I've been in Peru now for 17 days
and my first time in South America has been unreal. I spent the first
week in Cuzco, the historical capital of the Inca Empire. The city is a
good mix of tourists and locals. Of course the best food is to be found
at the local market, where my friends and I seem to be the only gringos
brave enough to venture for cheap comida. But hey, we eat a lot and the
teeny expensive portions at the local tourist restaurants don't really
cut it, so we've been heading off to the San Pedro Mercado for heaping
plates of Lomo Saltado. The hostels here offer a great chance to meet
other travelers and make new friends, everybody's open minded and
willing to share recommendations on what the best thing to do is at each
of their recently visited destinations. Of course, a local ATM chose to
not return to me my debit card upon a withdrawal. Luckily, I'm traveling with friends kind enough to lend me some funds until I find
another means of getting some cash.
For the last 8 days, we've been off in the mountains having the time of our lives. We took the Llama route to Salkantay all the way to Machu Picchu. For the first four days we had some pretty grueling hikes, going for 6-7 hours and summiting multiple passes per day, some as high as 4,900 meters. Which brings me to another talking point, altitude. I've never stayed anywhere before above 3,000 meters. I came to Peru in great shape thinking all that stuff about altitude sickness was just for old ladies to worry about. I was wrong. Altitude sickness is real, my friends, and it's lurking at about 3,400 meters to make a giant idiot out of you. I found doing routine things, like climbing a flight of stairs or ROLLING UP A SLEEPING BAG, to be on par going out for an easy 10 mile run in lead boots. But there's a reason we're hiking up so high and that is the views. I've never seen anything like the Andes mountains, nothing that even compares to it. The Andes jut straight out of the ground and climb steeply up for thousands of meters to jagged, snow-capped peaks. I love California landscape, but the Andes make the Sierras look like mole hills. Even my beloved Yosemite pales in comparison to the terrain here, flying from Lima to Cusco during the sunrise blew my mind. The ENTIRE country is mountains. Also, the stars at night are insane. I've never seen the constellations of the Southern Hemisphere. At night, at 4,600 meters, in the mountains with no light pollution for 50 miles, I could go into a trance laying down and staring at them up here.
Yesterday, we made it to Machu Picchu after resting for the night at Aguas Calientes. I've never been so happy to have a shower and bed to sleep in, I'm fairly sure us four dudes smelled worse than any stray dog you could find in all of Peru as we walked into town. Machu Picchu was, of course, crazy. An entire city of ancient ruins sprawled across a tiny little platform, hidden away high up between the mountains.
Other things I've experienced so far in Peru:
Chicha, a traditional Peruvian beer made from corn, is actually pretty decent. I've had it at a few restaurants and even elected to have some when we went to watch the local soccer team, Cienciano, last week. If you come to Peru, don't order it at a soccer game unless you want to feel like somebody's been beating you over the head with a wiffle ball bat two hours later. It comes in a plastic bag fit for a goldfish and looked anything but sanitary.
Sopa de Cabeza. Yep. Sheep's head soup is pretty popular in the more local spots here and you even get to choose which part of the head you want in your soup. Oh Yeah! I ordered tongue last week. No joke, they literally put the entire sheep's skull, meat still attached, into the bowl with the soup. La lengua was pretty good actually, tender meat. I also had some ojo, sheep's eye, and it was tasty as well. One just has to get over the American-ness of being a picky eater and realize it's all meat anyway. And yes, I had my first huevo, or cooked ram's testicle this week as well. I apologize to those of you who just dry heaved, but it wasn't as bad as you might think.
Anyways, I've got a lot more stuff to talk about but that will have to do for now. More updates and pictures soon as I head South.
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