A Tale of Woe

And now for a radical departure from my usual posting style.  You know, the happy-go-lucky-Erin skipping around having endless fun tra-la-la kinda stories.  You were probably getting a little bored with that anyway.

Gather round friends, for this here is a tale of woe.

Things started out so well.  You may remember last I wrote I had arrived in Huaraz, was swept off my feet by the scenery and about to go trekking amongst the mountains.  I had such high hopes.

The morning I began the trek was perfectly fine.  In the van on the way to the start of the trail I sat next to a fellow trekker, a rather nice looking Swiss-Peruvian fellow, and had a good chat and a few laughs. Everyone else seemed cool too, a lovely Korean girl, three French people and two girls from Quebec.  We set off on the trail accompanied by some donkeys, our guide Daniel and our cook.  The sun was shining and it was a nice day. The trail was a little steep but totally manageable, and we stopped for lunch next to a river where there were some cows and their calves hanging about,  and rested sunning ourselves on the rocks.  We completed 10kms by about 3pm, when we made camp at a place called Llamacoral, at 3760m altitude.  I was a little sleepy so had a siesta, woke for dinner, then had an early night.

The next day I woke up and felt a bit rubbish.  I thought a coffee would fix it but to no avail.  We set off for the next hike, another 10kms.  It was flat and took us further into the Santa Cruz Valley, past a lake, closer to the high snow capped peaks we had seen from camp.  But I found myself quite exhausted about an hour into it.  Something was wrong with my legs, they just had no energy.  I cursed the sand along the river bank for being so damned hard to walk in.  When we stopped to rest I actually fell asleep.  We had to ascend again, to the viewpoint, and then we were going to take an extra 5km detour to see some lake.  I had to opt out because by then I didn't think I'd make it.  So I proceeded onto the 4200m campsite, resting for 10 minute naps every 20 minutes.  When I arrived I was straight into bed and slept all afternoon, through dinner, until the next morning.

And then began the day from hell.  I woke with a headache.  By this time I had realised it was altitude sickness, but we had to ascend even further to a pass at 4750m which I was dreading.  I was mega slow, and our guide stayed with me saying "Come on lady, you can do it!" He was really quite nice but kept insisting on taking photos of me as we rested, when I felt like death.  So there are a bunch of photos on my camera with me sitting in gorgeous scenery, totally unable to enjoy it and a hostile look on my face!  As we climbed there were points where he was alternately pushing and dragging me uphill.  Oh and I forgot to mention, in addition to my preexisting symptoms of headache, fatigue and nausea, I developed an exciting new complaint (and I´m about to lose sexy-points with all my groupies out there by saying this but oh well, it is a tale of woe) diarrhoea!  Apparently not a usual problem in altitude sickness so either I'm a freak of nature in that sense or just the only person in our group of 10 lucky enough to get a tummy bug.  So I was stopping every hour for that, which was just delightful.  When we arrived to the summit it was group photo time. Yay.  I didn't bother getting one since I really hadn't bonded with the group (being asleep or way behind most of the time, besides they spoke french all the time)  After the photo I had a little vomit to celebrate.  Then the guide snapped a photo of me.

It was a relief to start the descent, but not easy.  It began to snow and I had one brief moment of happiness as I watched it sprinkling down, before I realised it made the trail bloody slippery.  I was a bit dizzy, there were friggin rocks all over the trail (or rather the rocks were the trail) and patches of slippery mud, so good old Daniel was now holding my arm guiding me down.  And we went down and down and it snowed and rained.  I thought I'd begin to feel better as we descended but no.  We rested a while and when I stood up I thought right I can do this, I can walk on my own without needing him to hang on to.  And promptly slipped on a patch of mud, falling on my arse.  It was the final straw I was like "Fuck fuck fuck FUCK FUCK!!!".  Daniel wiped me off with some grass and we continued.  "How much further?" "Oh, another three and a half hours, mas o menos"  Three and a half hours?!?!  It seemed like about 10 hours.  It was cold. The path went on and on and on.  We'd turn a corner and I'd think, now maybe we'll be able to at least see the campsite from here.  But no.  At least I didn't cry.  When finally, finally, we arrived, everyone said "Hey! How are you!" with that tone of pity.  I sat and had a cup of tea with them but they were far too happy, playing their french card games or whatever, laughing away.  I retreated to my cave aka the tent, where I proceeded to put on nearly every item of clothing I had brought because it was fucking freezing.  Occasionally I could hear peals of laughter as Quebec-woman joked around with aforementioned Swiss-Peruvian.  Seriously no grown woman should giggle and squeal that much, it´s ridiculous.  Yeah so okay, its safe to say that in my misery I was hating the world good and proper by this point.

