Alca hikes, and the bus ride from hell

Alright, alright, alright. Ill pick up where Casey left off and do a quick run down of our Alca hikes, and the grueling series of busses we took from Cotahuasi canyon to Cusco.

The first hike took us east out of Alca up past a sleepy farming village (the name is currently evading me) to the ruins of an incan citadel perched high up on the canyon walls. The trail lead us up a steep, narrow, winding path from the valley floor up to a high plain about a thousand feet up. The trail was chalky white, with flecks and chunks of black obsidian oozing out of the cliff walls.


The village was surrounded by green terraces being plowed by cow-power (see the picture from Caseys post), heards of sheep, and rows of corn...Each with a group of pea plants climbing up the stalk. Every building was constructed of adobe and brick, with irrigation channels running through the streets to the surrounding fields.

The trail out of town went up a steep hill to the ruins above, and awarded us with fantastic views of the surrounding canyon... The ruins were nothing compared to the complex we camped in towards the end of our trip, but were cool to see none the less.



The trip back down greeted us with strong gusts of wind while we descended the steep, rocky trail... I´m not a huge fan of heights, and the engineer in me kicked in by constantly trying to point my momentum in a direction that wouldn´t send me plunging over the edge of a cliff with one mistep. I was not happy, but needless to say, we made it down in one piece. Both of us had forgot to use sunscreen, and hiking all day at a high altitude with the tropical sun left us scorched. My nose split open, taking days to heal, and Casey was burned so badly she had to hole up and hide the next day. This was after over a month of being in the desert sun of southern peru, and an entire summer back home.

The next day I took a solo hike (while Casey recouperated) north out of Alca, past the high altitude town of Ayahuasi. I was searching for another set of incan ruins, but unfortunatly never found them. I recieved several different dirrections, from several groups of people, but the awesome views I recieved were more than worth the hard work. The trail first led me up another steep, rocky path winding up the canyon wall. I was able to get a picture showing the route we had taken the day before (imagine walking down this loose trail with gusts of wind threatening to send you over the edge).


Shortly before reaching the town of Ayahuasi I was asailed by one of the scariest looking insects I´ve ever seen. It was easily the size of a bumble bee, and had a proboscis like a cactus spine. This thing didnt look like it wanted to suck my blood... It looked like it wanted to give me an injection. With arms flailing, and making girlish little noises I scampered away while it buzzed after me. I managed to lose the insect, and the trail in the process. I didn´t dare go back to way I came, but I stumbled upon the road to Ayahuasi and continued on my way. ... (The picture below shows what this thing looked like... This one was tiny. Casey convinced me that they were humming bird like insects..."harmless bumbles" she said. They showed me how harmless they were by biting me hard when I let one land on my leg).


The town of Ayahuasi was one of the coolest I saw in Cotahuasi Canyon. It was built into a steep hillside, surounded above and below by an extensive terracing system fed by high plain streams spilling down from above. A pack of school children surrounded me and started asking questions, while their smiling teacher explained to them where I had come from. Throughout the day I had a very difficult time communicating with people and came to the obvious conclusion that my spanish just wasn´t very good. I got lost in the terraces above the town, and couldn´t explain to an old farmer what I was doing there, or where I wanted to go. He just shook his head and exlaimed "aye, yai, yai" before I took off and eventually found the trail I was looking for.

I followed the path up out of town for several hours, bumping into groups of sheep hearders, farmers, and the occasional pack train of donkeys. The views were awesome, and I was amazed that each time I thought I had reached the top of the canyon I would come over a crest to see the canyon stretch for miles with thousands of feet of elevation to climb. We never made it to the high plains (where massive heards of wild alpaca, llama, and vicunia graze), but we did drive through them on our way out of the canyon...They were very beautiful, and very different from the scorched deserts, and lush vinyards we saw on our treks.



