Amores perros

I dedicate this post to my dear friend Sirje.

Dogs are everywhere.

Small dogs, big dogs, happy dogs, sad dogs, ratty dogs, bad dogs, young dogs, fun dogs, old dogs, hairy dogs, hairless dogs, toohless dogs, earless dogs, tailless dogs – and very often, ownerless dogs.

And a lama.

Market dog.

Lake Titicaca dog.

Corner shop dog.

Hike trail dog.

Village dog.

Machu Picchu dog.

And a lama.

Cusco

Cusco is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the "Historical Capital of Peru", hosting nearly two million visitors a year.

And it shows.

Tourism appears to concentrate on the Main Square, Plaza de Armas, the streets surrounding it, and the historical San Blas area situated on the hillside just above Plaza de Armas. I assume most of the city's 400,000 inhabitants can live their lives quite undisturbed by the tourist masses, as the city stretches far and wide with most buildings having just two or three floors.

However, my first Couchsurfing host lived right in the middle of San Blas, which I was excited about at the beginning, as it was supposed to be the best area to be in. And true, the narrow streets were very picturesque, and I loved the Quechuan street names and ancient white stone buildings that originate from the times before the Spanish conquerors had set their foot in the country.

If there only had been anything else left from times past. But no; this was a real tourist heaven. Or hell, depending on how you care to see it. Yoga, reiki, massages; hand-made scarfs, handicrafts, lama wool, alpaca; organised tours to do Machu Picchu, to do drugs with a shaman, to do paragliding or liquor tasting, to do a real Peruvian (I wouldn't be surprised); hostels with a bar, hostels with a view, hostels with oh-so-quaint colourful deco; vegan food vegan food VEGAN FOOD!!

Every place had a beautiful, hearty hippie name such as Mother Earth or Sister Moon or Universal Balance – or then "Inka" anything. In Spanish of course, to be cooler. And while I love yoga and vegan food and am fully aware of the complexity of foreigners travelling somewhere and demanding to get the really truly authentic experience (or, perhaps worse still, being horrified that a lot of other travellers want to see the same place as you), I could not take it.

It didn't make me sad because of the locals who were the owners of those businesses; I understand they have to earn their living and sell what people buy. (An important question, though, is whether those places are even owned by locals.) But it made me sad because of the vast masses of people who fly to Cusco and buy a reiki-shaman beer tour with a view and find it lovely. That's what I find so disturbing.

Montaña Vieja

Wake-up at four; it's still dark. The narrow streets of the little town have a curious atmosphere: it's mostly silent and sleepy, but I pass several groups of other people, walking as briskly as I am in the still-cool air. The surrounding mountains have disappeared in the fog.

A half-hour walk to the starting point of the trail. And then: up, up, up the stone steps that have been laid in an ancient manner on the side of the mountain. These steps give no mercy to anyone, and when I pass people sitting down on some stones, most of them have the same look of astonishment and agony on their face: how much more?

There's always more. After every corner: still more. I don't know where I am – the trail is surrounded by trees, and even when there is a small open area, the fog around us makes everything in the distance invisible. It's as if walking in a tunnel.

But at the end of the tunnel, hidden by soaring mountains from all sides, hidden from everyone's view but the birds', is this.

El trek

Now, I wanted to visit Machu Picchu.

Getting to there is not completely straightforward, however, and it took me some time to find out about all the options.

Aguas Calientes, the little tourist town near Machu Picchu, is located some 120 km from Cusco. The most obvious way is to reach it by the quaint local train, but the trip is very expensive. A cheaper option is to take a bus to a place called Hidroelectrica and walk the last 11 kilometres next to the train track. In any case it makes sense to spend one night in Aguas Calientes in order to climb up to Machu Picchu in the morning. (Again, there is also the option of taking a pricey bus up to the top.) Additionally, you'll have to pay the entrance fee to Machu Picchu.

As it looked like the journey would gobble up quite a big part of my budget anyway, I decided to invest in a four-day trek that promised a lot – hiking, biking, rafting, hostels and all meals included –for a comparably small amount of money. 

Here are some photos from those four days.

