits that we invited the Brits, Abby and Tom, to grab a beer with us, before heading back to their hostal in Huaraz.

This ended up being quite the misadventure, since we couldn´t find anywhere that sold cold beers, but we did catch the tail-end of some type of street festival, replete with a brass band and a drunk smashing full beer bottles in the street. Abby and Tom left as night fell, and it turned out that - for whatever reason - all the electricity in Yungay was out for the evening. There also seemed to be some shortage of candles, so we spent about two hours wandering unfamiliar streets by the (blinding) light of my headlamp.

The bus to Lima was uneventful, and we arrived at 4:30am just in time to nap at the bus station.

Lima

Once the other bus companies opened, we shopped around until we found a 3:30pm bus that would take us to Cusco in 22 hours. For the buses, there are three options in Peru; you can take a cama, or bed, which is the most expensive option and features a large chair that reclines entirely, you may opt for a semi-cama, which is similar but only reclines most of the way, or you can go cheaply with the economico option, which is a normal bus seat, with incredibly limited leg room. So far, we´ve ended up in semi-camas, which are plenty comfortable for a night´s sleep.

Just like in Guayaquil, we had some time to explore the city, and only one real idea owf where to go - Miraflores. This region of the otherwise congested, dirty, and supposedly dangerous city is where all tourists are found, replete with MacDonald´s, Starbucks, Scotia Bank, and an all-inclusive waterfront mall, where prices rival that of Hollywood. We took a harrowing journey in one of the city´s tiny buses (think a 15-passenger van stuffed with about 30 people, with a man hanging out the doorway shouting the destination as the driver maneuvers the vehicle past the other careening buses and various pedestrians) to Miraflores, then spent an hour trying to find somewhere for breakfast, which apparently is completely unavailable at 8am. By 9am, we´d eaten some unsatisfying sandwiches (¨caprese¨ in Peru apparently means two thin slices of mozzarella and a paltry tomato on white bread) and were seated at one of the many casinos in the area.

[aside] Now, those of you who know about Scott and my trip last year in Europe will know that Scott´s casino radar is on-par with my Bank of America partner bank radar, and that we had some unusual good luck at casinos in Amsterdam. By ¨unusual good luck,¨ I mean that when we arrived in the city, before looking for food or a hostel, we waltzed into a hole-in-the-wall casino, accidentally bet two Euros on 31 black, and won 72 Euros. Later, we discovered that if we made minimum bets at the casino near our hostel around closing time, it was easy to snag several pre-wrapped sandwiches from the front desk as we left, and hence we spent almost no money on food in Amsterdam.

After some casino betting (and winning!), we headed to the malecon for some fresh sea air. As it turned out, the malecon was an expensive beachcliff resort-style affair, and it took us quite some time (and lots of sitting on benches, half-asleep) for us to actually figure out how to get down to the beach. I was on the verge of falling asleep on my feet, since waking up at 4:30am after an intense hike is not exactly the most restful of scenarios. However, should you ever travel to Lima, you should know that, at least in the Miraflores region, lying on patches of grass for a quick catnap is extremely frowned upon. If you simply wish to sit on the same patch of grass, though, you are entirely welcome to do so.

We made it down the cliffs and across the beachfront freeway thoroughfare to find a beach riddled with large stones, facing a breakwater featuring a few kilometers of slowly-curling waves. Scott made some friends with the local surf bums, promising to return in a few weeks (empty, empty promises). Then, to keep ourselves entertained, we made a 20-minute-long film of our hike back up to the city, featuring shouting at cars and me making grotesque faces in the background of Scott´s serious commentary. We watched it on the bus, later, and found it to be less than hilarious.

We made it back to the bus station with minutes to spare (Scott had stopped in another casino), and settled down to a quiet, 22-hour bus ride to Cusco, and to our new home.