Adventures of Dean and Sophie

After seeing the city in so many movies we had big expectations of Las Vegas. We were expecting glitsy nightlife, lights, fast cars, beautiful women, suits and more. Our first impressions however, were not so glamorous. We landed in the middle of the day, and the city seemed like a scaled up version of Logan. There were wide roads, huge blocks and cars, but not all of the cars were limousines or sports cars. The iconic Vegas landmarks were there, but they seemed much smaller in real life, especially in daylight, and they are spread out over a really long stretch of road.

We were originally booked into a hotel called the Stratosphere Tower, one of the major landmarks on the Vegas skyline. However, due to shifting plans, we had to cancel our booking and when we tried to rebook the prices had risen considerably, thus Sophie and I had to resolve with the fact that we would now be staying at the humble Howard Johnson Inn instead. Despite this disappointment, the place was, needless to say, at least as good as anywhere we’d stayed in South America. We dumped our bags, and after a short snooze, set out to explore the town.

The first thing I did was drag Sophie, kicking and screaming into the first burger place for a real American meal. Supersize? Hell yeah. It wasn’t really that different from an Australian burger place, except this one was full large American stereotypes. The supersize drink cup was huge, evidently the populace has yet to cotton on to the fact that that the drinks are refillable. On the other hand, I guess the huge cup saves a trip to the drinks dispensers, or three.

Unsurprisingly, the lunch left left us feeling a bit sick, but we walked it off over the course of the afternoon. If you are ever visiting Vegas, don’t try and do it on foot. Blocks are huge and everything is miles away. When someone tells you that a place is just down the road, they mean that it’s a short drive. Nobody walks anywhere in Vegas.

That evening, after recovering from an afternoon of walking, we went out to hit the pokies! We walked down the strip, observing the flora and fauna as we went. Most people were increadibly, average looking. Most guys were middle aged, white men wearing shorts with belts and buttoned shirts. There were also some black dudes walking around with their baggy jeans around their knees, and of course there was the odd limo driving past with either drunk girls screaming or drunk college boys hooting. It’s easy to get drunk in Vegas. If you can’t find your way to one of the bars offering one dollar beers, just drop in at your local pharmacy. As well as the usual pharmaceuticals and a range of groceries, they have a full selection of booze, and the beers come in huge one litre cans, often with an alcohol content of 8% or more.

We eventually made it into one of the big casinos. It was lit up with millions of lights on the outside and on the inside, even more. Apart for being huge though, it was not too different to casinos in Australia. We worked our way from casino to casino down the strip, but although quite impressive on the outside they were much the same inside. I think we got about halfway down, which is actually a very long walk, before we got tired and bored and caught the bus back up to our hotel.

The next day we got an authentic taste of Vegas, when we met a guy on the street while looking for directions. He claimed to be an out-of-luck high roller, cleaned out and on his way out of town. He said he had some tickets to one of the Cirque de Soleil shows that he could give us if we were keen to go. He made a quick call for us, and bam that was it! We’d be going to see Love that night! Soph was over the moon! I was excited but had the nagging feeling that it was too good to be true. And then came, “Ah by the way, I’m broke and need to get to the airport, would you mind giving me some money for a cab…”. Uh Oh, I thought, suspicious, but at the same time really hoping it was all true, it was Vegas after all, anything could happen. Luckily I only had five bucks in my wallet, which I started explaining was all we had the the moment, when in jumps Soph, “Thats ok! we can draw some more!” Ugh. So in the end, after a quick chat to Soph we managed to limit damages to 25 bucks. Needless to say, when we rang up later on in the day, the tickets did not exist. Not a great financial loss, but a big disappointment, especially for Soph who really wanted to see the show. That’s Vegas.

After two nights we’d seen enough. We picked up a rental car, packed it with all our luggage and headed out into the desert, next stop would be Zion National Park, Utah.

Las Vegas

The first thing that caught my attention arriving in the US of A was that people were still speaking Spanish. Are we in the States yet? The sign says Houston, but everything is still in Spanish. People chatting, signs and announcements were all in Spanish as well as English. I had no idea, but according to Wiki, USA has more Spanish speakers than Spain. It was actually quite nice to be eased back into an English speaking environment after our 4 months or so in South America.

