Amazing Peru

I just got back from an absolutely extraordinary trip to Peru. When I planned my trip to Argentina, I added in an extra week for traveling. I was originally planning to visit southern Argentina, but ended up deciding to use the time to see an entirely new country. I chose Peru, and it turned out to be a truly wonderful experience... perhaps my best trip yet.

In order to save money, I didn't fly directly into Peru. Instead, I flew from Buenos Aires through Santiago to Arica, Chile, which was a lot cheaper than flying into either Cusco or Lima. Then I took a "taxi colectivo" (shared taxi) for a two-hour ride across the border to Tacna, Peru. From the moment I left the Arica airport until after leaving Tacna, I didn't see a single other tourist. I was traveling a well-worn path, but only in the sense that it was well-worn by locals. I definitely escaped the "gringo trail" for a while here!

After spending the night in Tacna, I got up early and took a six-hour bus ride into Arequipa, Peru. Arequipa is famous for being the second-largest city in Peru, and also for its beautiful colonial architecture, which is made out of white volcanic stone.

This is the cathedral in Arequipa and an example of the beautiful white buildings that form the whole downtown area.

I also visited a colonial monastery in Arequipa, which I think was the first monastery for women in the Spanish colonies.

Another really interesting thing in Arequipa is the museum dedicated to the Inca mummy "Juanita." Juanita was a child sacrificed to the god of a volcano near Arequipa. She was covered by snow for about 500 years, and then was uncovered when a nearby volcano started erupting in the 1990s. An American researcher found her in the late 90s and she is now in a museum in Arequipa. We weren't allowed to take pictures in the museum, but it was a really well-done exhibition.

Since I wasn't allowed to take any pictures, here is a photo of Juanita from the internet.

Arequipa is also a jumping-off point for a number of outdoor activities. One of the most popular is a multi-day hike in the Colca Canyon, a canyon about a six-hour drive from Arequipa that is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. The Colca Canyon isn't the deepest canyon in the world -- that honor goes to the canyon right next door, which is something like 5 m deeper than Colca. Ha. So, after a bout of altitude sickness that postponed the beginning of my trek for a day, I began a two-day battle against this crazy canyon. Looking back, I can say it was really fun... at the time, though, I'm not so sure!

This is a view of the canyon from the top.

And here I am getting started on the hike. You can see the river at the bottom. The first day, we hiked all the way down to the river (1,200 meters down), crossed the river on a bridge, and then walked about 1/3 of the way up the other side to a path that took os horizontally downriver, down to the river again, and then to an oasis where we spent the night. Yup, it was as hard as it looks!

The views in the canyon were spectacular. This was taken after crossing the river and hiking partway back up the canyon on the first day.

The second day was supposed to be a 7 km hike straight up the side of the canyon (a 1,200 meter climb in a 7 km hike is pretty steep!). Four out of the twelve of us decided to take the easy route up...

by mule! The mules really had a mind of their own, and although they listened well to a complex set of whistles and spoken commands by their master, they didn't care one bit what we riders wanted them to do. Here, for example, I wanted my mule to pose for a picture but he was intent on starting up the mountain!

After visiting the canyon, I headed back to Arequipa and then immediately hopped on a bus to Cusco, Peru. Cusco was the capital of the Inca empire about 500 years ago, but was colonized by the Spanish and now has a colonial feel.

This is the Plaza de Armas (central plaza built during colonial times for military exercises) in Cusco. You can see the cathedral on the left.

After spending the day relaxing in Cusco, I got a good night's rest and then headed off for a tour of the Sacred Valley, which highlighted a number of Inca towns, many of which are now archeological sites. The Sacred Valley is the valley of the Urubamba river, and it is called "Sacred" because a lot of Inca cities, including many temples, have been found in the river valley. The tour was interesting to me because it showed how much the Inca empire pervaded (and continues to pervade) the area. For example, the Incas built agricultural terraces on the mountains in order to make the area more hospitable to agriculture, and those terraces (many of which are still in use, with their original irrigation systems still functioning) are a constant feature in the landscape of the Sacred Valley.

This is the agricultural sector at Pisac. It is really amazing how the Incas built terraces and cultivated even the steepest mountains. And then they built their homes at the top of the mountains rather than in the valley, in order to preserve valuable fertile valley soil for agriculture and avoid natural disasters like floods and landslides.

