Holding onto Huaraz

Our arrival in Huaraz, Peru not only began our longest stationary stint in South America, but also signalled the beginning of the end of our hispanophone adventures. The three weeks spent in this Andean trekking hotspot would be our last destination in the southern hemisphere, and our first (almost entirely) non-graduate-school-related travel experience of the trip. Despite the early onset of we're-almost-home syndrome, we wanted to make the last hurrah of South America count.

So...first things first, we wasted no time in confirming the existence of fine French press coffee in Huaraz. Cafe Andino - whose mismatched armchairs, tofu fajitas, and gorgeous mountain views put me in mind of Boulder, Colorado - quickly became a haven for us on rainy, homesick, or stressful days.



Stormy view of Huaraz from Cafe Andino

Next, we dove into our second volunteer experience of the trip: offering up our tutoring services to an organization called Seeds of Hope. As it turns out, the at-risk students Seeds supports would have been much better served had our intentions to learn Spanish progressed a little bit further. We had thought we might be giving English lessons or leading farm vocabulary games, but when presented with our first geography worksheet and asked to explain it to expectant middle-schoolers, we realized our linguistic (not to mention mathematical) preparation had been a little lacking. Give professora a second to remember how to find the lowest common denominator...and then give professora a moment to look up "common" and "denominator" in the English-Spanish dictionary. Luckily, our students are willing to teach as well, and between answering questions about my bicycle and what street Shakira lives on, tutoring has given us a chance to practice our basic conversation skills.


During this indescribably long day, we attempted an origami lesson. Approximately half the children mastered the paper crane in the first half hour and proceeded to produce, seemingly without fatigue, an alarmingly large flock of colored birds. The other half tacitly gave up on the "learning" part of the exercise and instead used an innocent-sounding "ayudame, profe" to recruit one of their gullible professors to manufacture cranes for them for the next two hours.

Finally, we enjoyed one of the best possible highlights of a long spell abroad: a visitor from home. My very own tocaya (name twin), Lauren Berka, used her Thanksgiving break from graduate school to come visit us in Huaraz and and thus gave us an excuse to treat ourselves to the best the city has to offer. In the series below (my apologies for the explosion of photos), you can see us sampling Andean brews, tackling the Laguna 69 trek, attempting a Peruvian Thanksgiving dinner, and wandering the mountains outside of town.

Laguna 69



Breaking my personal altitude record at 15,090 ft (plus two)



Approaching the Llanganuco Lakes

Thanksgiving dinner with Lauren and the other Seeds volunteers



The Cordrillera Blanca outside of Huaraz



It's always difficult to stave off the first tinges of itchy feet as you reach the end of a journey. But a visit from a good friend, gorgeous mountains, and a multitude of unknown Spanish verb tenses have helped anchor us in Huaraz. I hope that when I write to tell you how our trip wraps up, I will be able to say that I savoured my last tastes of Peru and South America.

Climbing to Cusco and the Cloud City

Making the trip to Cusco and Machu Picchu is Peru's gringo rite of passage. The postcard shot of the famous ruins backed by green, finger-like mountains is one of the most coveted photo opportunities in South America. An entire tourist industry has exploded into being to charge visitors a pretty penny to hike, train, raft, or bike their way to the mythic spot. And as much as my inner-Dutch self rebelled at the price tag of the journey, I had heard enough testimonies from past visitors (like Brianne) to know that I shouldn't miss the chance to see them for myself.

Luckily, Cusco's beauty has survived the crush of foreign tourists, and despite the prevalence of hawkers and five-dollar-a-photograph llamas, it's a charming and picturesque city. Brianne and I stayed in a quiet hostel on the hillside, which afforded us gorgeous views and literally breath-taking hikes up long stairs in the high-altitude thin air. We took a break from graduate applications to explore the city, try Peruvian Pisco, and become almost twice-a-day regulars at a tiny but delicious veggie cafe.

