Cañón del Colca, Peru

Is 3 hrs away from Arequipa and shadowed by snow-topped volcanoes and possessing one of the best places to marvel at the flight of the Andean condor. I and my two friends negotiate with a travel agency to take a shorter hike and half of the regular tourist route.

We hiked 1100 meters down to the canyon to enjoy an oasis and it's beautiful pools in the afternoon, after a few hours bus ride and eagle watching. After a meal of ariparci meat and good night sleep in the oasis paradise, we hiked up from the oasis 1100 meters in 2 hrs to joint a tour group. We passed a market during the tour and took the photo of me and an eagle.

More untrammeled roads, such as those in the Cañón del Cotahuasi, await adventurous souls, passing ancient ruins, waterfalls, hot springs and even dinosaur footprints.

If inca trial 4-day hike was a piece of cake, this canyon hike was a piece of chocolate.

I run into a well-travelled young man who appareled to be in his 20s. He dropped from high school and worked informs in holland to save $ and travel around the world. He travelled more countries than I did and has quite accurate and independent views about different countries ad cities. He will continue travelling in the south/central America, etc. Until 2013, and then work in farms in Australia on 3-month extendable work permit until age 30. I feel he is more mature and knowledgeable than most people of his age or older than him.

Learning from life, world travel, and internet appear to be more effective than from class rooms and books in this case. He still can get a professional degree later if he so decides, but he is traveling much freely than me. Wish I started earlier so I can still try mountain Everest. I just got an email from my Patagonia hike organizer that an ice hike cutoff age limit is 45, which is pretty rediquious. I am as adaptive as most younger backpackers, and I hike as fast and far as 50% of them.

After traveling in dry Peru for 18 days, I have 2 deep (3mm) cracks on my fingers and 4 deeper cracks on my heels which breed from time to time yet I hike as usual. I applied cream on them but did not work. I reenforced the waist belt of my backpack and continue using it. I took hrs of buses without using any restroom (the ones on buses either locked/broken or stuffed with luggage). I am still traveling with high spirit and enjoying my time.

I am so lucky to realize my dream here, rather than being trapped in the city as a working mammy, although my hands are getting darker and dryer like mammy's. Here, I have time to feel myself breathing the dusty air and tasting the fresh fruit, while I was so busy doing my job, rushing to workout, etc. Without much time to feel anything.

Water is a very valuable asset here. I am thinking about importing simple, economic, yet efficient purification systems into Peru, to cut down the cost of butting and shipping bottled water in Peru. A 1-litter bottle water costs 1.5 in the city yet 12 in the oasis since they have to use mules to ship it down (no vehicle to there, only hiking or mules).

By the way, It was much easier to travel in group, and you can form it participate in a group by talking to other backpackers in hostels, hiking trails, buses, etc. It is very common to huggle for prices of tours, meals, surveyors, etc., and it is always easier to get bulk discounts. If you shop diligently, you may get the best price in town. For example, I paid for tours at 14/22, while others paid 35/45 for the exact tours in Cuzco. In term of Titicaca lake tour, we three paid for 27 per person while others paid 60 per person. In term of the canyon hike, we negotiated for a shorter hike DIY (without a guide, since pretty straight forward), the price dropped from 120 to 67 per person.

Arequipa downtown, Peru

This town is surrounded by active, snowy volcanoes, high-altitude deserts, thermal hot springs, salt lakes and the world’s deepest canyons.

The Museum of Andean Sanctuaries is an anthropological and archeological museum looking at the lifestyle of the Ancient Incas of the regions. The most important attraction is the mummified corpse of the Inca Ice Maiden “Juanita”, which was offered to the great mountain gods by ancient Incas. She was frozen rather than bandaged and embalmed unlike typical mummies.

I will be hiking in a canyon overnight without Internet access.

Lake Titicaca in puno, Peru

The lake is Located between Bolivia and peru, and is the highest navigable lake in the World at 3856 metres above sea level, it is bigger than Switzerland.