Me at the archeological site at another Inca city, Ollantaytambo. This is the agricultural sector of the Inca town, and the terraces were used to grow crops. Ollantaytambo is cool because although the agricultural sector is now an archeological site (no longer being used), the rest of the town is an actual town. You can see the original Inca foundations and walls of the buildings, and the streets are original Inca streets. Amazing that after so long, the Inca construction is still usable and useful.

The water pipes and channels continue to work to this day! This is a functioning fountain in the Water Temple in Ollantaytambo.

The Spanish invasion interrupted the construction of the Inca city at Ollantaytambo, and these stones were left mid-way through being carried up the mountain. They would have been used in the continued construction of the city at Pisac, which is now an archeological site. You can't really tell from the picture how steep the hill was, but it is truly amazing that the Incas were able to transport these huge stones down from a quarry on a neighboring mountain, across a river, and then up this mountain.

After touring Ollantaytambo, I hopped on a train and headed to Aguas Calientes, the town at the base of Machu Picchu mountain and the starting point for my Machu Picchu adventure. There is a bus to the entrance to Machu Picchu at the top of the mountain, and I got up early the next morning prepared to get the bus and hike to the top of the mountain in time for the sunrise. I was greeted with pouring rain and decided to sleep in a bit longer. I was rewarded for my laziness because when I did finally get on the bus around 8 am, it was just starting to clear up.

I decided to hike to a viewpoint called Intipunku (which means "Sun Gate" in Quechua) first thing, and then take a look around Machu Picchu city itself later. It was a beautiful hike with lots of nice foliage, and barely anyone around... so most of these pictures are taken using the timer function on my camera! :)

The path, like all Inca trails, was absolutely amazing. It was paved with stones, and when the path was steep, there were stone steps like these. Compared to the dusty, slippery trail in the Colca Canyon, it was like night and day!

After an easy 90-minute hike, I reached the sun gate...

... and saw a hauntingly beautiful view of Machu Picchu.

Here I am at the top!

And then I hiked back down to get a closer look, and eventually to take a tour of the city itself.

I really enjoyed the tour because it gave me a chance to see up-close the truly impressive architecture and engineering of the Incas. The whole city was put together in such an elegant way.

For example, the stone walls were built with holes in the bottom. This was so that water could run out the hole and avoid causing the wall to deteriorate over time.

And the way that the stones fit together was truly hard to believe. Here, the Incas used a huge natural stone as part of their construction, and then painstakingly carved additional stones to place on top. In these perfect stone walls, the Incas did not use mortar. Instead, the rocks fit together so well that the walls have remained standing for hundreds of years with just one rock on top of another.

Plus, the way it all came together was just really pretty.

I went into my trip knowing that Machu Picchu wasn't the most important Inca city, and in fact is probably so famous today only because its remote location meant that the Spanish did not discover it when they conquered the Inca empire. I was excited that I was going to see Machu Picchu, of course, but I didn't want to build it up too much. I didn't need to worry... I don't think it is possible to build it up too much. Machu Picchu is truly a testament to the beauty and ingenuity of which humans are capable, and I feel so lucky to have been able to visit.

Machu Picchu was the last big stop on my trip, and a wonderful way to end. The next day, I took the bus from Cusco to Puno, a city on Lake Titicaca (the highest-altitude navigable body of water in the world) and near the border with Bolivia. I didn't have time to really explore Puno or to see its biggest attraction, the floating Uros islands of Lake Titicaca (made out of reeds). That, plus the Bolivian side of the lake, will have to remain for another trip. I spent the night in Puno and then took the bus the next day through the Peruvian altiplano back to Tacna, and then the taxi colectivo across the border so that I was full circle back in Arica, Chile. Yesterday I hopped the plane back to Buenos Aires, and today I was back to work, finishing up my last week at work before coming back to the US on Friday.

What a wonderful way to end my most recent stay in South America!

Thanksgiving

I had a nice Thanksgiving in Buenos Aires! It's the third Thanksgiving I've spent in the southern hemisphere, but it never ceases to be very strange to celebrate a fall harvest holiday in the spring. And yet on the other hand it is really nice to celebrate Thanksgiving in a foreign country... as I often say, it's one of the few "truly American" traditions, and it's nice to share that with people from other cultures.

