Sunday 30 June 2013

Peruvian Misfortunes

I've noticed that my most popular blog posts are the ones where unfortunate things happen to me. Well, here you are. A post dedicated to the string of bad luck that followed me from the moment I crossed the border into Peru and got stuck on a mosquito- infested night bus that didn't move, to when I finally tried to leave the country, and got fined 20 soles...

Now, Peru is a country of outstanding natural beauty, wonderfully kind people and fascinating history.
It just didn't seem to much like me being there and enjoying it.

After our incredible 10 days in the Galapagos, we caught our flight back to Guayaquil and headed straight to the bus terminal, hoping to just hop on the first bus that was heading south and towards to Peru. Eventually we were headed to the border, and after a few difficulties with the taxi driver taking us to the wrong building to get our passports stamped, we arrived into Peru in the little town of Tumbres.
Ah, Tumbres. Tumbres doesn't inspire. A god forsaken border town with a dodgy reputation, we arrived in a taxi at 10 o clock at night, with the Peruvian couple we were sharing a taxi with much alarmed at the idea of letting us out of their sight, after we'd disclosed that we weren't sure where we were going. Keen to head further south (much of the far north of Peru is desert and beach resorts) the taxi driver, also concerned, ran off in search of a bus for us. As we settled into a night bus which we had managed to catch mere minutes before it was departing, we congratulated ourselves on what good luck we were having. Oh, famous last words...

After about 5 minutes of driving our bus came to a halt. Rapid Spanish ensued. We turned around, drove a bit and then stopped again. A woman came round asking for each of the passengers to give a few soles each. We didn't understand what was happening. Eventually, after another half hour of waiting, the woman returned our money to us. The bus began driving and I thought, hurray, we are finally on our way. And then we stopped. And I looked outside..... to see the very same bus terminal from where we had started. We eventually found out that some fisherman had blocked the only road heading south, because they were angry that they weren't allowed to fish as many anchovies as they wanted. The money had been a failed bribe..... We were told we'd go again in 2 hours.

4 hours passed and we were still in the same place. “We're going at 8am!”. I thought to myself, well that's okay, I can deal with another 3 hours. So, I settled into a seat and went to sleep, waking a little while later to the unmistakable and terrifying whine of mosquitoes. Now, I'm not good with mosquitoes- in fact I'm allergic to the bites. In Croatia last year I got bitten so many times my body wasn't sure how to cope so decided the best thing to do was to make each bite swell to the size of a small orange and give it to the sensation of fire. After making a pharmacist shriek at the site of my overinflated arms, I was swiftly directed to an emergency doctor who promptly gave me an anti-histermine injection in my arse. So, all in all, I was not thrilled to discover that we had inadvertently climbed aboard Mosquito- Bus, and I could feel myself already beginning to itch.... a sensation that certainly did not appease when the driver walked around with some kind of spray that he applied to the seats and I saw literally clouds of mosquitoes emerging from the seats. For days afterwards I had painful and swelled bites up the whole of the back of my legs, my back and my arms from where they had bitten me through the seat. And we hadn't move an inch! Eventually, when we were still not moving at 10am, hunger and an ardent desire to get off that awful bus and get a shower forced us to leave. We managed to get our money back for the bus drive and promptly checked into the hotel next door. The following day, a really kind man who owned a cafe we had gone to , and who we had asked about trying to get round the blockade, tracked as down to tell us that the blockade had lifted. At this, we booked seats with Cruz del Sur, the most expensive and luxurious bus company- about 3 times the price as the other company but there was no way I was getting on another bus owned by them! And this one had fully reclinable seats, wifi, dinner and breakfast served and most importantly: no mosquitoes....

After the Tumbres disaster we headed to Huaraz, an adventure sports town in the Andes where we hoped to do some trekking. The town itself is pretty ugly, but we were lucky enough to be able to couchsurf in a small village a short collectivo ride outside the town. It was really beautiful- we lived with a local family in a small little farm right at the foot of the mountains, with not a tourist in sight. For the grand sum of 5 soles (about £1), our host's mother cooked us an amazing traditional Peruvian breakfast and dinner every day, and we were free to explore the beautiful landscape. It was both of our first experiences of high altitude, sleeping at 3400m every night, and so to prepare ourselves for the trek we wanted to do we did a hike up to a beautiful lagoon that was at 4800m. It was the strangest experience. What should have been a relatively easy hike at sea level suddenly felt impossible! After walking a few steps we were exhausted and had to rest, and what looked like a small hill took an age to climb- our brain couldn't figure out what was happening, and we'd never felt so unfit and light headed!

At Lagoona Chrup!
Exhausted climbing up.....
Our amazing couchsurf hosts, cooking for us on a
woodburning stove in the middle of the Peruvian Andes!
Oh, except, of course every good thing must be outweighed on the karma scale! At the top, I dropped my shockproof freezeproof waterproof indestructible camera to discover it is not quite so indestructible.... Despite its claims to be shockproof to 2m, maybe it hit a rock at the wrong point, in any case the screen broke so I could still take pictures- I just couldn't see what I was taking a picture of. Great timing considering Machu Picchu was coming up....