The night was cold, so cold I wanted to put more clothes on, but didnt have much else and besides getting out of the sleeping bag to put them on would make me even colder.  I had a little cry at that point!  Then put on an extra pair of socks, my mittens and wrapped a jumper around my neck, then managed to fall back asleep.  In the morning I felt marginally better, and the walk the next day was still a little tiring but I found myself able to actually take pleasure in my surroundings which was a nice change.  After three hours the trek was done.  Everyone was having beers, looking all pleased with themselves.  I was just relieved and glad I hadn't collapsed unconscious at any point.  The drive back to Huaraz was long, a good 5 hours staring out the window, slowly thawing out and coming back to life.

The worst thing about all this was that it was my own stupid fault.  After hanging out at Cotopaxi and climbing to 4200m with no hint of altitude sickness I got all cocky and thought "Cool, I guess it just doesn't affect me"  when really, on that occasion I had acclimatised properly from being in Quito.  I kind of thought my time in the northern highlands and one day in Huaraz would be enough for me to acclimatise for my trek.  Wrong!

I just hope I'll be okay for trekking Salkantay, which I start on Wednesday.  Yes, this crazy girl is getting back on that horse! Kind of apprehensive but it's booked, and it's Macchu Picchu! It cant be worse than Santa Cruz, right? Right? So stay tuned, hopefully next time it'll be back to our regular programming.  You know, happy-skipping-tra la-la.

Or perhaps another bitch and moan, who knows...

Into Darkest Peru

Here I am in Huaraz, looking out over the square and to the high snow capped peaks beyond.  I'm kind of loving Peru!

It was quite exciting (if a bit exhausting) getting here.  After a great time in Vilcabamba in Ecuador, I took the bus to Zumba then climbed in a wooden, open sided truck called a ranchero to take me through the mountains to the border.  It was a quiet crossing where a solo Australiana was a bit of a curiosity.  The immigration guy looked at my passport with much interest, and asked me all about the kangaroos and emus.  After that it was a taxi to San Ignacio, rest for the night, then into a colectivo (shared taxi/van type thing) which I shared with some coffee farmers, schoolkids, a jehovah's witness and a chicken.  After arriving in Jaen I caught a mototaxi (like a rickshaw but with a motorbike) to another colectivo which took me to Chachapoyas in the northern highlands of Peru.

I checked into my hostel, where the ever-smiling owner Donna gave me a cup of coca tea, a good welcome to Peru:) There is heaps to do around Chachapoyas, a small town named after the pre-Incan inhabitants also known as the Cloud people or Warriors of the Clouds.  The first day I hiked to a waterfall.  The second day I did a tour of the huge ruins at Kuelap, the largest ruins in peru after Machu Picchu, where there were about 400 round houses overlooking the Utcubamba valley.  The tour was...interesting.  Our guide Luis was a tad odd.  He would start talking about Incan beliefs and Chamanism, then go off on mistic tangents... something about a six pointed star being at the centre of every person, the four human races coming from aliens, and the 23 companies that run the world.  "I could tell you many things.." he said to me "many things, which I know about.  It is my mission to tell the truth to humanity".  Needless to say it was hard to keep him on topic but I just kept asking questions about how the people lived at Kuelap and we muddled through! The last day in Chacha I went caving and got bogged.  Not the vehicle, me personally.  There was really deep mud in this cave - we were all given gumboots but no flashlights so it was kind of hard to see where you were going.  I ended up stuck knee high in the mud on more than one occasion, requiring rescuing.  But there were a few cool stalactites etc and some great conversations with fellow travellers so it was fun.  Later we saw the Sarcofagi of some chamans out at Karajia.

Next stop was Huanchaco, recommended to me by the Mollie and Katie, who I had met in Chacha.  Complete opposite of the highlands - it's a little beach town near Trujillo where I had planned to stop briefly to break up my journey to Huaraz.  It was nice and warm, and I enjoyed a hula-hoop on the beach and a swim, then hung out with some top-notch people from the hostel which morphed into a big night out.  After a drinking game six of us went out to Trujillo where we played in the square with an LED bouncing ball, drank sangria, tried to dance salsa in some casino, then moved onto a gay bar where we danced some more and were treated to a show of sorts... funny and memorable night!  The next day consisted of lounging around the hostel and at the beach, playing backgammon and eating before I had to catch my bus to come to Huaraz.  So it was a short visit, Huanchaco, but oh so sweet!