In the afternoon on Thanksgiving, I had a nice dinner at the American club. The whole experience was a bit odd... it was full of middle-aged Argentine men with no clear connection to the US. I got the feeling they worked for American companies and the employers had bought tickets and given them out to the employees. It was nice to have some turkey, though, and I got to share the experience with my American friend Caroline.

This is me with Caroline and one of the Argentines we befriended. He's young but I promise almost everyone else was old! :)

After the American Club dinner, I came home and cooked up a few Thanksgiving dishes of my own. My American roommate Liz invited some friends over to our house for a modified (vegetarian) Thanksgiving meal.

Here I am with my Argentine roommate Magdalena (left) and my roommate Liz's friend Dani (middle). We had a nice group of about 10 people, most of whom ended up being European!

Here is the food we cooked. As you can tell, it's not quite traditional. :) I made the mashed potatoes, stuffing, and gravy, all of which miraculously ended up tasting pretty normal. It was an interesting experience trying to figure out what spices were absolutely necessary for the stuffing, and then trying to find them in a country where people don't use spices ever!! The pumpkin-pie looking thing is a savory Argentine "tarta de dos colores" that my roommate Liz decided to make because it has a layer of pumpkin, just like pumpkin pie...

... which she also made! The cookie in this picture is a pumpkin cookie from a mix that Mom sent. The cookies were a HUGE hit, both with the Thanksgiving guests and at the office the next day when I took in the leftovers! (And Liz made some baked apples for good measure, which are also pictured here.)

Although Thanksgiving isn't a holiday here, this weekend was also a long weekend by chance, because Monday was a holiday here. Apparently Argentina has something like 28 national holidays each year, when practically everything closes. So a group of friends and I decided to take advantage of the day off and head to a small gaucho (cowboy) town about 2 hours north of Buenos Aires called San Antonio de Areco. It turned out to be a much sleepier village than we anticipated, and given that it was also a holiday so almost all the stores and restaurants were closed, we were in for a veeeery relaxed day. :)

Here we are by the river: my church friends Tazzy, Alice, and me. In the afternoon, lots of locals were going swimming, despite the brown water and the signs warning of pollution. It did look fun though, especially given how hot it was!

We also tried to visit a gaucho museum. It ended up that it has been mostly closed for renovations since it flooded in a storm in 2009 (hmm.. that was two years ago) but we did get to see a couple of rooms with gaucho memorabilia, and at least we could say we tried!

This was the part of the gaucho museum that was closed for renovation. It was an old "estancia" house where a wealthy landowner/ranch owner would live and manage the ranch.

I suppose I should have taken a picture of the Plaza where we got some cold and therefore much-appreciated ice cream, but that was really pretty much the only other thing to see in San Antonio de Areco. So we got lots of high-quality time to hang out and relax before we boarded the evening bus back to Buenos Aires. And now on Friday it's off to Peru!!

Rio and Fun around Buenos Aires

I can't believe it took me this long to post pictures from my trip to Rio de Janeiro a few weeks ago! To be honest, I thought I'd already put them up.... Anyway, it was great to get to see my Michigan Law classmate and friend Hermine in Rio! She was there for work, and I went up for a weekend and got a great taste for Brazil.

This is me with Hermine at the Copacabana beach. It was really beautiful, although also really built-up as you can see!

One of the most famous sights in Rio is the Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer) statue on top of one of the HUGE hills in Rio. I wish I had a better picture of the hill, but it took us 20 minutes by train ("funicular railway," to be exact) to get up the side of the hill!

There was a cafe at the top of the hill, just under the Cristo Redentor statute. The juice in Rio is amazing :)

There were a bunch of really cool and unique things in Rio. One was these sand sculptures along the beach. This one was a really intricate sand castle.

Since coming back from Rio, things have been a lot tamer, but still a lot of fun. It's been nice to relax around Buenos Aires and see some of the things I haven't done up to now. A couple of weeks ago, a few church friends and I went to the "Feria de Mataderos," which is an open-air market in a neighborhood on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. We had been told that there was a gaucho (Argentine cowboy) show, so I was expecting it to be really out in the country. Instead, it was in a park right in the middle of a very urban setting, and they didn't even do the gaucho show the day we visited. Ah well, it was fun anyway!

Me with church friends in front of a mural at the park where the Feria de Mataderos is held on the weekends.

Me with another church friend at the Feria de Mataderos (you can see the food tents in the background).

