Otavalo and The Galapagos

Otavalo, the Galapagos and Quito

It seems like the past weeks have just flown by!  We are now back in Quito for our last day before our flight home and it’s hard to imagine that three months ago we were just getting to know each other in Miami.  It’s bittersweet for all of us, but everyone is excited to move on to new stages in our lives.

The first stop after the last blog was Otavalo, a town with a well deserved reputation for an amazing artisan market.  After a beautiful hike around a volcanic lake, we all spent hours wandering around the market, looking at the weavings and traditional clothing.  All of us came away with at least one thing, hammocks being especially popular.

After Otavalo, we took a 3 hour bus ride back to Quito for the night before our flight to the Galapagos.  \the first two days we spent in Puerta Ayora, one of the main towns in the Galapagos archipelago.  Mostly, this was lazing around on the beach and enjoying the views.  Then we went to a reserve to see the Giant Galapagos Land tortoises, and then it was off to the boat.  Our cabins were very small, but the rest of the boat was spacious and we were even able to watch a movie the second night.

But it was the wildlife that really blew everyone away.  The first day we took a hike at a Blue Footed Booby colony,  It was almost time for mating, and we got to see all the silly mating dances.  |There were also frigates that had these puffed up sacks under their throats that were also luring mates.  That afternoon we went on an amazing snorkel, where we saw a white tipped reef shark, sea lions, and tons of fish.  The second day we went to two islands, one where we saw lots of lizards and birds, and then to an island with an amazing view of the water.  We also went on two more snorkels, and I saw an octopus.

Today we got on a 10 am flight back to Quito, all suffering from various levels of sun exposure.  Tomorrow we’ll be walking around the old part of town seeing churches and a few museums before having our farewell dinner and prepping for our 3 am departure to Miami.  I hope all of you enjoyed following along with our adventures!   

The Amazon and Arajuno Jungle Lodge

The first week we spent in a tiny village called Campo Cocha, which is a Kitchwa Indian town right on a river about an hour outside a small city called Tena.  I stayed with a really lovely family all by myself.  I was really rather nervous at first, but my hosts were just so accomodating that within a few hours I felt right at home with thier three kids.  During the mornings, I'd get up for tea at 5am and then have breakfast with everyone at about 6:30 before heading out to work.  The work varied a little, but except for one day where me and 2 other girls Renee and Tina were hauling fresh cut beams out of the rainforest, I was working on their farm.  Mostly, this was machete work to clear the coaco and yucca feilds of weeds and small trees.  I was really slow compared to my host parents Alex and Rosa, but I got better as the week went on.  Then it was back to the house for a bath in the river and a long lazy lunch before going to the kids camp we ran for the students of the village.  It was really sad to watch them try to hoard the art supplies the last day.  It was so clear that they had never seen paints, glitter and paper like the ones we brought and it made me sad to think that things I took for granted as a kid were such treats for them. 

The next week, we spent in an unbelievable lodge right in the rainforest.  5 of us bunked together in a cabin with bunk beds and it was just like camp.  We had a few bugs, but there were bug nets supplied and screaning whereever possible.  The food was absolutly amazing!  His wife and her staff were just amazing cooks and even baked a irthday cake to celebrate the birthday of one of the crew. 

But what was really important to me was the fact that this is an eco lodge in the true sense of the word.The whole lodge is run on solar power and the water comes from a collection pool above the lodge that collects rainwater.  The lodge is also located on many many hectares of rainforest that Tom owns and protects, making for a true rainforest experience.  Right on the premises is a conservation project to save the yellow spotted turtle, an endangered animal to the local river, started by Tom himself, which we came to work for.  We planted bamboo for better bank habitat and hauled sand to help build a nesting beach for the turtles in Tom's enclosures.  We even got to see some turtles on the river that Tom had introduced.  

Tom himself has been a conservationist his whole life and is a great resource for those interested in learning more about his work and conservation of the Amazon in general.  I have never met a man more willing to share a story or his point of view on an issue. He has worked in the Galapagos for three years (lucky duck!) and   He worked right beside us cutting bamboo and hauling sand, and knew all of the 11 people in our group by name at the end of the week.  I was very sad to leave and hope to come back in the future. 

If you want to learn more, here's his site!

Now we're in Otavalo, the famous market town for some retail therapy before heading off to the Galapagos, which I still can't believe!

And the ten day countdown has begun!  I'm back MAY 4TH!!!!!

See you soon!