Its shores and islands, such as Amantani and Taquile, are home to the Aymaras and Quechuas, who are amongst Peru's oldest peoples, predating the Incas by a thousand years.

We visited the famous Uros Floating Islands. Our local guide introduced inhabitants and explained the reed and mud structure of the islands. We then took a ride on their little handmade reed boats between two floating islands.

According to the Incan mythology, this is the place where the world was created from, when the god Viracocha came out of the lake and created the sun, the stars and the first people.

We continutowing tout towards “Taquile Island” (2 hour aprox.), a traditional Quechua speaking community, full of ancient agricultural terraces. The weaving tradition of the Taquile Island goes back to early civilizations, thus keeps elements from pre-Inca Andean cultures alive in the present. We had nice seafood lunch provided by a local family with local music and breeze.

I originally planned to stay one night in puno to check out all three islands, but dropped the idea since that the 3rd island requires overnight stay in a very primitive environment. So me and two friends met in Peru took an overnight bus into puno, took a tour covering two islands, then took another overnight bus out of puno. We took showers and ate dinner prior to each overnight bus ride. I do not like to take two overnight buses in a roll, but there is nothing interesting left for me to visit in puno.

The traveling life gets tiring sometime, but i usually recover quickly after a good night sleep, although I miss my life and friends back home.

Folk dance, Peru

I spent my last night in Cuzco at the Qosqo Center of Native Art for the original folkloric dance from all over Peru accompanied by traditional live Andean music.

Peruvian Food

While waiting for the train back to Cuzco after my inca trail hike, I tried a guinea pig for lunch. In Peru, guinea pigs are not kept as pets, but are served as food. The skin was crispy, but not much meat.

This morning I visited the central market in Cuzco. I did not find lama meat, but tried seafood and fruit yogurt which prices are 20% of a regular restaurant. There are many choices of food in Peru. Please make sure that you are already used to the water and air in Peru before you try street food.

4-day Inca trail hike, Peru

Turned out to be a piece of cake, regardless of my cold. Since my birthday was the closest to the hike, I got my early birthday cake with mountain design and blessings during the hike.

The 1st day only walked beautul yet flat 3 hrs. We spent more time at a check point thus were forced to walked in the dark about 1 hr.

The 2nd day required 800 meter elevation gain to reach the dead woman's pass. I did it in about 4 hrs and 20 minutes with my 20 lb backpack. I was so bumped by the broken waist belt of my backpack. Fortunately, my hiking guide saw it back for me to last the whole hike.

The 3rd day involved 2 peaks, a lot of downhills and a few ruin sites.

The last day started from 3 am to line up to pass the last check point. Although it was cloudy in the morning, we could see the machu pichu site in the late morning.

I felt very empowered after the hike, considering my cold and the weight I carried. Many factors forced other people to drop the hike, injured or even died during the inca trail hike, yet I finished and enjoyed it.

Most importantly, I established the friendship with my hiking fellows, and our guide and porters. We assisted and encouraged one another, and shared our life experience.

I took many hikes harder than this one, yet this was the only one I hiked with cold and heavy load. I prayed many times before and during the hike to complete the hike under the conditions.

As i just shared with one friend, the more I travel, the more I feel the need of a higher purpose of life.

As to machu pichu, it was a place full of past glory but not much of the future. I feel sad for the disappeared incas who had the potential to keep the indians fed and enjoy prosperity for longer but defeated by Spanish technology. The history reminds me of china, but the incas never came back like china did.

Tour to moray and maras, Peru

Moray was an inca agriculture center and three impressively deep amphitheater-like terraces. Different levels of concentric terraces are carved into three huge earthen bowl, some theorize that the Incas used them as a kind of laboratory to determine the optimal conditions for growing crops of each species. The inca grew over 200 kinds of potatoes and over 2000 kinds of corns.

Its nearby small town of Maras produces thousands tons of salt for the incas.

How did the wise and powerful incas be conquered by the Spanish? They thought the white people were god or noble due to some ambient belief. False belief can be fatal.