We finally decided to leave Cotahuasi after running out of money (there are no ATMs in the canyon). We hopped on our first bus in Puyca at 1 pm and made it to Alca with just enough time to buy bus tickets to Arequipa and a huge bag of snacks...The next 33 hours would be spent either on a bus, or in a terminal as we made the long trip to Cusco. The 12 hour ride to Arequipa was bumpy (half the route is unpaved), and cold as we inched over 14,000 ft passes in the dead of night with half the windows open on the bus. Casey proved once again that she can sleep anywhere, while I was awake for the entire ride.

We rolled into Arequipa at 2:30am, and promptly bought the cheapest and earliest ticket to Cusco...A 25sole (about $10), 13 hr economy run that left at 7:30, giving us 5 hours to kill in the terminal. Even if I had been able to fall asleep in such a place, I had already learned the hard way that you have to be vigilant with your things. A couple weeks earlier in Arequipa my nice prescription sunglasses were lifted right out from under my nose when I took my eyes off them for just a couple minutes. I hope the thief wears -2.25... Needless to say I did not sleep in the terminal, and the clip on sunglasses I bought are a poor substitute.


The trip to Cusco was excruciating to say the least. For some reason none of the windows opened... The lack of AC, the full load of people, and the fact that we were driving through the beating high altitude sun quickly turned the bus into a furnace. Tempers turned sour, with the locals stomping on the floor and shouting every time they thought someone took too long getting on or off at the many stops made along the way. Fortunately much of the ride was through a national reserve that offered great views of volcanos, soaring mountains, and huge heards of alpacas.

I was also lucky enough to see a vizcacha... A cat sized rodent with rabbit ears, and a long tail. At one point 2 woman walked down the aisle with a roasted sheep wrapped in a blanket. For S8 she would hack off a huge rack of ribs with a butcher knife. It smelled delicious, but with the amount of time weve been sick on our trip we decided to draw the line and forgo the meat. The icing on the cake came towards the end of the ride when a car sick child vomited on my leg. I was so tired and spent already that this didn´t bother me in the slightest. We decided that we won´t be taking the cheapest bus possible from here on out.

After 13 hours we made it to Cusco, where weve been for the last 2 weeks. Much of our time here has been spent lounging in our room sick (intestinal issues, stomach cramps, sinus infections, and a fever that kept me in bed for a day and a half). But we are both currently healthy (more or less) and enjoying the city. After 2 weeks of eating mostly peruvian fare it has been awesome to branch out a bit and eat at restaurants founded by expats from around the world. Highlights have been the dutch cafe we found yesterday for breakfast, and the delicious alpaca philly cheese steak I ate at a rooftop restaurant.


Cusco is the best city weve visited on our trip (my opinion of course). Great bars, great food, live music, and travelers/expats from around the world. We randomly bumped into our friend Kat who we hadn´t seen in a month (she loved it here so much that she ended up spending a month instead of the original 2 weeks she had planned). Although Cusco has a reputation for being one of the most expensive cities in peru, it´s still magnitudes cheaper than vacationing in any city in the united states. We found a great little hostal up on a hill with a view of the city, small kitchen, and fantastic laundry service (seriously, I´m in awe at how clean/white they got my socks).



You always hear about the intricatly cut incan stone work, where the blocks are fit together so well that "a pin can´t be inserted into the joints." This is absolutely true, and the huge, elegant, abstract walls that crisscross through Cusco are surprisingly impressive. This is one of those things I´ve always heard about, but was never on my radar until I had the chance to see them in person. I´m very excited to see the Incan ruins of Sacsayhuaman, Ollantaytambo, Pisac, Choquiqiurao, and of course Machu Picchu over the next month. Cusco was the seat of the Incan empire at the height of their power, and the surrounding valleys are loaded with pristine examples of Incan arcitecture and engineering.



We will be here in Cusco for the next 3 weeks studying at the Amauta language school where we just started an immerison language program. The first day was incredibly trying as we were placed in a class with 2 people who did not speak a word of spanish. We are far from fluent, but spending an entire day on the alphabet and days of the week was frustrating to say the least. We talked to the class organizer and amazingly ended up in a class that was exactly at our level (reflexive/irregular verbs). In spite of our percieved lack of skills we placed in a class with students who have already been studying there for 3 weeks (and we are definitely at the top of the group). We´ve picked up a lot of spanish while traveling around, but the bulk of our study was done in the states using Pimsleur language CDs and Rosetta Stone. The Pimsleur program is excellent, and I would highly recommend them to anyone who wants to learn a foreign language at home.

