Trip To Peru

It’s been about a week and a half since I got back but I’ve finally committed myself to sit down and write something about it. Not a moment too soon either – I’m starting to forget some details and if I took much longer I’d have nothing left to write about.

Anyway, our trip lasted a total of 10 days and even though it was short we managed to pack quite a bit into the time. Natalie got to meet my family, we celebrated my dad’s 50th birthday, explored Lima and visited Cusco and Machu Picchu and took about 500 pictures. Seems like a lot just saying all that, doing it all proved to be an extremely tiring but enjoyable experience.

The main reason we went was for my dad’s birthday. He decided a few months ago that he wanted to do the big 5-0 back in Peru, so that he could meet up again with all his old school buddies. The party was at my grandmother’s place with caterers and everything. He even got a keg of Pilsen Callao which barely anyone touched though I thought it was pretty good. My 3 aunts made it to Lima (including my aunt from Australia!) and a lot of the extended family was there too so Natalie got to meet everyone at once. It was a great night and my dad had a really good time.

We spent one of our first days out in downtown/colonial Lima. The cathedral was closed for the day but we checked out the San Francisco Monastery and it’s ultra-creepy catacombs and we took a bus tour to the top of a nearby mountain that overlooks pretty much the whole city. It was my first time up there too and I thought it was really cool, especially the harrowing drive up the winding mountain road that Natalie was terrified was going to get us killed. We made it, obviously, but not without breaking a bit of a sweat.

The highlight of our trip was the three nights that we spent in Cusco. This was my third time out there and it wasn’t any less breathtaking. It’s such a cool place – we could’ve spent the entire ten days there alone and still not have seen everything. Something everyone needs to know about Cusco before arriving is the altitude. At about 3300m above sea level, the air is incredibly thin and altitude sickness can catch many people off-guard. The first two times I was there I didn’t really feel anything at all except for a very slight shortness of breath (which I noticed especially on the Inca Trail) but this time I felt it quite a bit more. I found myself concentrating a lot more on my breathing the whole time we were there. Natalie got a bit worse and on the first day almost passed out and I had to take her to a nurse so that she could get some oxygen. After that she was fine. For anyone planning on visiting Cusco, you’re going to want to spend at least a day and a half or two days taking it easy before you start any real adventuring – your body needs time to get used to the drastic change in air pressure. Also, if you’re there in the summer pack some sunscreen. I got a brutal burn on my face – in 2006 Cusco was found to receive the highest concentration of UV light anywhere on Earth.

Our trip to Machu Picchu was the standard 3+ hour train ride and bus up the actual mountain. Let me tell you, I’ve taken that train several times and I don’t remember it ever being as uncomfortable as it was this time. We took the “backpacker” train, so unless you’re traveling on a strict budget I suggest that you spring on the next class up. Trust me, it’ll be worth it. I felt like the ride was never going to end but luckily it did and we got to Machu Picchu, at which point I realized that I’d forgotten my sunscreen. Oh well. We found the buses fine and made our way up the mountain and into the city itself. It was awesome as always and I found myself taking pictures every 5 seconds. I felt like a pretty big idiot because I didn’t take a camera with me the first two times I went, so I needed to make up for that. When I maxed out the memory card on my camera I took Natalie’s over and kept snapping away. I got some great shots, there’s a link at the bottom of this post to all the pics.

Even though I was enjoying myself up there I was dreading the train ride back. Apparently with good reason too, because our train broke down on the way back to Cusco. Imagine this: you’re in the middle of the Andes, hundreds of miles away from civilization, in the middle of a moonless night, in an incredibly uncomfortable train seat and just as you’re nodding off you hear several loud bangs and the train comes to a screeching halt. Nobody really knows what’s going on. You turn to your girlfriend and joke about the train having broken down – “What if the lights go out!” – uncomfortable laughter. About 30 seconds later, every single light in the car shuts off. You are in complete darkness, not even able to see your hand held 5 inches from your face. This is what we were stuck in, and the whole time all I wanted to do was get off that damned train. Visions of Shining Path guerillas storming our train and taking us all prisoner or worse flashed through my head (ok, I didn’t really think that was going to happen but I was bored and cranky). We sat there for about an hour and a half until they finally got the train running again. We steamed ahead for another 2 hours or so before stopping at a train station just outside of Cusco, where I learned that a bus service was offering rides down to the city for 5 soles (about $1.75). We were off the train and on the bus in no time flat and eventually made it home. It was all a pain in the ass but I figured it’d make a good story.

We got back to my grandmother’s on Thursday afternoon and slept most of the day. My aunt had offered to take us to the beach on Friday morning so we were looking forward to that even though we were both exhausted.

The next morning we left and went to San Antonio beach, something of a private resort about an hour south of Lima with an incredible beach and the biggest swimming pool I’ve ever seen. The ocean water was absolutely freezing but we all jumped in for a little while. We ate some empanadas, drank some Inka Kola and saw some dolphins just off the shore. It was a pretty awesome way to end our trip.

We caught a red-eye flight out of Lima, leaving at 1:15am and we got back to Toronto at around 10:00am. As usual, I was glad to be home, but I know I’ll be back there before too long. I love it there, but after 10 days I was missing my bed, my shower and my city.

I’ve got all the pictures from the trip online so check them out.