I’m thinking of taking a couple months off from the daily grind and heading to Peru from mid October to mid December before unheard back to the keys. Has anyone spent any time in Peru? I think I’ll be WWOOFing on a farm in the Ancash region for a month to start with then hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu then either WWOOFing on another farm or just bumming around for a few more weeks before heading back to SC. Does anyone have any recommendations or must try kind of things?
Chris, I don’t know what WWOOFing is, but please continue to post pictures of your adventures here. We all live vicariously through your posts. Know that you are extremely lucky that you get to see so much of the world; very few get to experience half of what you have in your young years.
I look forward to seeing a report of you holding up a tiger fish in the coming months.
Redfish Baron Extraordinaire
WWOOFing is a form of ecotourism in which people exchange their time to work on an organic farm in exchange for a place to stay, food, education of organic farming techniques and see the local, rural side of a place, not just the flashy, touristy, expensive side of things. You can learn more at http://www.wwoof.net
I’ve found a couple of sweet farms to hang out at while I’m down there. I also have booked a 5 day 4 night trek on the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu with a friend who will also be traveling down there. This is the organization I’ll be trekking with.
I’ve heard mixed reviews about Spirit Airlines but for $720 round trip to Lima Peru including checked bags and Exit Row seats, I think I’ll be pretty happy.
Be careful if they ask you to trim their coca plants.
“Apathy is the Glove into Which Evil Slips It’s Hand”.
Rap, do you know how to field strip and clean an AK 47! They still kidnap and ransom Gringo’s, down there! Brush up on your Escape and Evasion skills[:0]
My brother-in-law is a missionary to Peru and travels there often. They are always looking for folks to help out in working with the different tribes in the jungle and also urban areas. They frequently travel the Amazon and have their own boat as well. Usually some type of housing and various kinds of food are provided. Message me if you have any interest. Heir next trip is the end of August 2014 and another on October. Happy trails!
I have been down here for about a month and a half and it certainly is an experience. I’ll post the details of my experience below but it will be a lot of broken thoughts and whatnot since it’ll be parts of emails to my family.
Part 1
Well we’re in Lima for the night and have had quite a week. Our trek was a lot of fun with a bunch of ups an down (in the most literal sense…) and whooped our butts. We explored Cusco for a few days and found some mighty interesting things to do. The planetarium and the cooking class at the hostel were probably my two highlights of our time there. The hostel was a cool place and we had bunks in an 8 bed room for about $11 a night. It was close to the main square and within walking distance to anything we wanted to do minus the planetarium. Our last night in Cusco was spent at a meeting for the trek and then the cooking class at the hostel. There were a few old churches to explore and some markets with a ton of handicrafts and touristy things so we spent some time looking around.
Day 1 of the trek consisted of a 3-4 hour super sketchy bus ride and about 7-8 km of walking on a flat road which was easy enough. Our campsite had a great view of a couple of glaciers/mountains ad was pretty close high so it was chilly and there weren’t a ton of trees. We hit about 15,200’ on the second day after a looooooong climb which is the highest either of us had ever been. It was a very tough climb with the low oxygen levels at that altitude but we managed slowly and surely. The walk down was a bear too and we ended at about 25KM for the day. The campsite that night was in a little community and we had free cold showers. You could pay 10 soles (about $3.33) for a hot shower but I think Beth and I were the only takers for the free cold one. Day 3 was our “easy day” which consisted of mostly down hill with some uphill mixed in and we did all of our hiking in the morning. After we got to our camp in another small community, we had lunch and a free afternoon. There was a river
Part 2
We’ve been on the farm for about a week and a half now it’s been a cool experience. The bus ride was about 9 hours from Lima and we had the front row seats above the driver looking out at the road ahead. The bus was almost like a double decker but instead of passengers below, it was all luggage storage. During the ride we travelled through hilly desert, along the coast within sight of the deserted beach, through a high and cloudy pass at 13,000’+ and down into the Valley where Caraz is situated. The bus arrived in Caraz at about 7PM, after dark, and we took a mototaxi to the farm. The Mototaxis have the front of a motorcycle and the back of a cart with a bench seat and a small cargo space in the back. It’s basically a covered tricycle and they are everywhere. It costs 1-3 soles ($.33-1.00) to get one way from the farm to the center of town by the market. It’s not a huge place and everything is within walking distance but the rides are so cheap that it’s worth it. The Central Market downtown is an open air market where you can buy everything from fresh bread to cheese, meats, vegetables, fish, and everything else you’d find in a basic supermarket. There is a section for people to cook food as well but sanitation doesn’t seem to be a priority so we’ve stayed away from all of that. There are markets in every town we’ve been to and they all seem to have pretty much the and thing. Sunday seems to be the day to go as everyone comes out of the mountains to dress up in their traditional clothes and participate.