So there we were in Houston, in the Immigration queue, taking in the American-ness of it all. People chewing gum with their mouths open, people wearing baseball caps, fat people and black ladies who actually talk like Laverne from Scrubs. We got to the front of the queue and I got a big American welcome. “err, we got a lookout here”, “What’s a lookout?”, he doesn’t stamp my passport, “please sir could you stand over there and wait a moment.”
Sophie, who had a can of mace confiscated at the security station in Lima, gets through no problem.

I stand waiting for 10 minutes or so before I guy comes out and escorts me into one of the holding rooms where I wait another 20mins or so. I knew I should have had a shave. Finally I’m summoned into one of the offices for the 20 questions.
“Where do you live?”
“What do you do in Australia?”
“What were you doing in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia and Peru?”
“How did you afford to travel for so long?”
Then my favourite, “So, what military training have you had?”,
“Umm… I shot a kangeroo once…”

Later on Soph is dragged in with our bags. “Do you have any illegal substances in those bags?”,
“Umm… There is a small chance that we’ve left some Coca leaves in there, but I’m pretty sure there isn’t.”
“Could you show me where these Coca leaves might be.”
I dig into my bag and luckily there are no coca leaves. He seems happy. We are now free to go. Soph plays the guy a quick ditty on her Charango before we hurry off to try and make our connection to Las Vegas.

After living in rough in Pongobamba for so long, we decided to treat ourselves to the fancy seats on the trip to Lima so we’d be able to get some sleep. It was to no avail. We discovered the route from Cusco to Lima is one 21hr stretch of contiguous hairpin corners as the road winds up the mountains, and down, and up. During the daylight hours the stunning scenery was was worth the stiff neck, but it made it very hard to sleep at night. Thus we arrived in the morning quite tired, but managed to find ourselves a room to stay in downtown Lima.

The place, Hotel Espana was wacky, filled with old paintings, busts, spiral staircases, talking parrots and tortoises. We didn’t have time to relax however, as there was a lot of Lima to see and only 2 days to see it. After dumping our bags we took a taxi across town to meet up with our American friends Brett and Emily in the outlying suburb of  Barranco.

While Lima central was very hectic, Barranco was a much more relaxed neighbourhood by the coast. We spent a couple of hours walking along the coast, which was very hazy and not too appealing. At one stage we wondered into a big shopping mall which was an instant reminder of how dirty and smelly and in need of a shower we were.

Later on and the next day we did our best to explore central Lima. To be honest, I was not really looking forward to Lima, having being told it was dirty, busy, smoggy and dangerous. Though the city is under a perpetual hazy white sky, and has some of the most hectic traffic I’ve ever come across, we did not feel under threat at all, in fact the people we spoke to were some of the friendlies we’d met in Peru. One particularly funny chap, a security guard at one of the churches, was learning English and after a short chat, insisted “I want to tell you yust one yoke”. I can’t remember how the yoke went, but it was hilarious anyway. There was plenty of interesting things about to keep us busy including the churches and monasteries, shops, the huge central market, where everything and anything is available, Chinatown and of course numerous different delicious and very cheap street snacks to try.

We really enjoyed our short stay in Lima and it was all too soon that we were saying goodbye to all the delicious and cheap snack vendors of South America and catching one last insane cab ride to the airport. At the airport we marvelled not only at running taps, but automatic soap squirters! It was a small taste of the first world. Next stop, Houston Texas, followed quickly by Las Vegas Nevada.

Lima, Peru

Just before our trek we had met up with a couch surfer in Cusco and he had told us about his home in Chinchero, a small town just outside of Cusco. There he has set up a Albergue, a centre where the local school kids go for extra curricular learning, and where we would be able stay and to help out. We have been on the lookout for some kind of volunteering work our entire trip but most “volunteering” nowadays seems to be through big companies and for some reason involves you paying them a substantial amount of money. This was directly through a local person, helping local people with no big white land cruisers involve.

