All Good Things Come to an End

The time in Peru has finally come to an end. And what an end it was! After my time researching in Huaraz, I returned to Cusco where I lived in a hostel with my 3 closest friends from the program. We lived there for about 10 days, literally working day in and day out on these Independent Study Projects. Every day consisted of some sort of glorious breakfast (as seen below), working for a few hours, getting bored and going out for lunch, working and procrastinating more, and going to bed way before 10 PM. We all enjoyed this schedule for the most part, although the constant hours of writing academically in Spanish isn’t too much fun. We made up a bucket list of stuff to do in Cusco, so we worked diligently at completing that as well. I had one more goodbye with my host family in Cusco (me and grams are lookin' good in the pic below).

And obviously, since my body has been a bit funky these past 3 and a half months, I came down with a bout of food poisoning the day before the papers were due. Pretty miserable.  I was able to turn in my paper a day later, but man, it was rough. I was so looking forward to being totally done with the damn thing. Eventually, I did complete all 35 pages in Spanish about the development of the tourism industry in Huaraz and the roles of the guides and the agencies in protection of the wilderness and the Parque Nacional de Huascarán.  Finishing this paper really proved to me how much my Spanish has improved—I’ve never even had to write that much in English! Feels pretty damn good to be done with it all.

We spent 4 days in Urubamba in the Sacred Valley, at the same glorious place we had orientation, to do our presentations on our projects. Yet again, after completing a 25-minute presentation in Spanish on my topic, I was floored at my speaking abilities. Who knew I’d actually improve at a language this much.  It was a glorious 4 days filled with happiness that we’d all finished this major project, but also much sadness that our time in Peru was coming to an end.

We returned to Cusco for 2 more days before heading our separate ways. And wow, saying those goodbyes were seriously rough. I’ve met so many amazing people on my program and I’ve been so lucky to have this experience with such unbelievable people. I really hope we’re all able to stay in touch—it’s crazy because we’re all from different parts of the country which makes it more difficult but also gives me more excuses to travel around the US. We had a final dinner in Cusco as an entire group and that was heartbreaking as well. It was incredibly difficult to say goodbye to our amazing academic directors who provided so much for us during these 3 months. I know that when I come back to Peru in the future I’ll make sure to see these awesome people once again.

And then, on Saturday evening, my post-program adventure began with a 12-hour bus ride all the way to La Paz, Bolivia, with one of my good friends, Beth. I’ll write another entry on that when I’ve got more time. But for now, I’m on my way back to Cusco for one more final time and then I’ll be heading back to the good ole United States of America.  Where did these 3 months go…

Mountains Beyond Mountains

And after 20 glorious days living right next to the Andes, I am back in Cusco. I had a glorious time exploring another part of Peru and I am already dying to get back there. Huaraz is quite the spot and the mountains of the Cordillera Blanca have gotten me even more obsessed with South America in general.

I got to Lima almost 3 weeks ago. I’d traveled with my friend Beth so we stayed together in a hostel in Lima for one night. We purchased our bus tickets (she was headed to another spot north of Huaraz) and awoke the next morning to prepare for our trips. My ride to Huaraz was about 8 hours long so it wasn’t too bad of a trip. I rode on a pretty luxurious bus as well, so that was definitely a huge benefit. I arrived in Huaraz at around 9 that night and met up with Mayumi, one of the contacts for my project. I crashed at her parents house that night and the next morning moved on over to the place I lived for during my time in Huaraz. It turned out to be a great set-up—I lived in the Morales Guest House, which was the hotel of the trekking agency of the Morales family. I had my own room, hot water and a kitchen to cook in (although I mainly subsisted off of ramen, ham sandwiches and cereal). It was the perfect set-up.

The first full day in Huaraz included a tour from one of the younger ones of the Morales clan. Basically, the history behind this family begins with 5 brothers who started one of the first trekking agencies in Huaraz. I worked with two of the brothers—Eudes and Pablo. Pablo’s son, Hisao, has his own agency now separate from his father and Mayumi, Pablo’s daughter, works with Hisao as well. A bit complicated, but I managed to figure it all out. Huaraz is a great city, although it’s not absolutely spectacular (the mountains surrounding it sure are). It’s located in the Callejón de Huaylas and there are 5 other provinces along this valley. Huaraz is the biggest city among them all and is by far the tourist hot-spot for trekking and climbing. Another really interesting aspect to this area is the fact that earthquakes are always present. The most famous one occurred in 1970, when an earthquake struck and then this enormous chunk of ice from Huascarán, the tallest mountain in Peru, came sliding off and destroyed the city of Yungay, killing 25,000 people. Insane! This same earthquake had a major impact on Huaraz as well. There’s only one remaining street (seen below) that survived this massive disaster. Pretty intense.

I spent a good chunk of my time in Huaraz attempting to explore and usually ending up in internet cafes. It’s the off season in Huaraz right now, so there really weren’t too many tourists roaming around. I found a few great places to hang out with comfy chairs and libraries so that’s where I did most of my work. Along with this, I had many an interview to complete. The interviews I conducted during my research were absolutely amazing, I had some of the coolest conversations ever. Most of the people I talked to were trekking guides between the ages of 40-70. We talked about everything regarding wilderness tourism in Huaraz—from its development after the 1970 earthquake, the serious problems with the Parque Nacional de Huascarán to the lack of unity among the tourism community in Huaraz. My project’s got a bit of a different direction right now, but hey, that’s what happens when you go out into the field!