That´s it for now... Its amazing how long these posts take when you wait 3 weeks, definitely going to make more of an effort to keep the blog current. Hasta luego!

Back from Cotahuasi Canyon!

Well well well... it is a long one but it has all of our canyon adventures!

 We finally caught the bus out of Arequipa at 4:30pm on the 22nd of September. It was a lovely journey filled with bootlegged terrible-awesome action movies from Russia, a Tekken videogame themed movie and the American standby Commando, all dubbed in Spanish.  Since these busses lack bathrooms they stop periodically at roadside restraunts for bathroom breaks, and a quick lomo saltado before boarding the bus again.  We arrived in the sleepy little town of Cotahuasi, dead center of the canyon at about 3:30am.  It is always hard to know when you arrive in these places in the middle of the night what to expect out of the locals or how safe you are in the part of town the bus drops you off at.  In this case the town looked quaint and sweet so we unpacked our sleeping bags and attempted to warm up on the bench.  It was pretty cold and not much warming up occured until we went over to the only vender working the square so early in the morning, and ordered two piping hot thick syrup teas that warmed us to our toes.

When the sun came up we wandered around looking for some food to buy for breakfast. Every single person we passed smiled and said buenas dias, it was a lovely change from the big cities we had been in since the start of this trip. Some of the people kind of seemed surprised to see us in this canyon, most of the gringos go to Colca canyon where you can have a guided tour, your meals cooked and ready by the time you arrive in camp, and donkeys to carry your stuff. Alas, we were roughing it. For breakfast we found some fresh vegetables, super cheap avocados, and some of the most delicious fresh farmhouse cheese.  Little boys ran from shop to shop bringing the early morning fresh milk to the town in tin pails. We sat on a sidewalk overlooking the town and pastures and ate our breakfast before taking off.

The walk to Sipia falls was an easy 3.5 hour hike made slightly difficult by our overstuffed packs and exausted bodies.  The bus trips are never really good for sleeping, we might average an hour of sleep each. We found a good spot to camp near the river and attempted to nap in the baking midday desert sun. I slept for a few hours, Andy did not. Later we cooked some food on our little can stove and quickly made it disappear. As it got a little cooler in the late afternoon we decided to try one each of the otc sleeping pills we bought in the US.  We promptly fell asleep for good and felt stupid groggy in the morning. I think they also made me irratable when it was time to wake up but they worked well for Andy.  We will be saving them in case we need to sleep on the bus again.

We saved the final hike to Sipia falls for the morning since we were tired the day before.  There is little in the way of preventative safety measures here, so you approach dangerous things like cliffs at your own risk, a little like the old west.  The falls were crazy steep and one had to climb to the edge of the cliff and hang your head down over the edge to get a good look at most of the falls. The falls were pretty impressive at the end of the dry season, I wonder how intense they are at the end of the rainy season.

We hiked along the dirt road on the way to Velinga and the hot spring until the road stopped and we had to follow the Incan trail donkey-paths.  These paths are unmarked and our map was 10 years old. This doesn´t sound so bad except that Cotahuasi canyon was first completely mapped in the 90´s so our map didn´t even have the road we walked most of the way to Velinga on.  We took the trails that had the most footprints and donkey trots and kept going, asking random people we would cross if we were going the right way. 

Every Peruvian we have met has been notorious for giving vague directions at best.  Saying one direction while looking and pointing another way or simply telling us that we will get there going that way and make a circle gesture with their hand, seriously what does that mean? I am carring a backpack that weighs half of me at high altitudes, I hope this path isn´t going in a circle. The saying ´mas o menos´ is used frequently, so everything is more or less this or that... food, prices, even directions.  With out trying to overstep cultural boundaries inorder to get exact directions we often thanked them, interperated their directions at will and continued following the donkey trots and footsteps.