So, after a day of recovery after the trek, we excitedly met up with Ermo and were soon watching anxiously as our now huge backpacks were tossed onto the roof of a local bus. A couple hours later we arrived in what was to be our home for the next few days, the little community of Pongobamba. It consists of little more than the school and a few dirt roads, lined with the most delightfully rustic mud brick houses. Like Isla del Sol, the silence of the place was striking. It was only broken every now and then by the laughing of children, the snuffling of the pigs in the gutters and the crazy braying of mules and donkeys.

Our lodgings were set on a hill looking out over the Laguna Piuray and the mountains beyond. Behind it were miles and miles of rolling fields. The buildings themselves were surprisingly modern in construction, but this was slightly deceptive as we soon found out that the water was not working. Our first task was to walk down the hill to Ermo’s mothers house to fetch some water, then lug it back up the hill to our kitchen. According to Ermo the the water would soon be working again. With that promise he returned to Cusco, leaving us to make ourselves comfortable. After Cusco, the solitude was wonderful and with relish we set about cooking what was our first home cooked meal for a long time.

The following afternoon Ermo had not retured, as he said he would, and the local children had arrived to find a panicing Sophie. I had gone to explore some nearby towns so Soph was left on her own to try and handle the arrival of about 10 local kids of various ages, only a few of whom could speak Spanish, let alone English. I arrived back to find her engaged in teaching a very basic English lesson. It very quickly dawned on us that we would have to cut back our expectations of the amount that we’d be able to teach the kids. With such a big language barrier, gone were Soph’s plans of imparting repect for the environment and each other, and the desire to create a better world. Instead we concentrated on topics such as; names of farm animals and ingredients of a chocolate cake .

Despite that,  it wasstill  a very interesting experience working with the kids and trying to come up with things they could do. In the end we did some art, some music, some English, and for the big finale on the last night, we got all the kids to help out to make a huge chocolate cake, which we very promptly devoured.

During days when the kids weren’t there, we spent the time exploring the nearby towns in the Sacred valley. For a tiny fare, we were able to zip between the very interesting towns of Chincero, Urubamba, Ollantaytambo and Pisac on the local buses and taxis, often packed to the brim with locals going about their daily business. All the of the towns had a huge amount of character and history, most of them being former Inca towns. The scenery in the area is just fantastic, with rolling plains dropping dramatically down into the valley and then rising up to the snow capped mountains on the other side.

It was a spectacular place to stay, but hard work as well. The water never did reappear, so all of the tasks involving the running water that we take so much for granted became very tedious. Washing up, cleaning floors, making tea, flushing toilets, now all relied on us having water in the 20l container that we’d have to lug 300m up the hill. In addition, we became quite friendly with Ermo’s mum, and the one day she managed to rope us into coming out into the fields with her to harvest some potatoes. While really hard work, it was an amazing experience of rural Peruvian life.

The day began with everyone gathered round having a few capfuls of Quanyasa, the local (very local in fact, probably brewed by one of the guys) cane spirit. Then the ox-plough did a first pass to rip up the rows of earth, quickly followed by us, bent double, sorting through the clots of earth to find the potatoes and tossing them into a carrying cloth. When full, someone would wrap them up and take them to the waiting sacks.

At tea time we all gathered again and sat down in a circle. A 20l container of the traditional beer, Chicha, was opened with a big pop and in turn it was passed to each. It was warm and very tart, not unlike the traditional brew of Zimbabwe, Chibuku, except mercifully much less thick and lumpy. After everyone had had their fill it was back to work. While we worked, a couple of the guys built what looked like an oven from large clots of earth from the field. Inside, a big fire was lit, and after letting it burn for half an hour or so, some of the potatoes we’d just dug were placed in the oven, and it was collapsed on top of them. Thus, after the second session we feasted on super fresh, ground baked potatoes, seasoned with salt and a chillie and cheese concoction with salad. Never have potatoes tasted so good!

That evening after our classes we were rewarded for our labors with a huge pile of potatoes, much more than we could possibly eat in the couple of remaining days. We did our best though, cooking many of them with the kids on the final night.