You might be thinking, like I was, Well that's going a bit far, don't you think? You really don't need to cycle down 60 kilometres of empty hairpin roads with Peruvian mountains surrounding you on all sides, do you? but let me assure you: you do. You really do need to.

A great river for white-water rafting. If you're into that sort of thing.

Political sides are taken on the walls of the houses everywhere.

An area for drying coffee and cacao beans. (Before roasting, they have to be dried for days.)

The trail.

I might be showing a brave face, but in fact I found the fact that every fifth plank was missing or rotten somewhat unnerving.

3400 metros sobre el nivel del mar

I tend to walk fast. I tend to walk fast even up the steps. I tend to walk fast even up the steps with a heavy backpack on my back.

And now for heaven's sake what is this I can't breathe somebody HELP! Surely this is not happening. Surely this is not possible!

One step. Good. Two steps. Fine. Five steps – now what did I do what have they done here please somebody bring me some oxygen now!

I had read about this. But no, I did not think it would affect me. I am young. I am fit! I am a flautist and have great lungs! It is simply not possible that I feel like dying after five steps uphill!

Headache. Nausea. Lightheadedness. No appetite. Tremendous fatigue. I have it all. I am just going to go to bed and wake up to a world where I don't need to stop gasping for air every three metres.

Of course, my Couchsurfing host lives in one of the highest areas of Cusco; steps [huff] after steps [puff] after steps. Now, who had the great idea of building a city at these altitudes?!

Wikipedia: Altitude sickness

22 horas a Cusco, la otra perspectiva

Imagine yourself in a bus for 22 hours going up and down mountain roads.

(The blue one is me.)

Imagine a screen right in front of you, showing these cinematographic masterpieces non-stop with the speakers on top of your head on full blast.

Imagine there being a blissful silence for some eight hours in the middle of the night but you being unable to sleep due to the bumpy travel and the onset of some tremendous altitude sickness.

 *)

Imagine finally arriving at your destination perfectly nauseated in all possible ways.

**)

-------

*)Unfortunately I could only find a trailer in English. For the Latin Spanish version, just picture everything being shouted in an even more exaggerated manner.

**)This is Spanish from Spain - again no South American version available.

22 horas a Cusco

 Morning stop

Across the street 

 At the foot of the Andes

Queue to the loo

Adiós

I will be leaving Lima and heading to the Andes.

The city of Cusco is situated some 1,000 kilometres from Lima at an altitude of 3,400 metres. The bus trip will take 22 hours.

Goodbye, ocean!

(Although I must admit that I am more of a lake than sea person. I suppose you could say my attitude towards the ocean is similar to how I see cats: I can admire and be inspired by them, but I will never be able to feel a true connection. Then again, I always fall in love with cat/sea people.)

Impresiones del Centro Hístorico

The Centro Histórico of Lima is not the neighbourhood where most tourists stay; that is Miraflores on the shore some six kilometres from the historical centre.

The centre has a central square similar to many other old colonial cities, but because of regular earthquakes and fires in the past, the buildings are not actually particularly old.

¡Qué sorpresa!

Quite spontaneously and against my usual Facebook ban, I posted my location as soon as I had arrived in Lima. I could not have imagined who would answer me.

Three years ago, we hosted a lovely young French man named Benjamin in our home in Berlin. He came to us through Couchsurfing and ended up staying for more than two weeks while attending a course in Kreuzberg. While he lived with us, the older one of our two children turned five, and Benjamin crafted an amazing airplane for him mostly out of used toilet rolls and tape. He's always been specially remembered in our home, although we never had a chance to meet again.

-Hola Tui, yo también estoy en Lima! Ben now wrote under my FB post. I had to read it a couple of times to believe my eyes.

Benjamin had come just a week before me. Together with his Peruvian wife and their little son they had just made the decision to move from France to Peru.

And so it just happens that I'm staying with them in the Surco district for my last two nights in Lima!

Transporte público

Taking buses, apart from long aimless walks, have been my favourite pastime in Lima.

The buses are big vans fitted with small, cushy and mostly torn seats. On the side of the van are written some names of places where the bus is going to, in some areas even a route number, but  most importantly, there is a person standing in the open doorway and shouting on top of his or her lungs the bus's route to potential passengers.