Veggie burger + falafel taco = dos gringas felices

But the real fun started when I got to planning my solo trip to Machu Picchu. I needed an entrance ticket, two train tickets, and two bus tickets to get there and back, and Cusco seemed to be conspiring with the tour companies to make an independent acquisition of those items as difficult as possible. After a half-day romp around the city looking for the suspiciously unmarked Instituto Nationale de Cultura so that I could buy my entrance ticket (literally you have to walk by the doorway three times looking confused and white before a security guard stops you and whispers "Machu Picchu?" like an underground code word), and a very frustrating evening trying to navigate PeruRail's website (which went something to the effect of: "We accept all credit cards. Except no, not yours. Here's your ticket, except that no the transaction didn't actually go through. Do you have a ticket? Maybe..."), I finally got all the pieces in place for my trip. I spent a semi-sleepless night waiting for my 6:30 AM taxi and then started the long, tiring, gorgeous, expensive, wonderful day at Machu Picchu.

The scene at the ruins is overwhelming in more ways than one. Sunburning tourists everywhere in khaki shorts, guides filling the air with historical tidbits in European languages, and a vista so unbelievable that no matter how many times you photograph it, you always seem to miss the essential element. It can be hard to share an experience that large-scale with so many other people. Even when I found a quiet spot to rest and take in the view, a French tour group would wander by, or a gang of eleven-year-old Peruvian schoolboys would want their photos taken with me (true story). Fortunately, being alone in a crowd has always held a certain appeal to me, and I enjoyed a day with my inner monologues and Ipod-compiled soundtracks. I did my best to carve out my own snapshots of a place both overexposed to tourists and stubbornly inaccessible to them. I like to think I walked away with a little something of my own.

Border crossings

Since I last found time to write, many of the foundations of our trip have shifted. October has turned to November, and counter-intuitively the weather has warmed from fleeces and wool socks to short sleeves and sandals. We've left Chile for Peru. And we have finally, at long last started handing in our graduate school applications. We might very well be on the verge of a whole new state of travel, but before it arrives I should back up and fill in the busy steps that led us here.

Our farewell to Chile was one of our trip's pleasant surprises. The Chilean chicas we met in Torres del Paine (Elaine, Pamela, and Manola) invited us to come visit them in Vina del Mar and Valparaiso. And we, being two people who will always follow up on a free bed in a beautiful city, accepted. Our friends, it turned out, were the daughters of some fairly important Chilean naval officers, and we spent four fabulous days being toured around, spoiled with free laundry, and stuffed with delicious food. Valparaiso's streets are kaleidoscopic and Vina's beaches are gorgeous, but the highlight of the stay was the chance to relax with friends, have a movie night, and eat so many chips and biscuits you might need a stomach pump.

Valparaiso

 

The beach at Quintay



Pamela, Me, Brianne, and Elaine

You may have noticed that our Chilean friends look every bit as gringa as we do. In fact, you may very well suspect us of bringing in German and Scottish ringers to make ourselves look more culturally engaged. But Valparaiso, like the United States, has a long history of European immigration, and many of the Chileans we met there could have passed for Swedes. As for our Chileans, they gave us a spectacular send-off by introducing us to Piscola and taking us dancing until 6:00 AM: the perfect preparation for a 30-hour bus ride leaving at 7:00 AM. We dozed easily in and out of the marathon ride from Santiago to Arica (in the north of Chile), waking only occasionally to take note of the expanse of desert outside and the terrible movie selection inside.

After a night of recovery in Arica, we took a packed taxi ride in a Ford Taurus across the border to Tacna, Peru. From there, yet another bus hauled our tired selves from Tacna to Arequipa, our first real stop in Peru. Finally we had a four-day stay to rest our fluid-swollen feet, power forward on our graduate school applications, and greet Peru by exploring a truly beautiful city.

Sunset from the roof of our hostel

And yes, Peru has brought us (finally) to the beginning of the end of graduate school applications. Unfortunately, hitting submit has so far brought less relief than a general sort of post-partem anxiety. Is this really all I have to show for months of agonized labor? Can I have it back for a second and try to sound smarter? What's more, applying to graduate school has evolved into something of an existential state for me. It's part of my identity. I live in hostels and apply to graduate school. What will I do with myself after it's done?

It's time to find out I suppose. We're in Peru, November spring flowers are blooming, and a whole new phase of the trip is beginning. Cross your fingers that next time you hear from me, I will be celebrating thirteen completed graduate school applications with a Pisco Sour and a Cusco sunset.