Such was our week in rural Peru. It wasn’t easy, but it was an unforgettable experience that you simply cannot sign up for at your local travel agent. We returned to have one night in Cusco where we were desperate to have a shower that didn’t come out of a bucket, and where we had a new appreciation for the fact that water just comes out of the taps simply by turning the knob. The next day we had one more delicious and cheap Cusco restaurant meal, before we boarded a 21hr bus for the capital, Lima.

Pongabamba and the Valle Sagrado del Incas

Our trip began with a bus hooting outside our room at 4am. The other passengers were not very chatty at this stage and neither were we. We drove in the dark for an hour or so before reaching the tiny town of Mollepata. While we had some basic breakky, the horesemen loaded up the mules with our stuff. No carrying of heavy packs for us, just a daypack with the essentials, a couple of cameras, tripod, things like that. Our group was quite big, 16 people, and luckily they were a very nice bunch of people. Our guide too was very passionate about what he spoke about, also a very entertaining guy. So after a quick introduction to get us in the mood, we began with the walking.

The first day took us up through some beautiful rural mountain scenery. It never ceases to amaze me how much of the steep mountainous land is cultivated. Later on a nice lunch was provided, amazingly, the cooks were able to whip up a lunch with soup, a main and tea for all 16 of us. Then it was back to the walking. Our first camp that evening was on the plains beneath the mighty Salkantay mountain, glowing angelic white in the late afternoon sun. Another nice meal was had, washed down with a few cap-fulls of “Quanyasa” a sugar cane spirit brewed in the local shoppe, and served in an empty coke bottle out of a bucket.

The next day took us up a windey path up to the Salkantay pass at a breath-taking 4600m. While we were up there taking our group happy snap, we were witness to a big avalanche from the Salkantay glacier above. For almost a minute, tonnes and tonnes of snow came rushing down the mountain like a huge waterfall. From there it was over the pass and all downhill, the terrain changing gradually from rocky and grassy, to green forest. The next day took us further down the valley, past local avo and passion fruit trees. We had dinner that night at in a small, very rural village.

Not long after we got into camp the rain started bucketing down. It seemed to rain all night. In the morning we had the difficult decision of whether to continue in the wet, up and over the mountain, which would be quite dangerous on the now very wet trail, or take a bus to the next point instead. After much discussion the group was split. Me, with a few others climbed up the mountain. I was a little bit worried that of the three others, one was a very keen mountain racer, and another was in the process of cycling from Ushuaia to Alaska. The walk didn’t turn out too hard though. The rain stopped just before we started, and the cloudy vistas were beautiful, we even got a quick peek of Macchu Piccu, far across the valley, before it was quickly hidden again. Things got a bit crazy on the way down though with mountain runner John in the lead and we did the rest of the 2 hours of walk down in about 45 minutes.

Sophie and the others had an equally exciting trip, having to be shuttled across the river in a rickerty cable contraption. The two groups met again on the railway to Aguas Calientes, the town at the base of Macchu Piccu. Although tired from our 4 days of solid walking, we still had the huge stretch of inca stairs to look forward to in the morning, so we tried to get an early night.

Our final day began with a hard slog up the steps, in the dark, to be at the gates and in line at 5am. They finally let us in just as the sky was lightening. A few more steps up and the classic postcard view of Macchu Picchu was laid out before us. It really is spectacular, just like the postcards. We were also increadibly lucky to have a clear sunrise, and a pretty much cloudless day after that. After a guided tour, we made the hike even higher up the impossibly steep mountain of Wayna Picchu which overlooks the ruins. The trail up defies imagination, and perched right on the top are even more terraces and buildings. From there, there are amazing views in all directions of the jagged green mountains all around.

We stayed at the ruins the entire day, right up until the last rays of the sun left the ancient walls and the guards started chasing us with their whistles. It was a really amazing day. We finally trudged down the mountain exhausted. After a fun dinner with all the crew we departed on a crazy sequence of a train trip and various bus transfers that eventually landed us back in Cusco, shivering at 2 o’clock in the morning.

Salkantay Trek