Mac and Kelly are the owners of the farm and have been her in cara for about 5 years. They are building a hotel/restaurant to open within the next couple years and have a big garden to feed themselves. The end goal is to have the hotel/restaurant be almost fully supplied with it’s vegetable needs from the farm but that’s a ways down the road. Mac is from Greenville and has done all sorts of jobs in his life such as military, paramedic, wireman, firefighting, govt contractor in Afghani
Part 3
This past week has been quite interesting. Last Sunday we took a trip to Laguna 69, a high alpine lake in a park a couple hours away. We left the farm at 6 and after a couple hours riding in Combis, we ended up at the trail head at about 830. The ride up the mountains was not terribly eventful and included a stop for breakfast at a shack on the side of the road. We went through some relatively rural areas and ended up in the park. Before departing, the combo driver gave us instructions to be back at the road at 230. After a heck of a climb and some awesome views we reached a ridge and were sure the lake was on the other side. Apparently we were only 2/3rds of the way there and had another big climb ahead of us. Beth decided to rest at the bottom of the second ascent and I went up to the top. The lake was a stunning aquamarine color and it was nice and warm there. It was shaped sort of like a bowl as there were snow capped mountains surrounding 2/3s of it and the other 1/3 was the part I came up. After hanging out for a bit I went back down to meet u
p with Beth and we hiked back to the road, arriving about 2:10. Almost a minute after we stepped onto the road, the same red Combi van we had taken up arrived and we rode it all the way back to Caraz. We stopped in the market and got some stuff to make egg salad that night. By the time we ate dinner and got to bed it was only about 6:30 but we were exhausted.
On Monday morning, we had our usual breakfast of eggs and had some of the peppers and onion we got he night before as well. By about 10 we both were feeling pretty sick with some sort of food poisoning. I remained sick on Tuesday but Beth was feeling well enough to work. On Wednesday, I helped Mac put in some toilets in the half finished hotel/restaurant and we tackled sinks on Thursday. Friday was an easy day of messing around building a new chicken coop inside the existing chicken coop to separate the bullies from the rest of the group. A timeout corner if you will.
We are headed
Part Time for another update…
We’ve been making a lot of moves in the past week. Last Saturday night, we left the farm and took the night bus to Trujillo, a town near the coast and to the north. Since we arrived in Trujillo at 4:30AM, we decided to spend one day/night seeing the town before heading to the beach town of Huanchaco (15 minutes away similar to Folly/downtown). We took a taxi to our hostel to find out that the electricity was out in the whole city! So on top of it being Dunday in the slow season, the power was out so There was no wifi to look up directions or things to do, no lights anywhere (including traffic lights), no shops were open, etc. Eventually some restaurants started opening to serve basic stuff as the fridges were still cold from when the power went off and they had gas appliances. We explored a bit then went back to the hostel to read for a few hours while we waited for the power to come back on. Even on a normal day, everything shuts down in Trujillo from 1-4pm for “lunch” so it was a welcome nap time for me. We decided not to stray too far for dinner in case the streetlights didn’t come on when it got dark so we found a Chifa food spot a couple blocks away. The two dishes we got were basically fried rice but it was still good. The power ended up coming back on as we were eating dinner so we went back to the hotel and planned out next couple of steps. There was a church next door and they must have had some kind of Sunday night child care as they were blasting music super loud until 1030 pm.
The next day we made our way out to Huanchaco to a hostel named Naylanmp. It was a pretty cool place and we only paid about $7 a night per person to stay there. There were quite a few “cevicherias” there and they would have lunch menus for $4 that had a plate of fresh ceviche (raw fish marinated in lemon juice with onions, spices, etc), an entree and a drink so we did that for lunch each day. For dinner, we found a restaurant with a grill and plates of grilled meat for cheap th
Thanks Rap, appreciate the journal…
Rap, did you see these? My daughter was in Cusco this summer.