Taking a bus, or a combi as it's called, is not particularly difficult, as they stop practically everywhere. I later realised there are actual bus stops as well, but mostly the buses stop at traffic lights or where ever the door stander's radar detects a passenger wanting to get on. The traffic police on the side of the road might try to get the combis to move on by shouting at them while the angry drivers behind the bus attempt the same by honking their horns – but both seems to have suffered somewhat of an inflation.

If you can't get to a forest, get a forest onto your balcony...?

Once in the bus, the door stander collects your money, sometimes right away, sometimes later and other times only when you get off. A trip for about 30 minutes costs 1 sol, which is under €0.30. Sometimes there is a printed price list on the window, but so far that hasn't seemed to correspond to anything.

Then you just sit back and enjoy the trip! And, well, hope that the bus is going to where you want to go. And that you know where to get off.

En castellano

I learned my Spanish first at some evenings lessons in Finland and then working as a volunteer for seven months in Nicaragua and Honduras. I know that in my last months in Honduras, I gave one-on-one remedial lessons in reading and maths after school to some boys at a street children's home, which would have to mean that my level was relatively good. But that was almost nine years ago.

This past year, I have on a few occasions tried to say something in Spanish. Close to nothing came out. I could introduce myself and ask people how they were, but already forming the question "how old are you" caused problems. I would struggle with words such as "always", "go" or "home". I soon gave up and started to do simple exercises on Duolingo. But when I then tried to speak again, the result was mostly the same. I could not understand how I had once been able to have real conversations and where all that knowledge had gone.

Then I bought the flights, and suddenly it was just two weeks left before the trip. I seriously wondered what I would do when I'd get to Peru.

Then, three days before departure, a miracle happened. I was lying in bed at night, trying to think up some simple sentences in Spanish that I would need when I'd arrive in Lima. Suddenly, the words started coming. The more sentences I came up with, the more new words I found. It was as if someone had finally opened the gate to a locked-up house, and in the house I could open more and more doors and find more and more forgotten words. I was stunned and triumphant. It was all still there, I just had not known how to get it out!

On my three long flights, I read the airlines magazines, listened to the safety announcements and watched Ice Age, all in Spanish. I didn't understand much at all, but I kept picking up more forgotten words: Cantar. Peligroso. Hija.

And when the taxi driver came to pick me up at midnight at the Airport in Lima, I was able to do something that I would have never believed still a week ago: have my first Spanish conversation in nine years. 

Ciudad de los Reyes

Lima is divided into 43 districts, of which 30 are considered the City of Lima. Each district is huge, with 200,000–400,000 inhabitants.  That means there are actually 30 different Limas, each with their own centres, characteristics, and levels of cleanliness and security. The everyday life happens within one's own district; people are not necessarily familiar with the other areas. The population of the whole city is almost eight million.

What is common to all the different neighbourhoods is that the buildings are low, mostly two or three storeys high. Only near the Pacific shore are there luxurious high-risers. The whole city looks like it's grown on its own account, spreading in different directions, with buildings of varying height and width having been built in a haphazard manner where ever there was space.

The only planning that seems to have gone into how to city is structured is the planning for cars. Everywhere, the neighbourhoods are cut with massive, noisy avenues with six or more lanes. It's still not enough: all the lanes are always full of cars, the air filled with exhaust smoke and the sound of constant honking of the horns. In the midst of all this there are people, stepping in an out of small buses, doing their shopping at the fruit stands in the corners, going on about their life.

"Excessive playing causes gambling addiction" – but to me, ludopatía first sounded like something even more horrendous...!

Looking from afar, the buildings spreading into the horizon resemble sinister, square creatures with ghost-like eyes. It's  because the windows are mostly darkened and thus often look like there are no window panes, only holes. Only after looking closer in some poorer areas I realised that some of them indeed have no glass.

The colour of Lima is dirty white. It's not just the buildings that are mostly some shade of white; it's also that the sky is overcast much of the time. The climate of Lima is pleasant – it's usually between 20 and 26 degrees Celsius – but the sky is often covered with clouds. The pollution must have something to do with it, but I was also given another explanation: The bordering sea is so cold that, hitting the warm air of Lima, it always creates new clouds.