And then today, I got to do something really exciting... go see an Argentine polo match! Apparently horse polo is a really big deal here, and it's something I heard about shortly after I arrived in August. I was looking for something fun to do this weekend and realized that the polo championship started yesterday! So I went to one of today's games with my roommate Liz and two interns at the nonprofit where I work.

Here I am with my coworker Jacqueline (from England), my roommate Liz (from the US), and my coworker Christina (also from the US). We had a great time!!

Here I am with Christina and Jacqueline in front of the polo field, after the game ended.

A live action shot during the game.... The skill required to hit a ball while riding a horse is incredible.

And then after the game, a bunch of guys with guitars (and one with a drum) started walking through the crowd playing their instruments and singing Argentine folk music. The crowd loved it... especially me!! This was their finale where they finally gathered into a group for one last song. It was really a feel-good moment!

Jesuit Missions and Amazing Iguazu Falls

This weekend, I took a wonderful trip to the Missions province in northern Argentina. This is the province where a number of Jesuit missions dating from the 1600s can be found, as well as the amazing Iguazu falls, which is on the border between Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. The bus trip was over 17 hours long, but it was more than worth it. I took LOTS of photos!

Last Thursday night, my roommate Christelle, her boyfriend Cedric, her two French classmates Anne and Violet, and I hopped on a (really luxurious) bus and headed north. After about 13 hours on the bus, we arrived in San Ignacio, Argentina, which is the site of the San Ignacio Mini mission.

This is a panoramic view of the Jesuit mission called San Ignacio Mini. It was formed in 1632 and at one time held a population of 3,000 people, mostly of the Guarani tribe. The Jesuit missions were part of the colonial period but weren't exactly part of the colonial effort... the priests did try to change the lifestyle and convert the Guarani to Catholicism, but they also tried to protect them from the most harmful aspects of colonization. The Jesuits seem to get mixed reviews for their interactions with the Guarani, which I guess is better than most colonists can say for themselves....

The front of the mission at San Ignacio.

Part of the church at the mission

Me with the ruins in the background

There was a huge cactus on the outskirts of the mission. My roommate Christelle's boyfriend (named Cedric) is standing at the bottom left of the photo, for size comparison.

One weird thing at the mission was that, although the ruins are very well-preserved, the city has been built up around the ruins. So you see incongruious sights like this one, with the ruins in the foreground and a hotel in the background. It's an odd justaposition.

After visiting the mission, we got back on the bus and finished the ride to Iguazu falls, which was about 4 more hours farther north. I don't know how to describe the falls except to say that they were truly impressive. The falls are on the border between Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, and both Argentina and Brazil have national parks on the site. We visited both parks, doing the Brazilian side on Saturday and the Argentine side on Sunday.

On the Brazilian side, you are looking across the river at the falls, so it gives you panoramic views of the falls. They seem to go on and on... they are actually about 4 km long. The Argentine side takes you right up to the falls (on the same side of the river as the falls, so sometimes you are walking right over them) and although it has some panoramic views, the really cool thing about the Argentine side is that you get to see each of the falls individually. The way it feels is like you are walking through the forest to a beautiful waterfall, and then you walk another minute and see another gorgeous waterfall, and on and on for hours. It was really an indescribable experience, so I'll try to let the pictures speak for themselves.

This is a map of the park. Brazil is on the left, and the squiggly brown line is the path on the Brazilian side. Argentina is on the right, and we did three hikes on the Argentine side. First, we did the blue hike toward the bottom right of the map. Then, we did the yellow hike right above the blue one. Then, we did the red hike toward the top of the map.

The Brazilian side:

The Argentine side:

The last hike we did on the Argentine side was called "Garganta del Diablo," or "The Throat of the Giant." This view was absolutely crazy. We walked on a metal bridge out into the middle of the river, where there was an island. From one side of the island, water was coming at you from three sides. It looked like all the water in the world was rushing toward one giant hole, which was right in front of where we were standing. Pictures don't do it justice, so I tried to capture the feeling on video. I actually tried to record four video clips, but somehow I only ended up with the third and fourth clips. Anyway, try to imagine a 270-degree panorama of water rushing toward you. (Oh, and to top it off, there is a rainbow in the falls.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU6vrzRL-u4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT_6EjALjyo

I really don't think the pictures and video do it justice.... It was really a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It's kind of a let-down to be back to normal life now, but I don't have time to get too sad because I am off traveling again next weekend, to visit a law school friend who is working in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil!