Peru 2016
South America, not just a trip
I started planning for this trip accidentally an entire year before. Yes, accidentally. And the word 'plan' happens to be optional.
You see that little guy next to me in the black shirt? His name is Nathan and he was one of my best friends during my undergrad. We spent so many evenings over a pint talking about what we were going to do once we graduated, rather than actually focusing on our classes (Don't worry we did just fiiiine).
Well, I was absolutely convinced by the end of our many conversations, over many pints of beer, after many years of school, that I was going to join Nate in Australia and New Zealand. It's now almost been a year since we graduated, and as you can see I did not make it to Australia and New Zealand.
Instead I found myself on a part of his travels that I certainly wasn't planning upon. South America.
Circumstances
I had just finished working on the Bluenose II, a tall ship based out of Lunenburg, NS. I should mention that the work we did was often pretty heavy manual labour with really long hours. So I'm sure you can imagine that once the weather got cold and the season ended I was ready to move on.. to somewhere warm and new.
Unsurprisingly, I gave my buddy Nate a call. At this point he'd already been in South America for a month and all I ever saw were amazing moments during his travels on social media.
Now I'm not the type of person who makes split second decisions. With one main exception. South America. I'd like to say he won me over with his stories but looking back I have to admit that I did it out of fear - fear for the new year, unemployment, and post graduation.
So I bought the ticket that week and headed down to Peru.
Peru, the beginning
4 stops and 19 hours later I landed in Lima, Peru. Oh and a cancelled and rescheduled ticket the night before. Just two weeks after the initial conversation with Nate.
Lima was abrasive on my senses.
Let me set the scene for you: sleep deprived, no english, dehydrated, new smells, unfamiliar faces, no solid plan, singular 30L backpack. I quite literally only had the shoes on my feet and the clothes on my back. But I was feeling good.
Leaving the airport was a bit of a process. A friendly member of the airport staff noticed almost immediately that I had no clue what to do next. He spoke fragmented english to me and I attempted the few words I had read on the flight from my pocket spanish translation book that weren't, "dos cervesa por favor".
He kindly found me a cab. I exit, I'm in the cab, still feeling good. My cabbie knew a little less english than the airport staff but easily found me the place I had booked online. Let me mention that the area I had apparently booked did not exist. The street was dark, corners of buildings breaking apart, trash covering the street.
Up until this point Mr. Cabbie had been jovial. Happily teaching me useful spanish phrases and talking about the beautiful places I must visit and interesting things going on in the city. But as soon as we reached this area he became quite stern. "Not good place to stay", he says. Without waiting for my reply he drives off and begins making calls. Well, this kindly man had decided to find me a safer place to stay.
It took us 2 hours to find a place that was still open at 2am, a very expensive cab ride, and an even more expensive hotel room for that ordeal to end. My first night in South America was definitely my most expensive of the whole trip, and that's including up front costs of four day tours.
I'm feeling a little less good.
On the road to Arequipa
A new day. The sun is shining, I eat fresh fruit from the continental breakfast, I call my cab to get to the bus station. Everything is moving smoothly. I'm feeling great.
The extent of my planning included buying a bus ticket the night I booked my plane ticket. I make it to the bus stop with no problems, still feeling great.
In I go. The bus ride is scheduled to last 12 hours. I had booked a seat called a semi-cama, so a partially reclining seat. Sounds pretty great, right? Nope. I'm a measly 6 ft 1 in tall. The man sitting next to me couldn't have been called than 5 ft 3. And he looked like he'd been packed into a sardine tin, now imagine me.
Hour 3 passes, no longer feeling great, hour 6, feeling unhappy but at least I'm half-way, hour 12, still not there and the anxiety begins, hour 16, anxious, in pain, and definitely unhappy.
5am and I have finally arrived in Arequipa, Peru.
Now, Nate had scheduled a 3 day trek for us that day. However, the pickup from the tour company was at 3:30 am. I missed it, and he's awesome enough to have stayed behind for me.
I'll shorten my negativity and the continuation of the sad saga to say that we spend that whole day trying to catch the tour company and his two friends. Finally we strike a deal with the company to do a 2 day trek, and stay at the same base as Nate's friends.
Finally, Colca Canyon.
This hike feels like the culmination of my whole journey, and yet it occurred only on my third day.
I think you might get a semblance of what I mean by that when you look at the above picture. Pushing on my leg for each step. Altitude sickness, exhaustion, second deepest gorge in the world, calves burning from the way down, worry about the trek up...
Worth it.
The views that I saw on the way up at 5 am will stay with me until I die. Dusky sunlight slowly easing down from the mountain peaks. The sound of the river rushing below, and birds waking up above. Feeling thankful for the crisp valley air cooling me down on the 4000 m hike up. Thankful that those rays illuminating the valley had not yet reached me to exacerbate the rivers of sweat running down my overworked body.
I don't think my pride has ever been as hurt on the way up. There I was thinking I was in shape, remember I had just finished a varsity career. But I have never felt that close to the edge of my breaking point, and I worked hard in my games.
But, like I said, worth it.
On to Bolivia
The night before leaving Peru the group of us had gone to a restaurant that self proclaimed, "The best primal food in South American". And that came from the chefs' own lips. Now I don't know if he was telling the truth, but I do know that it was excellent. If you're Canadian like we were you'll appreciate our meal choices: 2 sets of alpaca ribs, and a roast of hamster. Why not?
Another ludicrously long bus ride away, Nate and I packed in like sardines.
Now this bus ride was a little more interesting than my previous one. We chose a night bus to cut down the cost of staying at a hostel, though I don't think we achieved much sleep. Several hours in and everyone is hurried off of the bus. Hurry and wait. The herd starts to move around the corner, no one exactly knowing what's going on but we follow. We find ourselves shepherded along onto small boats bobbing along a windy strait and ferried across. Imagine corks bobbing in water just being drawn from a gushing tap. The most incredible part of this was looking to the right and watching the bus back on to a very narrow, old, rickety, rusted and wooden barge. Every single one of us watched in fear as it crossed, not overly hopeful that it would make it across with all of our bags.
Amazingly, we made it.
Back on, sardines. More hours pass and the sun begins to rise. Finally we find ourselves skirting lake Titicaca (I can't help but laugh whenever I read that name).
Bolivia, finally. Dusty. Beautiful. Ready for the next set of adventures.