So, what was the next misfortune? Oh yes, the clothes debarcle. The morning of the start of our 4 day hike, me and PK piled all of our belongings into a collectivo, as the plan was to leave our bags at the agency and push straight towards Lima the evening we got back from the hike. Collectivos in Peru are a chaotic affair, with women in huge skirts and bowler hats continually hauling off and on huge bags of potatoes, coca leaves, children....... Anyway, it wasn't a good place for two gringos to be with huge backpacks and assorted other bags for the hike. I suppose it's not surprising really that when we clambered off at our stop one of my bags was missing. And I suppose I should be grateful it wasn't a bag with anything valuable in it. But, it was a bag with all of the clothes I needed for the hike, including annoying little things like knickers and socks. The money I'd spent on Spanish lessons felt extremely well spent as we were able to explain the problem and one of the bower hatted ladies declared that she knows the woman who has it. PK and the collectivo driver go running off down the street armed with a name and a phone number and I'm left with our multitude of bags, stranded at the side of the street and acutely aware that we were already 20 minutes late for meeting at the agency for the trek. To my delight, my Spanish was understandable and I managed to borrow a passerby's mobile phone to call the agency, the number of which through some lucky accident was on the receipt that I happened to still have. They were sympathetic and drove round to pick us up and 5 minutes later PK returns with.... no bag. Apparently the woman wasn't at her house, but the collectivo driver would try again in the afternoon. I'm not sure whether she stole them or whether they had just got caught up with everything else, but I half expected to see them on the market for sale. In any case, there was some last minute shopping to be done before the trek where I managed to replace the essentials, but I still missed the beautiful purple trousers I'd bought in Quito.....

Anyhoo, the Santa Cruz trek itself was a welcome respite from my bad luck! It was absolutely stunning, and we were fairly well acclimatised now so didn't suffer from any symptoms of altitude sickness. The weather was good, we camped in unspoilt places at the base of the snowcapped Andes , and came across bright little turquoise lagoons around every corner.


Spot the difference!
Montana Artesenraju- reputedly the mountain
used as the basis for the Paramount Pictures logo!

After the trek, we tried somewhat fruitlessly to fix my camera and to get my clothes back, but to no avail.... On to Lima!

We actually spent only about 8 hours in Lima, waiting for our evening bus to Cuzco. PK was heading back to Peru in a couple of months to meet his brother and do the Inca Trail, so would be coming back to a lot of the places then. In the nature of compromise, I agreed to skip out a few places like Nazca and Arequipa and push on to Bolivia as quickly as we could with one exception- he had to wait while I went to see Machu Picchu! (I didn't think my friends and family would accept me back if they found out I had spent 7 months in South America and not been!) And so, as we were both not a fan of big cities, we spent as little time in Lima as possible. We got a taxi straight from the bus station to Miraflores area which is the strangest place I think I've ever been, right amidst the poverty and pollution of Lima is a little mini America, complete with Starbucks, McDonalds, and 'tourist police' who work to make sure only tourists or rich Peruvians hang around the 'Parque Kennedy' which has free wifi...... Completely bizarre and of course unjust- I was glad to leave.

The bus from Lima to Cusco was 6 hours of comfort followed by 20 hours of nauseating mountain bends. Two night buses in a row spat us into Cuzco in a rather bedraggled state, and we staggered to find a hostel that had been recommended to us. The official Inca Trail gets booked up at least 6 months in advance, and costs upwards of $600. My couchsurfing host in Miami urged me to just do an alternative trek at a mere $200, and that could be booked the day before. This suited my budget, and my preference for flexibility, so I booked onto the Salkantay Trek upon arrival and was off to trek to Machu Picchu! Perhaps not along the Inca Trail, but there thousands of trails the Inca used, and so thousands of Inca trails, it's just there´s one that the government decides to publicise.

Views on the way...
Anyway, the trek was nice, but nowhere near as beautiful as the Santa Cruz trek, and it was disappointing to stay in established campsites rather than as really part of the nature. But it was nice, we climbed 2000m and descended again by 2000m in 2 days, which was tough for a lot of people (some were so tired they had to be carried by horse) but it meant that we walked through very different landscapes and ecosystems each day. And we had a fantastic guide who told us all about the local plants and Inca culture. The penultimate day we arrived to Aguas Calientes, which is probably the most disgusting town I have ever been to. Built purely for tourists, it has overpriced restaurants and souvenir shops lining the streets and nothing in the way of character or charm. At 4am the next morning we set out to hike up to Machu Picchu itself (or, for the weak, take the bus....) It was pouring with rain. I arrived to the site soaked in rain and sweat, to see absolutely nothing due to the thick cloud and mist. Before the trek I was estatic to be able to get the very last ticket to climb the Huanapicchu mountain. In defiance, I did, and was rewarded for my efforts with a blanket of white fog. It was a terrible day. The mist cleared at odd intervals at which point everybody sprang to pose before the site and try and take as many photos as they could before it covered it again. Disenchated by the weather and the crowds and crowds of tourists I headed back to the town to meet PK in a coffee shop and finally get warm.

Surely my bad luck couldn't get any worse? Oh but of course. For some inexplicable reason I was the only member of my group who wasn't handed a train ticket back to Cuzco. My guide assured me that it would be faxed to my accommodation, and not to worry. Of course, when I descended from Maccu Piccu and went back to the hotel, they said they didn't have a fax machine. Cue several hours of desperately trying to get through to the agency I had booked my tour through, truly terrible phone lines, and incomprehensible spanish. After a lot of trouble and lot of trips around time, I eventually managed to get my ticket. By some incredible coincindence, I was also allocated a seat directly next to PK on the train. Spooky.

After all of this, we decided to get on a bus to Bolivia as soon as we could......


But Peru wasn't done with me yet! On the border to Bolivia I discovered that the little piece of paper that they give you when you enter a country had somehow disappeared from my passport. I never even realised that this piece of paper was important, but for some reason it is, and they want to have it before they give you the exit stamp and let you leave. Frustrated, tired, fed up, I eventually managed to pay 20 soles (about £5) to get a new form to leave the country....


Hello Bolivia, at last!! Peru- you may have beaten me this time- but I will be back....

My view from the top of the Waynapicchu mountain...... yayyyyy

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