Now it's Erin's trekking season. Tomorrow I start a four day trek through the Santa Cruz Valley, then rest for a bit before hitting Cuzco in time for their solstice festival Inti Raymi, then do the Salkantay which finishes at Machu Picchu.  Wish me luck, I might need it!

Colon cleanser, thermal baths and a party bus

Bus travel in South America can be quite odd at times.  Last week after my stay at Cotopaxi I travelled to Banos by bus.  As usual when we stopped to pick up more passengers, a whole array of vendors came up and down the aisle shouting ´bebidas cocacola agua bebidas cocacola agua´ ´tamales tamales tamales´ ´helados helados helados´.  Its quite convenient that the snacks come to you, even if it does extend the travel time.  Anyway, this one guy got on and as the bus continued along, he stood up and made an impassioned , heartfelt speech that lasted 20 minutes easily. He was very animated and at times it sounded like he was reciting poetry.  My Spanish is still rubbish so I only caught a few phrases `for the children´, and ´for a good life´.  I sat there trying to decide whether he was sermonising about religion or rallying the revolution, when he began handing out small packets to everyone on the bus.  The guy next to me took one and on the back I read: Colon Cleanser.  I had to giggle.

Banos was cool fun.  When I got there I was still sore from my hike four days before (I know, lame.  It´ll probably take me a week to recover after Machu Picchu) so I got a massage which was delightful!  The next day I took a mountain bike down the Ruta de las Cascadas, following the river from Banos down to Rio Verde, during the descent watching the forest transform from cloud forest to more jungley viney rainforest, viewing waterfall after waterfall.  At one point I saw this girl ziplining across the river and firstly thought: she's nuts!  Which quickly changed to: I wanna do that!  I got all suited up and triple checked all the harnesses, getting nervous.  But when the guy pushed me to go, I  just enjoyed the ride flying across this beautiful canyon with the lava flows visible along the river bank...it was cool.  There was a big waterfall at Rio Verde called El Diablo which was just pounding water down, spraying it far and wide - I got saturated crawling behind that one. That evening I went and checked out the local thermal baths with a nice Argentinian guy I´d met that day.  There were a lot of people there all sitting around in the hot water together, chatting away and going for occasional showers with cold water.  I did that but also dived in the freezing cold pool in between too, very refreshing!

In the evening I made some friends from the hostel and we all went out to a bar where I was once again reminded that there is no such thing as a good martini in South America.  But I had heaps of fun with the array of Germans, Americans and other assorted travellers in the group.  The next night I went out with Rosa, a very awesome dutch/chilean doctor from my dorm room.  We joined this little tour to go up the mountain and see the volcano Tungurahua, which involved climbing in a truck/bus type thing decorated with flashing lights and a really loud sound system (Woo! Partybus!), getting a brief description of the volcano which we couldn´t see because of the clouds, drinking a weird warm honey alcohol drink, watching Ecuadorian comedians, sitting around while a drunk 13 year old tried to educate us about the volcano, and finally going back on the partybus (woo!) to town.  We ended up back in the same bar, met up with some Ecuadorian friends she had made the night before and when they kicked us out of the bar we went back to their place, drank more rum, had a singalong and other sillyness.

After saying goodbye to Banos I went to Cuenca which is a really beautiful city, quite picturesque and comfortable.  I stayed there a week, couchsurfed with the lovely Bernarda and went out to a film festival with her and her friends.  But mostly I just had a quiet week, studying Spanish for four hours a day, walking around the centro historico in the afternoons then doing homework and reading in the evenings (got completely sucked in by the Hunger Games and devoured the trilogy in 5 days).  In the final days the town was getting ready for the Corpus Christi week and for some reason this meant dozens of stalls appeared selling sweet pastries and cookies.  I bought so much stuff and made myself a bit ill with the chocolatey cream filled spiral donut things, arequipa-filled cookie things, and more.

I´m now in Vilcabamba which is beautiful, the hostel I´m in has nice views of the mountains, a pool and sunlounges and lots of hammocks everywhere, a pool table and a ping pong table!  My ping pong skills have deteriorated while I´ve been away from the Ori, but while playing I made new friends including some French doctors and a midwife who will be my border-crossing buddies tomorrow.  On to Peru for new adventures!