Our Mid-Program Crisis

Casually exploring some Inca ruins after school.
 Too cool for words. 

With a grand total of 31 days left in South America, things are beginning to get serious. I’m realizing, more than ever before, how much I’m in love with this place. From my host family, to the environment, to the crazy way that people do things here, this continent has stolen my heart.

As you may begin to notice in the following paragraphs, after we got back from break in Bolivia, we all had a “mid program crisis” of sorts. We realized that our time in Peru will quite literally be gone before we know it, so we made it our mission to do as much as we possibly can with the time we have left. We sat down, made a list of things we wanted to do before we left, and starting checking things off it that very same day. The following tales are my attempt at recounting our many crisis-fueled adventures in the past couple of weeks.

The adventures began with a casual horseback ride to some Inca ruins. So essentially the way it works if you want to go with the cheap option is that you walk up towards the outskirts of town until you run into some guy on the side of the street offering rides. Sounds legit, right? So we found a guy, negotiated a price, and we were on our way. Once we had hitchhiked our way up to the pasture with an older guy who gave us (three girls) his number so that he could “practice English” we were able to finally meet our steeds.

Why walk when you could just eat instead?

We walked over the crest of a hill into a green and luscious pasture and set eyes on three shining, strong, tall, and illustrious horses.

NOT. The animals were indeed present, but I’m not sure I would call them horses to be exact. Some sort of large donkey or perhaps really fat deer, but horses? Ehhhh….. But then again, we were paying a total of $15 to ride these things, so who were we to complain. As our friendly guide began pairing us up with our hors… uh, whatever they were, he asked us if we wanted to go alone or if we wanted a guide. Me, being an expert equestrian and whatnot, decisively said no. The other two were unsure, but I convinced them that we’d have more fun alone, and the horses knew the path anyway, so what did it matter? Oops.

So the three of us took off down the path, with our horses being a little pokier than we would have liked, but it was okay because the views of the mountains were absolutely unreal. We made it all the way down to El Templo de la Luna (Temple of the Moon) and dismounted so that we could explore the ruins. That was our first mistake. Our second mistake was to drag our horses over to a fence and put the reins on the posts (even though all of the cool kids – aka the tourists with guides – were doing it).

Though my horse grudgingly, but somewhat cooperatively, allowed me to attach it to the post, Morgan’s horse was a different story. We managed to drag it over to the post and gently place the reigns over the wood, but the second we turned around we heard a big noise and instantly began to regret our choice. Now, these horses weren’t exactly anything to be proud of, but I don’t care how big a horse is… when it’s rearing up on its hind legs and neighing five feet from your face, it’s just a little scary. Apparently Juan the horse wasn’t so happy with his new arrangement, so he decided that the best solution would be to rip the post right out of the ground.

At that point we realized that maybe it wasn’t the best idea to leave these horses unattended and explore the ruins, so we hopped back on, turned around, and went back. Or, we would have if Claire’s reins hadn’t broken and any of us were able to actually get back on our horses… see what expert material we are?

Some passengers that we picked up on our
four wheeler ride.

While we were gracefully attempting to remount our steeds, another group walked by and their guide asked us where our guide was. In response to our reply that we didn’t have one, he goes “well they never should have let you do that!” Yepp, helpful. Thanks. Before too long someone up at the pasture must have noticed our absence, and a boy came galloping down the hill to assist us. He made a few “tisk tisk” noises, helped us back up on or horses, (somewhat) fixed Claire’s reigns, and we were on our way.

Once we got back up the top, the man we rented the horses from was gone, and the boy conveniently told us that in order to continue we had to pay him more. And then it began to hail. To quote Clarita, “as emotions heated, the storm began to pick up” and I used every ounce of my impressive Spanish vocabulary to tell him in no uncertain words that we would not be paying him more, but we would be continuing with our tour. I might have even thrown an “en serio?!” in there somewhere. Again with the sass.

 After arguing for a while, our friendly guide finally showed up again, and agreed to take us the rest of the way on our tour himself. The boy joined us, we laughed and made up, ‘twas a great time. The things is that stuff like this will happen to you every day in Peru whether you like it or not. It’s unpredictable, ridiculous, and hilarious. All you can really do is recognize it for the what it is (great story material) and enjoy it anyway. So while I might be all sarcastic and cynical in the retelling, the truth is that even in the midst of it all I couldn’t help but take a step back and laugh, because this is Peru. And as absurd at it is every single day, I’m going to miss the hell out of this stuff.

A little taste of Halloween. We were... bunny
leopards! (obviously) 

The next on our list of adventures for that weekend was a four-wheeling trip up in the mountains surrounding Cusco.  We rallied the troops (including JFast!!!! Too freaking cool) and ventured out into the drizzly Cusquenan morning. With minimal training, no waivers, and hearts yearning for adventure (cheeeese), we took off. This time WITH a guide. Though nothing occurred that warrants another way too long story, a good day was had by all. We got to race through mud puddles, do donuts in fields, and have amazing views of the Sacred Valley all day long. Another worthwhile adventure.

Then I returned home for lunch and my host family proceeded to attempt to get me drunk. When I protested that I had to write a paper they responded that the alcohol would “give me inspiration.” Just another casual Sunday afternoon.

