Hello from what was sunny Iquique, Chile.
Today was my first day in Chile. Since my last post, I have been in Cusco, Colca Canyon, and Arequipa.
While Cusco is quite a nice city with stone churches and colonial building all over the city, there isn´t much to report. I spent 3 days there, which consisted mostly of a couple parties and walking around, enjoying the city. I did make a few friends there, two of which I will probably stay with a night or two in Santiago. The only real touristy thing I did was make an attempt on the only sunny day to go to Saquishuan (sp?). However, the price was 40 Soles for students and 70 Soles for tourists. However, I had forgoten my ISIC card. I tried to walk down a road that paralleled the ruins to see if it was worth paying the full price, but the guards wouldn´t allow me. I decided I didn´t want to pay the extra $10. That´s about the jist of Cusco, fun town and late nights.
After Cusco, I headed to Arequipa to go to Colca Canyon. The bus had to make an unexpected four hour stop on the pass in the middle of the night. It was snowing and some vehicle got stuck. But that´s the way it goes. Take a bus in South America and roll the dice. I got into Arequipa pretty early and after a confusing cab ride where I told the cabbie that I wanted to go to El Punto or The Point and gave him one of the streets it was on. After going the wrong way on the street he finally "understood" what hostel I was talking about and corrected me, "da poo-oi". Ok, just take me there. It´s a strange town. It´s about 1 million people in the middle of nowhere. It has a very beautiful centro, with a huge incredible cathedral, but really that´s probably the only place you want to hangout. What really baffles me is that it seems to be a well to do city, with things you can´t find even in Cusco. Things like a Starbucks - first I´ve seen since I left - or shopping goods that you can´t find elsewhere. Later that day I had three goals in mind. One, was to have my main backpack repaired cause the right shoulder strap broke completely.
Side track - what the fuck is going on with backpacks these days. Every single one I have used has broken and I have tried to be gentle to them. I can understand buying shit in South America, but a trekking bag from REI ought to be able to last. I have two pleas to the backpack engineers out there. Please 3 stitch the attachment points for major parts like shoulder straps and the tops, and double stitch the seems. I mean jesus christ monkey balls, come on. Second, why aren´t trekking packs waterproof? Seriously, they aren´t even resistant to water, they soak the shit up like it´s going out of style. Why do I need to buy a bag to put over it? I can find cycling bags that are water proof. Come on, it´s not rocket science.
Now back to the story - Two, was to find a new pair of shoes. The last was to book a trip to Colca Canyon. The first one was super easy and took only 15 min. I think the guy may actually stitched it better than the original makers of the pack. The only thing that sucks is that in the breaking of the strap, I lost the chest connector piece. Anyway, the second one is tough because, for those of you that know me, I won´t wear a shoe with a thick sole or esp. thick heel. These are the companies that I know have good shoes - Vibram 5 Fingers (best shoe for human beings), Nike has some great ones (some are obscure like my blue ones), and Puma has some too but can be elusive. So my trip to the mall turned up nothing for shoes, but I did finally find some Reef flops! 30 bucks and exactly what I wanted (however I need to find some super glue cause they are already peeling the top layer. WTF! Why is everything falling apart on me? All fixable, but still...) Lastly, I got a good deal on a trip to Colca Canyon (130 Soles) for the next day.
Colca Canyon is the second deepest canyon in the world, next to another one in Peru which is about 400 ft. deeper. I decided on a three day trip into the canyon based on some advice I received (which turned out to be great advice). Basically, the two day trip is the same distance as the three day, so you walk 8 hours the first day, and don´t get to relax. On the three day you walk 4 hours a day, but get several hours to hang out too. There are several little towns of about 50 to 200 people in the canyon and you stay in two of them. None of the places you stay will have electrity so make sure everything is fully charged beforehand. Being the second deepest canyon in the world, you can imagine that it is a pretty strenuous hike. I fell asleep inbetween lunch and dinner the first night, then immediately after dinner again. Also, don´t expect any meet in the canyon, as all meals were vegetarian.
Our guide Roy was originally from the canyon. He pointed out numerous medicinal and dangerous plants. Oh yeah, and we ate cactus fruit. He was pretty funny and a bit of a prankster. He always let us know, "if you have a problem or question, only just tell me". (his English wasn´t perfect). Second day is easier and you get a swimming pool at the end of the day. Third day you must wake up around 4. The point of waking up that early is so that you´ll have time to go to the hot springs before going back to Arequipa. The estimated time for people to make the hike out is about three and a half hours. I did it in under two. Not that I was trying to go so fast, it´s just that I hike at a fast pace. In fact, I´d say I´m out of shape; I haven´t worked out in 4 months nor been exercising more than soccer twice a week for 10 months before leaving. Instead, I like to think I use Pareto´s law during hiking. 90% is going to be boring and not worth stopping. 10% will be worth stopping and you want to spend more time in these spots. Sooo, if I hike fast, I get more time at the 10% worth stopping for a look. Anyway, I highly recommend Colca Canyon. It´s beautiful, interesting, and inexpensive.
After my trip to Colca Canyon, I spent the night Arequipa. I went to dinner with two of the people from the trip Anthony and Lincon, Belgium. Had an amazing Alpaca steak. I need to say that Alpaca is really really good. It´s comparable with cow in my hierarchy of tasty animals. Uh, so the next day I got a bus to Tacna and a shared cab to Arica, Chile.
Tip: If you take a shared cab, not only do they drive you the hour to Arica, but they assist you with border stuff. It was super easy. Well worth the 25 Soles ($8).
As we were crossing the border I started getting a stomache ache. I took some PB, but it didn´t really do anything. I figured if it didn´t get worse, I could still make it to Iquique that night. The bus was only an hour and a half from departure. I figured maybe it was just hunger, so I went to the restaurant in the terminal. I even took a quick shit. Still, nothing helped. I couldn´t even eat the sandwich I ordered. I noticed the bread was moldy so I guess it´s a good thing I had no appetite. I boarded the bus. After sitting down, I started getting really dizzy. You know the kind of dizzy that precedes throwing up or passing out. Yeah, that kind. Thank goodness the bus was late leaving, cause I jumped off and headed to the closest cheap hotel with a private bathroom. I checked in barely with enough time. I definitely had food poisoning. I spent the night in the fetus position in a restless fever sleep. I was out of it enough that I set my alarm for 12:30 in the morning (I think it had to do with the bus) and when I woke I thought I had been "sleeping" for an entire day.
I am so glad I listened to my body and not my mind which was thinking about the money that it cost me for the ticket that I wouldn´t get back. $15 plus a night in a hotel $36 vs. being that sick for 4 hours on a bus... Sometimes your mind can be a real asshole. It would probably have been up there with the worst time of my life and I can´t say enough how glad I am that I jumped off that fucking bus.
Oh, if you´re wonder what gave me food poisoning, I know this seems unlikely, but I think I got it from a mango that morning based on timing.
So, now I´m in Iquique and feel just fine. My first impression is that I feel like I´m in a South American version of San Diego. I like it. Sun and ocean for yours truly for a few days before heading down near Santiago.
Later peeps,
D
Some PS´s
Add Guinea Pig to the list of animals I´ve eaten. Tasty but hardly any meat; worth trying only once.
Two things that may sound reasonable that people believe, but are actually just plain stupid:
Darker skin people get less wrinkles - In Cusco hostel. We have a competitor for stupid comments of the year for this years Tops. And so early in the year!
This food is healthy (which I hear a lot). - Referring to the vegetarian food in Colca Canyon. Problem is that the food was rice with mostly potatoes and some actual healthy veggies inbetween.
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