The highlights of my time in Huaraz were definitely my ventures with Jorge, a high mountain guide. He was good friends with Eudes, who demanded that I check out some of the beautiful spots in the Parque Nacional.  One day, Jorge picked me up at 6 AM and we drove to Llanganuco, which contains some of the most beautiful high altitude lakes I’ve ever seen. It was quite the drive over there, but we got some fantastic views of Huascarán and got to pass through Yungay as well. After checking out the lakes, we went a bit further up into the park and went for a brief hike, which clearly refreshed and rejuvenated me immensely. This day trip was absolutely amazing and allowed me to see some of the most beautiful sights I’ve seen in my life. It was also an 8 hour trip in total and for some reason I was able to communicate with Jorge in Spanish for almost all of that time. Who knew I could actually speak Spanish well? (Below are one too many beautiful pictures of Parque Nacional de Huascarán, including the glorious Mt. Huascarán and the lakes of Llanganuco)

Towards the end of the week, I ventured out again with Jorge.  This time we went south down the Cordillera Blanca. It was higher than where we’d been before, so the landscape was completely different. Yet again, Peru blows my mind—there are so many geographic differences within this one country (and even within this one mountain range!) We drove back into the park and this time saw the Puya Raimondis, some of the coolest plants ever. These plants are only found in this part of the Cordillera Blanca and they bloom once in their 100-year lifetime. They grow to be 40 feet tall, which is unreal. It was quite the sight to see these plants and to learn more about all the unbelievable things this part of the Andes has to offer.

Another REALLY cool part of this adventure was meeting some trekking guides (Jorge and Rodolfo) who helped with the filming of “Touching the Void,” an incredible mountaineering story about two guys in the Cordillera Huayhuash. It was another great insight into the locals understanding of the tourists in the area and it was pretty badass to see their names in the credits of the movie. All of the people I interacted with taught me so much and I can’t believe how much I’ve learned from this experience. I had a bit of trouble being so independent and alone, but it was a great learning experience and I know much more about what I want in the future.

I had another long bus ride back to Lima and a few days in Lima as well. I’m now back in Cusco dreading the 30-40 pages in Spanish I will sometime have to write in the next 10 days or so. I’m living in a hostel here with 3 of my best friends so life is pretty great, even with this major looming process of work. 

Lima Bean.

Oh Lima. What a city you are. After travels through Arequipa (which included a visit to the infamous “Ice Maiden”—a mummy which was frozen up in the Andes after being a human sacrifice), we made our way up to Lima. And what a city Lima is. We stayed in a glorious little hotel in Miraflores, one of the nicer districts in Lima. We had a great set-up and it was awesome to spend a week living the hotel life… Glorious.

After a dinner of Chifa and some of the best ice cream ever, we crashed and awoke early in the morn for a workshop with a local social activist theater group in Lima. It was phenomenal. The group is called Yuyachaki and they focus on everything related to social justice in Peru. We got to watch a performance of theirs about the Shining Path (the terrorist group in Peru between 1980-2000) and it was unbelievable. They do all these amazing performances on the international day for women’s rights since so many women were abused during this time in Peru’s history. After a brief lunch break, some of the actors taught us all a traditional dance, which we absolutely adored. We got to dress up in these outrageous costumes (see below) and put on a performance for ourselves. It’s so great to have these sorts of interactions here and actually feel like I’m connecting with this culture in a deeper way than I could have on my own. So great!

We had a good chunk of free time in Lima. We spent all of Sunday exploring Miraflores, which is right on the ocean. It was fantastic to see the Pacific Ocean… I haven’t seen it for years and it was even cooler to see it this South. It’s also another one of those amazing things about Peru—who knew a country could have jungle, mountains and ocean? Perfect. We also checked out the notorious love park, which was built in Miraflores solely for couples to have a spot to make out in. Another great thing about Lima was the food. We explored SO many different kinds of food—Arab food, vegetarian food, Ceviche, etc.

Throughout the week we had presentations from various speakers. We heard from speakers regarding the Sendero Luminoso, mining in Northern Peru, and even from Hernando de Soto’s development company ILD (Instituto Libertad y Democracia) (which I was pretty stoked about since I’d learned about his theories in a class at CC). It was great to get even more exposure to interesting Peruvian topics, although it was all a bit overwhelming since we spent all of our free time prepping for our ISPs.

We got to get into the center of Lima for one afternoon and man, it is crazy. The colors in Lima are nuts. Seriously. The buildings are bright yellow, blue and pink. It’s awesome. We went down to the catacombs, which was really freaking cool. I enjoyed exploring Lima, but I’m really glad that Cusco has been my home base thus far. Lima’s really interesting, but big and polluted and a bit overwhelming. As annoying as Cusco has gotten at times, I’m really grateful to have been in such an unbelievable city in the Andes for so long.

We got back to Cusco last Friday and got to experience the craziness of the weekend of the Day of the Dead/Halloween. There were major celebrations in the Plaza on Saturday night with fireworks and close to 10,000 people. We all went out to the discotecas on Halloween night, but it was definitely a gringo Halloween night. I was pretty amped because one of my closest friends from CC came to Cusco for a few days so I got to spend some quality time with her.

The rest of the week was spent agonizing over our ISPs and all the logistics behind them. Basically, SIT gives us like $600 and tells us to study something in Peru for a month and write a 40 page paper on it. I’ve had my heart set on this part of Peru since the beginning, and I somehow managed to pull it all together. I’m headed to Huaraz, a city 8 hours north of Lima, which is right outside two of the biggest mountain ranges in Peru. I’m studying the trekking guides that work for the tourist agencies in Huaraz and how their perceptions of nature have changed due to the tourism industry. Basically, I’m hanging out with amazing wilderness people in one of the most beautiful places in the world. I’ll be out of Cusco for 20 days and then I’ll return to crank out 40 pages before my program ends. What a life!

I’ll update as soon as I get to Huaraz and get settled. I’m currently in the Lima airport waiting for a friend before the next leg of this adventure begins. Ciao!