The following Wednesday we skipped school for the rest of the week (badasses) and took a night bus to Arequipa, Peru in time for Halloween. Perhaps one of my favorite South American cities yet. We spent our first day exploring the city and taking a free walking tour, which wasn’t nearly as exciting as the one in La Paz, but informative all the same. After going to a restaurant to try 4944847 different kinds of potatoes, we returned to the Wild Rover hostel to get ready for the Halloween festivities.

The Plaza de Armas in Arequipa

The next day once we had waken ourselves up enough to pack up and be ready to go, we headed to the bus station with a couple guys we had met on the walking tour to make our way to Colca Canyon. Being the free spirited travelers that we are, we were counting on being able to just buy bus tickets and head out, but since when has anything happened that conveniently in South America. The earliest tickets we could find for the 6 hour journey to Colca Canyon left at 1am. Due to our time limits we would have to start hiking pretty much as soon as we got off the bus, but we didn’t have much of a choice so we ended up buying the last seven tickets available.

We all schlepped back to the Wild Rover, hung around with some cool cats until midnight, and then dragged ourselves back to the bus station.

After a ridiculous 6 hour bus ride in the middle of the night in which they checked our tickets no
less than four or five times, we arrived in the hopping town of Cabanaconde. There, we scavenged some breakfast, bought tickets for our trip back to Arequipa (we had learned our lesson) and then prepared ourselves to descend into the canyon. Now only to find the trail… Since most people tour the canyon with a guide, there is essentially no signage telling people where the trails are. On top of that, for some reason cartographers haven’t taken a huge interest in exploring the canyon, so topographical maps are nonexistent. But surely the locals would know, right?

The thing with many Peruvians I’ve encountered is that they just tell you what you want to hear. For example, one might ask, “el sendero es por aca, no?” which means “the trail is through here, yeah?” to which they will consistently reply “si, claro!” or “yes, of course!” …no matter whether it actually is, and no matter whether they actually know what trail you’re talking about. After questioning a few locals and consequently encountering a few dead ends, we decided to just walk until we saw something promising. In the end we stumbled upon a tour group so we asked their guide if he could point us in the right direction. Victory.

The next 8 hours were spent zig-zagging our way down into the depths of the canyon with the end result of arriving at our hostel in an oasis called Sangalle near the river at the very bottom. If I was a better writer, I would attempt to describe the way my knees were about to collapse by the time we reached the bottom, or how incredible it was to think that this gaping canyon was once level with the rest of the landscape until the river slowly but surely carved away at the stone, or the way the cold river water felt against my blistering feet before we stopped for lunch… but the truth is that there’s not much to say about 8 hours of walking, so check out my pictures and let your imagination do the rest.

Colca River at the bottom of the Canyon. SO refreshing.

The next morning we woke up early enough to hike out of the canyon and catch our 11am bus ride back to Arequipa. Again, I won’t go into detail, but trust me when I say that the three straight hours of stair-master butt toning that we did that day did NOT get me all that excited about the Inca Trail. But it was all good practice, nonetheless.

We made it back to Cabanaconde just in time to buy some delicious ice cream and catch our bus back to Arequipa (6 hours) where we would then hop on another bus back to Cusco (10 hours) just in time to take a quick shower and head to class at 9am. Worth every second.

So those have been the adventures spurred on by our mid-program crisis. Tomorrow morning at 5am we take off to follow in the footsteps of the Incas all the way to Machu Picchu… SO excited for some more nature time. This past weekend I came down with what I thought was some sort of food poisoning, but after a quick visit to the clinic I discovered that it was in fact a parasite eating at the walls of my intestines. So needless to say, nothing much exciting happened this weekend other than me watching WAY too much TV and journaling my little heart out. So yeah, I’ll have a few friends to keep me company while walking up all of those steps on the Inca trail…

And because there’s no way I could go a whole blogpost without getting at least a little bit sentimental…

I’m pumped to go home! This place has taught me so much and I’m absolutely still looking forward to the next month of adventures that I’ll have here, but home is sounding more appealing every day. It’s been nearly a year since I’ve been to my house, nine months since I’ve gotten to goof around with my brother or have quality chats/adventures with my dad, and the few days that I got to see my mom before I left was hardly sufficient to make up for the months of absence. I want to wander through the woods with the dog and just breathe it all in.

Life has been SO good to me lately. I go to a good school where I’ve made a ton of incredible friendships and connections, I got to work at the most mind-blowing summer camp this year with some of the most inspirational people I’ve ever met, and now I’m here in Peru going to school and living and adventuring and being taught a new lesson every single day. Sometimes I can’t wrap my head around it all. But the downside is that because of all of these crazy adventures, I don’t get to be around the people and the foundation that made all of this possible. And what I’m finding is that it’s increasingly hard to be present here in the moment, but also demonstrate just how thankful I am for everything that’s gotten me here.

How could  you NOT miss the heck out of this
crazy beautiful place?

So I know this isn’t even close to being sufficient, but here’s a big shout out to the coolest, most supportive family a girl could ask for. You all are the reason I’m here and able to do these things, and there’s no way in the world that I’ll ever be able to tell you how thankful I am. I miss the heck out of all three of you and can’t wait to see you on the 15^th of December. 31 days!!!!!!  

But now it’s time for my little parasite friends and I to bid you adieu… we’re off to Machu Picchu! (I’m a poet, it’s cool)

Nos vemos,

Hannah