Arrival in Peru

Hola mi amigos.

We arrived in Lima at about 5:00am on Sept 14, and were faced with our first non-English speaking task- get local currency and find a cab to our hotel without paying too much. We were first offered a cab at about $45. Fortunately, I had read in an article that it should only cost about $15 to get to the part of town that our hotel was in, so we declined. We ventured outside of the airport and found a cab for the right price and off we went. We arrived at our hotel about 30 minutes later. I'm always glad when going somewhere in a cab works. You get in some random car with a random driver and ask them to take you to a place that you have no idea where it is for an agreed upon price, and then trust that they will take you to the place you want to go and are charging you a reasonable amount. Fortunately, it generally works.

We weren't able to check in to our hotel until noon and it was about 7:00am on a Sunday morning. We met an early riser who was also about to start a trip with GAP (the Great Adventure People) and decided to join her on a bus tour around Lima starting at 9:30 and lasting for three hours. This seemed like a great way to spend the morning- relaxing, non-taxing, see Lima, and by the time we finished, we could go take a nap at the hotel. It turned out to be a really good venture. After finding the starting point, having breakfast, and a second coffee, we were off.... OK, I admit, the second coffee was at a Starbucks, I couldn't resist and it was good. Very good.

On our tour, we saw a good amount of Lima and decided it really was an ugly city. Lima is known for having some of the worst pollution and rampant petty theft. However, there are more people cleaning the streets, sweeping the sidewalks, and doing landscaping in parks than we have ever seen. It was an interesting contrast.



Fortunately, for us, we also saw some parts that were pretty nice as well. We drove by the coast and saw some folks surfing, and what looked like a nice walkway. After checking in, taking a short nap, we ventured out to walk along the water. It was great. We watched folks surfing, walked by the different sculptures, and watched people hangliding. The most famous statue in Lima is the statue of the lovers. Apparently, this is Lima's equivalent of that place that every city has where kids in high school go to make out. It was quite entertaining. There was a big launch pad for hangliding- or whatever it was. It was actually a parachute, a flyer guy harnessed in, and people paying to sit in a little pouch like thing strapped to the flyer. They ran off the cliff and took a little flight around before coming back to the same place for a landing. The takeoffs and landings that we saw were incredibly smooth.


On our way back, we came across a group of people dancing, so we stopped to watch for a while. A guy from Alaska, currently in Lima for six months, explained to us that it was a Cuban influenced salsa dance that was performed in a follow the leader type of way. It was great fun to watch. It was a group of folks who just gather in the park on Sunday afternoons for dancing. We were told there are groups like this all over the world that gather in parks on Sunday afternoons. It looked like fun- and the dancing seemed like a cross between salsa dancing and square dancing.


We finished in just enough time to get to our hotel for our GAP trip briefing. The woman from GAP arrived and sort of told us about the plans for our trip. She told us what time the bus was leaving for the airport, showed us a few pictures from the trek, and told us that it never rains in Cusco or on this trek, and beware of the mosquitoes in Macchu Picchu. She actually didn't get any of it right except for the flight details, which I suppose was the most important part. Our flight details were a little different as we were on a plane a half an hour later as part of our around the world ticket. The GAP lady didn't understand this at all, so we figured we'd sort it out at the airport.


We got to the ticket counter at the airport and tried to ask about getting on the earlier flight in order to be with the group (it was a little rough as she didn't speak English, and my Spanish isn't that good). She said the flight was full. For the record, there was a 20kg limit on checked bags (44lbs). My bag was 20.2 and Larry's was 19.8! Hurray! Of course, we had fairly heavy carryons, but fortunately they didn't check those to see if they were under the 7kg limit. When we joined up with the rest of the group, it turned out we were all on the same flight anyway. We're not sure how that happened, but we think it was our guardian travel angel, Sally, that had something to do with it. Either way, we are giving her credit.


It turned out to be a good thing that we were on the same flight because immediately upon arrival to the hotel, we met our guide for the week and were given a fairly extensive (and much more accurate) briefing of our trip. Our guide, Silver, gave us the real run down... expect rain, as Peru is entering into it's rainy season right now, and there is almost always weather in the mountains. That seemed much more like being in mountains- expect weather, and it can change at any moment.


It was quite chilly in Cusco, with the elevation being over 10,700 feet, so I bought a $3 peruvian hat off the street that I have seen 1000 times since. Apparently, everyone buys a hat. They say it's Alpaca, but it is most likely the cheap version on Llama wool. Anyway, it was warm. We got back to the hotel and needed to somehow pack everything we wanted for the trek including sleeping bag and sleeping pad in a bag weighing 7kg or less (7.5 maximum).



Silver met us at 8:00am at the hotel ready to go. We were armed with out 7kg of camping stuff and our daypacks and off we went. We traveled in our own little tour bus (20 passenger). Our first stop was an Incan community that GAP works with where they still practice traditional weaving and wear traditional clothes. It was kind of cool and a little weird. It felt pretty fabricated- like here come the tourists, better get weaving... On the other hand, it was cool to learn how it was done, and about the different materials used for both the string and the coloring. After our demonstration, we had time to take pictures, shop, and hang out. There were lots of little kids running around, and they quickly attached to us and we attached to them. The kids just wanted to hold our hands, walk around, and kick a ball. Before we left, I bought a pair of gloves, both because they were much warmer than what I brought and I kind of felt obligated to support their community. All in all, we both enjoyed the stop. It's either a really good thing for the community or an exploitation thing depending on how you look at it. I'm not sure I totally believe either side, but for the moment, I am preferring to believe that GAP and our visit is helping to support a community so that they can continue their way of life and give then a little extra income to help provide for the kids to go to school. The people there spoke only the traditional Incan language and about as much Spanish as I did, so we really couldn't ask them what they felt about the whole thing. They seemed nice and seemed to appreciate the attention we were paying to the kids, so we figure we'll go with that.





We then traveled to the Sacred Valley and our trek and visits to the Incan ruins was about to begin! However, those stories will have to wait until we get back from the Amazon (sorry, too much to do in Cusco, and not enough time to write...). Suffice to say it was a great adventure, we climbed up to just under 16,000 feet and all is well.



Here are a couple of pictures of our trek to hold you over until we can post more...