Inca Trail and Machu Picchu

I am still a little awed by the fact that I managed to walk the whole Inca Trail to Machu Picchu.  The whole thing was really hard, but an unbelievable experience.  The $128 I spent on a porter to carry my bag was really key to making it possible.  Between my bad knee and my weak lungs, I don't think I would have made it with a pack.  It rained for part of every day, but not all the time.  Fortunatly, we had porters who carried a big tent that we could stay under when we were at camp, and the cook was unreal.  We had hot food of some kind for every meal!    Unfortunatly, it rained for our whole tour of Machu Picchu, but then the sun came out just in time for us to have a sunny hour before lunch.  It really deserves it's place as a new wonder of the world!

Day One

Day one was a mind over matter thing more than anything else.  It was the first day and I had no idea what to expect, but it turned out to be pretty easy.  I spent most of the trip chatting with my friend Honor and enjoying the views.  This was the part that had the most houses and I thought it must be a little odd to live right outside of a trail that has hundreds of people walking it every day.  For the most part, we were following a river though pretty thick forest.  We also visted a few ruins, but they were rather small and not all that interesting.  We camped in a campsite right by the river and I was lulled to sleep by its roar.

Day Two

This was by far the hardest day.  We had to hike up to a pass that was 4200 meters, or 13779 feet.  It was 5 hours uphill, most of it up broken stairs.  By hour three or so, I couldn't even pay attention to the beautiful landscapes.  We spent the first few hours hiking through what was really a rainforest.  The trees were dense and covered in mosses and vines and the air was humid and foggy the whole time. Then came the hike up to the pass itself.  It was about 2 and a half hours in the rain.  It was even hailing at one point.  I was cold and soaked through, and there were moments I thought I just could not go any further.  Fortunatly, I was hiking with one other girl and Lauren, one of our leaders, as well as one of the guides.  We all walked together, and I never felt behind.  When I got the the top, I felt so exhausted, but I was super proud.  But it was still 2 hours down.  I was so exhausted that I remember very little of the campsite.

Day Three

Day three was the easiest day out of all of them in terms of hiking.  The trail for most of it was rolling and not very steep in either direction until the end when we had 2 and a half hours downhill.  Unfortunatly, after maybe 30 minutes of stairs, my knee became very swolen and painful, to the point where I had to go extremly slowly because I was in so much pain.  The guide who was with me gave me another walking stick and it was the only way I managed to get down.

Day Four

We had to get up super early on the last day so we could get to the sun gate for sunrise.  It was maybe 3 am when we were woken up, but there was hot food waiting when we got all packed up.  It was the birthday of one of the girls in our group and somehow, at 4 in the morning, they had an iced and decorated cake for her.  We all sang, and were in an awesome mood four our hike.  We had to wait an hour for a checkpoint to open (and people had no line manners....) but then it was all easy from there.  It began to rain and my knee was still really sore, but it was only 2 and a half hours to Machu Picchu, which kept me going.  Unfortunatly, it was overcast at the sun gate so we didn't get a sunrise, but I got some awesome photos down towards the ruins, and it was such a thrill to finally see the end of the road.

Machu Picchu

This is truly an unreal site.  Safe for a very few places, the ruin is all original.  And most of the buildings and walls are still up.  The architecture is amazing. The Inca knew how to build their walls so they could withstand earthquakes, and there are stones that point exactly to the 4 cardinal points of the compass.  But even more amazing was the location.  All around the city there are huge towering mnountains and thick jungle.  Machu Picchu is located at the very ednge of was is considered the Peruvian Amazon, and there is so much water and vegetation.  The very fact that it exists is unreal.

I am feeling wiped out but super proud right now.  This is something I'd never thought I'd do, and yet here I am at the end, with photos to prove it.

Lake Titikaka

We spent the weekend on Lake Titikaka.  It was an absolutly wonderful retreat before the Inca Trail.  The lake was stunningly beautiful, and the hotsal we stayed in was just perfect.  We took two hikes up to an old pre-Inca ruin on a hill and watched the sunset, and that night we were all dressed up in traditional Peruvian clothing and danced and chatted around a little bonfire.

The next day I went swimming after our second hike.  The water was cold, but no colder than in Maine, so I swam for almost half an hour in the clearest water I have ever swam in.  Then we went back to Puno by boat for our last night with our Puno homestay families.

Today we arrived in Cusco after a 7 hour bus ride.  Our hostal is just too cute.  Theren is free internet and a place to watch movies, and there is a totally sweet dog.  The city seems nice, though the places I walked seemed really touristy.  Tomorrow, the group is going to walk around the city more, and then we are having a potluck dinner.  I hope that I'll get to see some more ruins while I'm here.  Jo says there are some really cool ones in the city itself as well as a bit outside.

