Week #7 to 8.5: Camino to the Top of a Rock

There's no nice way to say this...getting from northern Argentina to Cusco, Peru in about a day & a half was actually pretty miserable. A 24 hour busride + a ridiculously early morning border crossing to catch an early morning flight cannot be understated in terms of discomfort. I would rather roll around in thumbtacks than do this again. I would strongly not recommend trying to do this in under 36 hours. After enduring the aforementioned 24 hour busride from Salta, Argentina to Arica, Chilé, that included traveling at heights of over 5,000 meters (16,400 feet) which sounds all nice & dandy but it actually feels like this guy is sitting on your chest, I then had the pleasure of crossing the border at from Chilé into Perú at 6am Chilean time / 4am Peruvian time. I say pleasure because when you hire a taxi to cross the border you probably don't expect to be sheperded across international borders in a smooth Chevrolet Caprice. Sure the Chevy driver's manual will say this 'little 4-wheel slice of heaven' seats only 5 personas but when you're rolling in the 'Cla$$ic' model you can fit 7 peeps inside. It was glorious. Soon enough I was in Tacna, Peru where I caught my flight to Cusco and was finally at my destination. Whew.

Arriving in Cusco was a relief on many levels as I would have lots of time to relax/catch up on sleep and acclimate to the altitude of 11,400 feet ahead of starting the Incan trail hike 4.5 days later. And DAMN it didn't take long for the altitude to start slapping me around. I did nothing but drink coca tea and sleep for like my first two and half days. And I don't really have a good reason for this but I decided to try my hand at doing a casual little jog near my hotel on my third day...basically it was an uncomfortable combination of 1 part heart attack and 1 part coughing attack from the smog / car fumes. Once again let's add this to the list of things I do not recommend you do.

I'd actually like to take a moment and talk about Hotel Niños, the place where I stayed while in Cusco. It is a basic, no frills hotel that is very clean and super comfortable to just hang around in. However what is truly noteworthy about this place is why it actually exists. In total there 3 hotels, 2 in the city and 1 Hacienda location / quasi resort out in the countryside of Cusco. All of the hotels' profits, in addition to many individual donations of various supporters and former customers, are spent supporting a series of child aid projects in the Cusco area. The projects are comprised of 5 'restaurants' / daycare-esque facilities that provide free food, medical attention, showers and a much needed positive / loving environment for some of the poorest of the poor local Cusco children ages 6 -12. To date around 600 local children receive free food 6 days a week at the restaurants. The prologue to this story is just as impressive. The founder, Jolanda van den Berg, is from Holland and began her charitable efforts here in 1996 after witnessing the extreme poverty / dire conditions of local children while vacationing in the area. Within months after her vacation ended she had moved to Cusco and adopted some local children; from there the Niños projects began and have grown incrementally over the last 12 to 13 years. It would be too complex to delve into all the reasons that these conditions exist but the basic gist is that many kids live in terrible conditions due to a combination of physically / sexually abusive parents, absentee parenting, inadequate resources provided by the government and overall poor local economics for the rural based portion of Cusco population. And while the growth of tourism over the past 15 or so years has by all accounts been positive on the whole there are still many people who don't share in those profits in part or at all.
Jolanda was kind enough to sit down with me, answer many of my questions and even give me a tour of the newest hotel project, the Haciendas, and the adjacent children's restaurant. I was lucky enough to go while some of the children were there. First I was astonished that despite the difficult conditions the kids constantly live in they were still super friendly and most them greeted me with a hug & a kiss despite never meeting me before. To give you an example of the magnitude of the difficult conditions these children endure many of the ones I met must walk 2 hours (one-way) between their home in the mountains and the restauraunt at the Haciendas facility. And they don't wear fancypants sneakers like you & I, some of them literally wear shoes mades from recycled tires. On a lighter note I was happy to see some things are truly universal as when I arrived all the kids were enjoying themselves huddling around the TV watching Saturday morning cartoons :) If you check out the website http://www.ninoshotel.com/ & click first on 'niños projects' and then on The Story and scroll til the end you can download a more thorough description of the entire story; if you're pressed for time perhaps just print it out & read it to / from work. It's a great read and you'll be happy you did.