We hiked past Velinga and found the hot spring just in time for the sun to hide beyond the canyon.  The picture online another hiking had posted was one of tropical tranquility.  The hikers had found the hot spring, large, clean and built up along the sides with rocks to form a pool. The hiker who had posted about the spring said they were able to perch their stoves on the rock wall of the pool and cook their dinner whilst relaxing in the water. Some time must have passed since that last picture.  When we finally found the hot spring it was nothing short of comical. The thought of cooking a meal of rice and beans in a natural hot tub after hours of hiking through the land of cactus along an ice cold river sounded like heaven and pushed us through the day.

To find an overgrown, underfilled, lined on the top and bottom with scum and surrounded by trash, diapers, a womans pad, clothes, and donkey shit we could do nothing but laugh.  The pool was not draining properly since it was not full enough to reach the overflow point only made worse by the fact that it was clearly being used as a bathing spot for donkey herders and was littered with one use packets of Pert plus and Pantene.  We tried to scrape most of the donkey trots away from the pool and put the strewn trash in a pile near some other reeds.  We found the bottom half of a basket in the rubbish and used it as a skimmer for the scum.  I shit you not we partially fixed the ambiance and got into the damn pool. The next day we cleaned our clothes in the river and relaxed by the ´pool´ while watching the donkeys go past loaded up with things for the market.

At about 9 am the following morning we had camp almost paked up and were almost ready to start hiking when two jolly gentlemen stopped to chit chat.  They were heading for the morning bus to take their two huge sacks of avocados to Cotahuasi.  They lacked donkeys and were carrying the huge bags themselves, they were also hammered.  By far the nicest and most chatty of the people we had met on the trail by that point.  The one fine gentleman spoke to us entirely in spanish, which was easier to follow then the other fellow who was speaking in slurred Quechuain and fighting back emotional tears most of the conversation.

He would interupt his amigo exclaming he was the brother of the sky and son of the earth and so forth. They allowed us two try their fermented corn beer and finished a soda bottle of homemade Pisco with us. Andy gave our new spanish speaking friend his belt and he gave us some delicious hard cow cheese and toasted corn kernals called cancha.  After an animated hour our new friends hiked up the mountain to Velinga and we finished packing up camp to hike to Quechualla where they had just come from. And just like that tipsy by 10 am, we began our days hike.

We hiked uphill for another 3.5 hours to Quechualla passing many old Incan terraces and ruins.  The canyon is covered with old terraces some still in use and others unused but still standing after hunderds of years.  It is truley amazing to imagine how vast and great the Incan empire must have been to make even the desert canyons flourish with life.  The terraces built into the desert slopes held the earth in place while their water channeling systems irrigated even the higher elevations of desert.  Amazingly we passed silly amount of desert vineyards that were being kept green by these irrigations systems.  In the bottom half of the canyon we saw mostly donkeys, cactus, and vineyards.

When we arrived in Quechualla it was after lunch and not a person was in sight.  We wandered around the empty town and then hiked up past it to rest and wait for the people in the town to either come back from wherever they were or to wake up from their siestas.  The town can only be reached by donkey path and there was no electricty, it was a sleepy little adobe village.  We saw little piglets, a parrot, cages of cuy ´guinea pig´ for eating, many dogs, donkeys, and chickens but not really any people.  We were told by the gentlemen that morning that every casa makes its own pisco and wine and all we had to do was go to the houses and ask to buy some but the thought of knocking on doors turned us to chicken shit.

As we walked around town we saw trees full of oranges, bananas, limes, and avocados. We went back down to the river and set up our tent, hid our bags, gathered our strength and hiked back up to town to find some fresh produce. This time we were in luck, a woman who has passed us earlier was outside of her house and seemed friendly. We sat to chat with her and two other people.  She sold us fruits by the bag and when we asked about the wine and pisco she happily sold us both. She then thanked us excitedly saying her shoes were broken  and that we just paid her enough to get new ones in Cotahuasi.  She was super nice, very open, and too cute.