OMG INCA TRAIL THURSDAY!  I'll let you know how that went!

Puno, Peru

Despite being robbed at gunpoint 2 days after arriving in Peru, I am still very sad to be leaving Puno.  I'mpretty sure mostof that has to do with our volunteer project at the local orphanage.  We went to paint cartoons on the walls of the bedrooms, but I think what we were really there for was the children.  These are kids who have been taken away from their homes, many times abused, and just want someone to play with.  Someof the saddest stories were those of the littlest babies.  There was one baby who was a month and a half who's mom had been raped.  The mother was only 11.  Fortunatly, the orphanage seemed to be a good place to be.  There were lots of so-called substitute mothers and the kids are in houses that function like family units.  But even so, there was only so much to go around.

I can't begin to explain how it felt to know that such a simple thing that we were doing made so much of a difference for these kids.  By the endof our week there, the kids would run up and hug you, talking non-stop the whole time.  They became family so quickly, and they just wanted to play.  Two little girls, Maria and Adriana, were especially dear to me.  One afternoon, the three of us played all afternoon.  They put flowers in my hair,played tag with me and swung in swings with me.  They couldn't have been more than 4 or 5, but I just wanted to take them home with me and give them a real family.  Seeing how happy these kids were despite all of their disadvantages was really overwhelming.

It was super hard to leave today.  We stayed lateso we could finish painting all the rooms, and when we came down to get on the bus all the kids and the moms were waiting for us.  They sang us songs and gave us these adorable little pouches for our cameras and then we played games until our bus arrived.  Then we spent maybe 10 minutes trying not to leave.  All of the kids gave me a hug and I swear I almost cried.

If I ever visit Puno again, I'll be sure to visit.

The Rainforest

After 4 days in the rainforest, I am feeling a little wiped.  It was abslutly unreal, save for one night that I spent puking my guts up in the river.  No one else got sick, so I didn´t know what caused it, but it meant I slept until 3pm once I felt better.

But onto the good stuff.  That afternoon I got to swim with pink amazon river dolphins.  And when I say swim, I mean it was letting us touch it, pet it and even sit on it.  We swam with it for over an hour before it just got pissed off and started biting.

We also went hunting for alligator at night and saw a mother with her babies.  There were at least 10 of them, though the guide said there could be as many as thirty.  They were only a few inches long, and were all curled up in the roots of a tree.  Only 6 or so of them would survive the next 30 days until they could live on thier own.

There were also tons of birds and monkies.  We saw these cute little monkies called squirell monkies that were super unafraid and climed all over the boat, as well as howler monkies, which had a super loud cry and a spider monkey.  There were too many birds to count, including one type of cormorant called a snake bird because it had a super long neck.  There were all osrts of bugs and I got so chowed by mosquitoes one night that I woke up looking like I had small pox.

The heat was the one thing that really bothered me.  It was super humid and I have been sweating non-stop since I got out of the plane.  But tomorrow we go back to La Paz and cooler weather.  Not to mention clean clothes.

The Salt Flats and the Altiplano

Holy shit, these past 4 days were quite something.  The first day was the Bolivian salt flats, the largest anywhere in the world.   There was about an inch of water everywhere, and it turned everything into a reflecting pool.  It made the whole thing look like a Salvador Dali painting.  The mountains in the distance looked like they were floating because the reflections were so still and perfect.  We got all sorts of really cool perspective photos including one where all of us were in a line and our reflections were perfectly still.

Then we had a lot of driving for the next while.  The scenery was amazing, but we'd spend all day driving, with only a few breaks which was really rough.  We did see some awesome stuff, including two lakes that were dramatic colors, and lots of interesting wildlife including llamas and flamingoes, but I got a wicked head cold and the bumpy roads made it impossible to do anything but stare out the window.  That got super boring after maybe the 8th hour...

That bheing said, there was some really amazing stuff.  The last thing we did was go to a train graveyard that had old steam trains up to modern ones.  I spent over an hour just walking around and taking pictures.  I really want to write a story set in a place like that.  They were just left there in the middle of this windy desert. It was just an unreal experience and I think it was a perfect end to this trip.

The next phase is a 1 AM train ride to an afternoon flight and then we arrive in the Bolivian rainforest for a 3 day canoe trip.  I'll be able to blog after that!