Anyway back to the travels. Cusco is a great city...really good restaurants, a nice mix of old Incan & newer Spanish architecture, lots of history and of course the jumping off point for the Camino Inca aka The Incan Trail, which is the old path the Incans used to walk in & around the Andes mountain. During my first stint in Cusco, and before I started the Incan Trail, I hit up many of the staple sites to see in & around the city that included The Temple of the Sun (Qoriconcho) and the Sacred Valley ruins. Honestly though after seeing Macchu Pichu the rest of those original ruins were nothing more than sissy, panzy nonsense in comparison. So without further ado...
...I finally begin the Incan trail, which would take me 4 days & 4 nights hiking around 33-35 kilometers to reach Machu Picchu. I could literally write a full chapter at how amazing it was to hike through the Andes mountains and through its many parts including the jungle & the cloud forest sections, etc. However it would bore you to tears, and possibly to anger, to read that much so I will offer you the highlights. One of the highlights was hiking up mucho stairs to get to what they call 'Dead Woman's Pass' , which is the highest part of the Incan trail at 4,215 meters. Named by the locals as it apparently resembles the shape of a dead woman lying in the supine position. Personally I found the name innappropriate. Upon reaching the pass I unilaterally decided they should really call it, or least nickname it, 'Son of a Bi*ch' pass because it is one heck of a 'beeyatch' to get there. I defy you to find issue with that nickname. It's accurately descriptive, it's easy to remember and damn if it isn't poetic.
Anyway just when you get tired of hiking up heaps of stairs and meters of altitude it's time to reverse and go down the stairs. Surprisingly going down the stairs while being easier on your lungs is actually much harder on your legs & joints; to that end when you reach a fork in the Incan trail, choose the one with less stairs. And in a cruel twist, at the end of the day you are afforded what they call an 'Andean toilet' . Given the facility's lack of cleanliness and one's compromised sense of balance when using such a bathroom as a precautionary measure I recommend using the Costanza approach whereby you remove clothing north of the belt line. 100% effective in my case.

During the hike my guide kept telling us about many of the Andean people's many superstititions and urban-esque legends. The more well known of them includes the creature that is half-man and half-deer, called the Nyokok (sp?). It's similar to the Centaur in Greek mythology, that allegedly attacks locals walking in the Andes during the dead of night. However one of the LESSER known superstitutions is that wearing these locally crafted hats will immediately make you starting singing this song...said, if you want to call me baby just go ahead, now...and if you'd like to tell me maybe, just go ahead, now. The hat will be staying off until I'm back on American soil.

I'm happy to report that the food served to me while on the hike was great. Of course you don't really have any other options when you're out in the mountains so when I was served this I just hoped it wouldn't end like this. Lamb fries or no lamb fries I finally made it to the end and just was just really impressed with the scale of Machu Picchu. Those mother-flippin' Incas built some cool sh!t...like this sun dial that functions as a calendar and this altar in the shape of a condor. Niceley the weather cleared up and I had 4 or 5 hours to just hang aroud the ruins & relax in the sunshine. Also as an added bonus I was able to hike to the top of Wayna Picchu to a great view of Macchu Pichu below.
After Machu Picchu I stayed a night at the local town of Aguas Calientes and decided to check out the Baños Termales (aka Hot Springs) to relax from the hike and expose myself to unnecessary levels of microbes & bacteria. It was kinda cool; basically it was worth the $3 it cost you to get inside. But let me give you some free advice, when you go to your average, run of the mill hot springs GO EARLY; allegedly they drain the pools once a day, at the end of the day thus the earlier you go the less disgusting they are. You have been warned.
On a different note I'd like to give the first shout out of the blog to Helma L for recommending this great little Cusco coffee shop I spent some time called Los Perros; S*bucks ain't got nothing on this place. As usual I had lots of little observations in & around the city. One of the obvious ones is how small everything is Cusco...the people, the doorways, even the fire hydrants. Which is why when you order what they call an 'Incan beach towel' for your shower you should think small and expect this.
And now that it's been a couple weeks since leaving Argentina I have not eaten any tasty empanadas and I almost ended the drought when I found a Peruvian empanada stand. However out of respect for Vito Corleone, and his murdered parents, I could not support the purchase of even a single empanada from Don Chicho and his 'dirty' empanada enterprise.
A few admin things here is the link for the V1.0 of my pictures...the embedded link in blog now includes pic from Week 7 on aka V2.0 of My "Best of SA pics". And here is the link once again to the TravelSkoot of my trip should want to check out all the stops I've made along the way. I'm off to Colca Canyon tomorrow in Arequipa, Cusco and then onto Brasil this weekend, the final country of my travels. I'll be back in 2 weeks...