 We should have know better then to buy the wine though.  So far our experience with Peruvian wine has been about as exciting as our experiences with Peruvian public bathrooms, and sometimes lands us in the same place. Sadly this wine was no different.  She brought us out a large glass beer bottle filled with homemade wine from last harvest and a shot glass. The wine had a fruity bouquet to compliment the vinegar and serious alcohol content. Since she wanted the glass bottle back, Andy and I sat back, relaxed and put down a bottle of vinegar shot by shot. Andy wants me to mention that it went down with a smooth burn and continued to burn once it reached the lower intestine.  The guy sitting with us raised his glass of the potent stuff and said fuerte! as in it was strong, yes fuerte indeed.  The lady then let us into her adobe home to hassle/cuddle her baby chicks which were the cutest little peepers ever.

After camping that night we packed up and headed back to Velinga to catch the bus back to Cotahuasi.  It was a long hike back to where the road stopped but we got there just as the sun was going down.  We had stopped in Velinga for some provisions for dinner and found dry pasta and canned tuna in oil and salt.  We had never had tuna in oil and it turns out to be delicious and perfect with spaghetti.  That night I saw one scorpion and Andy saw three outside our tent.  We reminded ourselves that we should probably be checking our shoes every morning.  The road back to Cotahuasi was only wide enough for the bus, with sheer drops of hundreds of feet and turns that make it impossible to see whats coming next.  The buses are about the size of passenger vans and are loaded up with people almost two to a seat. Bags of produce are taken off the donkeys and loaded on the roof, on the people, and under the seats.  I sat next to two live, moving sacks of guinea pigs that were tucked under the seat.  We have a couple great videos of this ride.

We found an awesomely cheap hostal in Cotahuasi for 15 soles ($5) a night with a private room. The room was as big as the bed and nothing more.  Although there was no hot water, it did have a great upstairs deck and a hallway balcony that opened up to the street for people watching.  I got a fever that night of 102/103 that lasted until the next day.  The ice cold shower while I was still feverish made me cry and it felt as though my inner ears were cracked. Pretty terrible. Later the next evening, feeling a little better, we did our first street food tour.  For dinner we went to all the food vendors and for a sole or three you can get fried chicken, noodles, and rice, or fried dough with sweet syrup, my favorite grilled beef with potatoes and a special sauce, or fried potatoes and sausage, and even a ice cream cone from a street vender.  The street food tour is awesome in every new place we go.

We got to try the fresh cow milk the next morning with a packet of nescafe for coffee and fresh fried eggs and fresh bread for breakfast.  Getting real coffee in the land of coffee beans is an amazingly impossible feat.  Most of the best coffee beans produced in Peru and the surrounding countries are exported for cash on the international market.  If you want coffee you make it with hot water and a scoop of instant coffee mix, or if you are lucky there is a cow nearby and you can make it with milk. We also got trout from the river that was caught that morning for lunch and a little chocolate cake with no icing just condensed milk for a snack.

 A notable difference here seems to be the indifference to refrigerating things.  We quickly found that just because the meat, yogurt, soda or beer is in a cooler that does not mean that the cooler is set to anything other than room temperature. If you want milk in a small town you will probably have to buy a condensed can of it or find a small kid with a milk pail in the morning hours.

After Cotahuasi we took the bus up to Alca and found a hostal with great beds. Most beds here are firm, thick mattresses which lack springs. They are actually pretty nice to sleep on, expecially after sleeping on mats in our tent. This hostal however had nice comfortable spring style beds and we each got one.  We learned in Alca that Menu actually just means meal of the day and will not in fact get you a menu to look at. Since the town was so little each restaurant makes one different meal each day usually with a soup included.  We would show up at meal time say menu and get a free tea and whatever food was prepared for that meal. Super local and delicious.

 The town would run out of electric a few times a day and every day at some point would also run out of water.  It was like playing roulette with the shower.  Most of these places have sweet solar hot water systems on their roofs which provides a greater supply of hotter water than the electrifying hot water heads available in most other places. I have never showered so quickly in my life until now. If the water is hot it might not last, if there is water in general it might not last.  I learned this very quickly in Alca. I got in the shower the first night put shampoo in my hair only for the water to run out.  I stood under a rusty red sputtering shower head until I realized there was not going to be any more water. Andy came to my rescue with a cold nalgene bottle of water to get some of the soap out of my hair. The same goes with the toilets, they don´t flush when the water runs out for 12 hours.  You might go from toilet to toilet in a hostal looking for one that doesn´t already have a turd or some other mess in it. Goood times.  We have also eaten by cellphone and candlelight because when the electric goes out in the middle of dinner at a restuarant you just go with it.

