round and round...36hrs

I arrived in Quito the morning of the 25th from Lima after around 36 hours on two different busses not including several layovers.

As a catch up: from Arequipa I bussed near 8 hours to Cabanaconde on the edge of the Colca Canyon. A magnificient place in the low season with few tourists and for me a lucky window of weather. I arrived late evening and stayed at a great Peruvian/Dutch run hostel Panchamama.

Working at Panchamama was an American Peace Corps Volunteer Christina who has been in Cabanaconde about a year and a half of her 2 year service; and is planning on staying an additional year and a half. Was really great to learn about her projects focusing on small buisness development in the area and community development programs. Really inspiring work including a recycling program where locals can bring plastic bottles (the number one kind of trash) and exchange them for a voucher good for grains, potatoes, veggies etc. at participating vendors. The bottles are then taken to near by Chivay where they are sold to be turned into fleece material, the money being put back into the program to pay for the voucher goods. Christina also teaches language and basic buisness management classes.

From Cabanaconde I spent two beautiful days in the Colca Canyon. The first day I hiked down into the canyon and up the other side (8 1/2 hrs) spending the night in the Village of Fure. The next morning I left at 7 and hiked up to the nearby gigantic waterfall for a little bit before heading back to CabanaConde via a different route. The terraine is super steep and dry eventhough it is the wet season. The main vegatation is various types of cactus and low shrubs. A very dramatic landscape dotted with distant villages and mind blowing terracing.

From pictures I´ve always known the the Andes Range as being steep and ruged but it is another thing when to be on the hill sides watching the winding waters below, feeling the pull of gravity, and trying to go against it. Parts of the trail were no more than 8" wide or otherwise challenging requireing placing each foot with intention. The main means of transport once you cross the river is by donkey, amazingly surefooted and strong creatures. The first day the only other people I saw once across the river was a very elderly woman who only spoke Quechua, her donkey, and two distant people working in the fields who once directed me back to the "trail" when it dissapeared as it often did.

My return hike to Cabanaconde took about 10 hours the last part seemed a never ending up hill. But I made it back to town just before dark and moments before the down pour. The last half hour or so I was be hind a sheperdess and her good sized flock of sheep, a fun albeit a dusty experience.

The next morning I bussed back to Arequipa and then to Cuzco on a night bus. I wandered Cuzco for the day and promptly fell asleep for some much needed rest. Sleeping on buses sadly doesn´t happen for me. On another bus I took a round about way to the famed Macchu Pichu the next morning. There is a train service to Aguas Calientes the main town closest to Macchu Pichu but is extremely expensive. A 2-1/2 hour bus ride is also required to get to the station from Cuzco. An alternative route besides a multiday trek which sadly I did not have the time for is via Santa Maria and Santa Teresa. From Cuzco´s Terminal Terrestre one can catch a 6ish hour bus to Santa Maria, plesant with the exception of two sales men peddling wares with the cappability to talk for abnormally long periods of time (one talked for almost two hours straight).

From Santa Maria I joined a group of other travelers also going to Macchu Pichu, and split the price of a taxi to Santa Teresa. A taxi that is almost-ish to Santa Teresa; about a half hour outside of Santa Maria we had to stop as there had been a landslide from the recent rains. After waiting and watching the road clearing progress for an hour the road was finally cleared and we continued on our merry way, screaming. The elderly driver and his magic taxi drove like a bat out of hell trying to avoid further landslides etc. A while later we had to stop because the road was blocked again but this time had to continue on foot with a good sized hoard of other people heading in the same direction.

Landslides are a near daily occurence during the wet season so there is a well defined foot path following the river to Santa Teresa.

The group that I fell in with was composed of four other travelers. Natalia and Sebastian are from Medellin in Colombia, Karol a Polish architect who lives in Spain and Nicolas a Swede.

We arrived soaked and after dark to a powerless Santa Teresa and found nice lodgings for S5 (less than 2 usd) per person and arranged for an early taxi to the trail head. In the morning our taxi driver arrived promptly at 4am and drove us the 25 minuets to "Hydroelectico" the power plant where the road ends and the trail begins. We spent the first half hour or so bumbling around in the dark with two lights between us before finding the trail that shortly finds and parrallells the train tracks 10k to Aguas Calientes. More rain and more mud but it was a beautiful walk accompanied by the wonderful sound of the most raging and churning river I´ve ever seen.

Macchu Pichu was mind blowing and breath taking in more ways than one. It took all of my will power and self controll not to start climbing, the entire city is constructed and surrounded by amazing granite. I think they had to have been climbers of some kind. The morning was overcast and raining but the sun made a grand shoulder roasting appearence. The entire day was spend wandering the ruins. Back in Aguas Calientes we got a good meal and pitched a makeshift camp in the main square people watching and being watched. After our trekking in the rain, mud, and sun we were exhausted and were totally content to just hang out in town and wait for our train. We left on the last train of the night at 10:30 and arrived in back in Cuzco at almost 3 in the mornimg post a several hour van ride in addition to the train ride. Just in time to nab a few hours of sleep and catch my flight back to Lima where I near immediately caught my bus here to Ecuador.

Currently I am in Tena, the white water capital of Ecuador. It is a very beautiful medium sized city surrounded by amazing rivers and jungle forrests. We arrived here on the 26th and have rafted every day since except today is mercifully a rest day.

We are a small group a total of four.Previously I had met the two other student David and Llocklin briefly in Mendoza, so we weren't total strangers. The instructor is Travis also but not the same one as mountaineering in Argentina and is a friend of Nachos. A small group is nice but it means that our raft does not have as much power as it could, so we have had several guest paddlers Natie and Ana on different days. Natie was our driver from Quito and Ana works for Rios Ecuador.

Learning and remembering how to paddle, guide and read the river is challenging but most deffinately an enjoyable time. It is pretty hot here being just barely south of the Equator but the water is refreshing. So far we have rafted five different rivers (names and grades to follow shortly). We are working with and renting gear from Rios Ecuador the largest of the local outfitters. So far all is good and we will be progressing into learning more about swift water rescue and other river skills.