We did a couple awesome hikes out of Alca before we ran out of small bills and needed to take a bus back to Cotahuasi to get coins and tens to use in the smaller towns.  They seriously don´t have change for 20 soles most of the time and will run around to other shops looking for change to give back to you. On our way back up to the northern part of the canyon we stopped at a hot spring that you paid for.  It was the most wonderful experience of the trip. Super hot water, unlimited hot showers,and some pretty damn good chicharron, which is fried fatty pork parts and potatoes.  We relaxed drinking semi sweet light vinegary wine from our nalgene.  We bought that fine wine from a shop in Cotahuasi, top shelf stuff.  We met a nice girl and guy at the hot springs and got to practice our spanish and learn a couple words in Quechua.  After it got dark we walked back to Alca by moonlight and on the way found another guy to talk with who was also walking to Alca.  That night we asked the police if it was ok to set up our tent in the town square/park and sleep there.  The police chief thought it would be a better idea and safer if we slept in the police station.  So we got put up in the upstairs bunkroom separate from the other police officers on duty.

At 4am the next morning we had to make our bus to Puyca, which was another hair raising bus ride through the high canyon.  We made it in one piece and started our hike towards Lauripampa.  Lauripampa was technically written on our map but it was also next to an arrow going off the map. It sounded like a good place to hike to we just didn´t know how far off the map it was.  It turns out it was a full days hike plus some. This was the highest part of the canyon (around 12,000 ft) and definitely the most visually rewarding and awe-inspiring.

After hiking all day we got to a lookout and realized that Lauripampa in the distance was another half a day hike with an elevation drop of about 3,000 ft.  The view of the valley was amazing and the terrace system was incredible.  We looked for a spot to set up the tent and found nothing flat except for the turn off areas the trucks and vans use when someone is coming the other way (remember these road are only wide enough for one).  We also found no water source so we had only what was left in one or two nalgenes.  Just as Andy was looking around he spied a cloud of dust coming up the road in the distance.  He ran back to tell me a vehicle was coming just as he noticed the guy with a gun in the back of the truck.  He said, there is a truck coming, how do you feel about guns?  When the truck got to us we were waiting with our packs on our backs and they offered us a ride.

We climbed in the back and sat next to a nice police officer with an AK rifle and a nice old peruvian couple.  Sitting around my bag, unstrapped and crowded in the back of this truck with a gun pointed near my head would have been hair raising enough (he had the clip in his hand).  What made it even more exciting was that the driver seemed to be pushing this newer toyota truck to its limits, testing its turning capibilities and pushing the shocks on the rocky narrow dirt road. The only time he slowed down was to stop from butchering a farmers cow early. The cows were apparently sunning themselves on the dusty road and unaware of the dangerous spot they had picked.  By the time we got to Puyca we both had the biggest shit eating grin.  The ride was free and the police told us where their office was incase we had any problems.  The police here have been super helpful and nice.

That evening we ate more tuna with oil, took pictures with the local kids and hiked up to camp at the Maukallacta ruins.  They were a surprise to say the least.  By far the largest and most complete set of Incan ruins we have seen so far.  The sun was just setting and the entire area was golden and lit up.  We pitched our tent inside an old Incan house and slept safe from the wind.  In the morning we spied a condor from the tent and after checking the place out more throughly we climbed back down to Puyca.  On October 6th we caught the 1pm bus that would take us back to Alca.  Once in Alca we got bus tickets to Arequipa and snacks for the ride.  In Arequipa we got another bus to Cusco where we currently are now. We arrived in Cusco October 7th at about 7:30 pm, over a day and 6 hours later. Quite a marathon. I am going to let Andy tell you about the awesome bus trips, the bumbles, having his own fevers, and more!!!