Salkantay Trek – 74km hike (failed attempt)
My visit to Peru was at quite short notice. My brothers wife was heading there for work and decided to extend her visit and my brother and I decided to tag along.
They arrived first, due to the short notice I had to work my leave dates around work, so we didn’t overlap perfectly. I spent a night in Lima – I didn’t see much of it and I didn’t initially fall for the place (this changed more on my return stay).
I flew up to Iquitos. I arrived in the evening and after checking into a basic hotel and went for a walk aruond. I ended up sitting in Plaza de armas de Iquitos a little square near the hotel. This square was full of life, it felt more like a living room than a park. I sat reading my book and people watching. Every so often someone would come up and chat, often trying to sell bracelets or trinkets.
After a while this happened again. This is when I met Johnny. He was hoping to become a tour guide and wanted to practice his English. We chatted away for an hour or so and he offered to show me around the town the next day. We swamped emails and planned to meet the next morning.
We spent the morning going all over town including down to the river and on a little boat ride. It was a lovely morning and such a nice way to see a small Peruvian town. He headed off and I took up my new favourite hobby of sitting on benches, this time on the river side.
This is where I met Bernabe. His English was almost non existent, so I had to really draw on all my 8 weeks of Spanish classes. We somehow managed to talk for a while before going to get a beer in a local cafe.
Now this may sound like I was just wandering off with anyone how spoke to me. But I was being cautious of where I was and who was around. To say no would have been the safest option, but I enjoyed these interactions and with a bit of caution it felt it was acceptably safe.
I spent my evening enjoying a tasty meal at Karma Cafe, a friendly little vegetarian restaurant. Good food and friendly wait staff.
The next day my brother and his partner arrived. They were a little confused how after just one day I seemed to have met every person we passed on the street before. We headed over to check out Museo de Culturas Indígenas Amazónicas and on the way ran into Bernabe who became our tour guide and took us to the place and even got us free entry.
Later we were eating dinner at Karma cafe and Johnny walk passed the window and offered to take us on another tour the next day. This time was went all round the market, which was great, as there was no chance we would have seen so much if I’d been guiding us.
My sister in law had arrange for us to spent 5 night in the Amazon jungle on a guided trip. It’s not something I would have thought to do alone, but I am so pleased I went. The accommodation was very luxurious with big bed and the rooms were three sides or wood and one side just a mesh to keep animals out, but allowed you to see into the forest.
Each day we went out and spotted different animals. It was a pretty good balance between wilderness and comfort. Particularly out in the Amazon were I don’t think I’d want to be 100% exposed! There were definitely times where I caught myself thinking ‘I wonder how safe this actually is’. A prime example being right before jumping out the boat into the amazon – in a particular location the guide said was fine… however this was all connected to where we had been seeing all the animals that could kill us. Blind faith got me this far…
We saw caman, sloths, snakes, tarantulas, dophins. I was genuinely scared and amazed everyday. But most impressive was the bowl of local fruit they had with a list of names next to it.
Anyway after a few days of enjoying the luxury of having planned activities three times a day, we headed back to Lima when my sister in law had to attend some meetings.
To save myself finding a nights accommodation in Lima I headed straight off to Huacachina on a night bus. Well more specifically, I jumped on a bus to ICA and having done no research got into a pickle at the other end. I got off and wasn’t in Huacachina or even visibly in ICA. Only one other person got of the bus with me and there was no one else around at all and it was about 10pm at night.
I tried to ask the man how to get to Huacachina. He spoke no English, but got out his phone and we communicated though google translate. He told me I couldn’t get to Huacachina tonight and I would have to stay in ICA (I found out the next day this was the wrong information, but he was a travelling salesman and didn’t know/understand my question). He offered let me stay with him for the night and although not thrilled at the idea, I felt I had very few options.
I jumped in a cab with him to his hotel and we went out for a beer. I felt a little awkward about my situation, but we chatted over google translate and he seemed to be a decent guy. I slept on his hotel floor in my sleeping bag.
In the morning he told me more about his job. He worked selling Knives and watches for Victorinox and started showing me his very large knife collection. Well… I’m glad he waiting in the morning to show me, because I was out of that room pretty quickly after that, but we went for breakfast and I got a cab the short 4km to Huacachina!
My brother met me there in the afternoon, unimpressed by my adventures yet again and we had a nice couple of days sand surfing and enjoying the cute little tourist hub in the desert.
Back in Lima, my brother and his wife flew home and I pushed on the Cuzco. I had had such pleasant experiences with everyone I had met at this point, I was a bit suprised when I got to Cuzco and things started to change. I went looking for the bus stop to the start my route and a local guy blocked my way and grabbed my arm. I shout no and he let go, but laughed as I walked away. Later during my trip my pack would be stolen read about that here.
To add to my disliking for the place I had accidentally booked into a party hostel. The second night I had two people hooking up in the bed across from me, when the girl threw up everywhere, then pretty much passed out. The guy decided he wouldn’t go near her as he didn’t want to be accused of indecent behavior and as the only girl already in bed, I had to clean her up, calm her down and figure out where she was meant to be sleeping.
Things picked up however when I returned from my hike attempt. The new hostel I stayed in (Dragonfly Hostel) had kind backpackers, who even gave me some of their old clothes as I had lost almost everything.
I managed to get the train up the Aqua Calientes and hiked the last section up to Macchu Pichu. I set off in the dark but got scared when I noticed a person following me. It turned out the be a friendly monk who was on holiday and also hiking up. He wanted to practice his English and I wanted to practice my Spanish, so we hiked up talking away, me in Spanish as much as I could and him in English as much as he could. It was great fun and I felt I was actually getting the hang of my communication, even if my grammar was non existent.
Following that trip things became more serious. I flew back to Lima and had to get replacement UK and Australian passports. However the 48hours ‘stuck’ in Lima waiting on my passport processing, gave me a chance to see Lima for what it has to offer.
I met and women in my hostel from Columbia. She had just broken up with her partner and was grateful for the company. We went out and found a guided bike ride around the city.
Another woman in the hostel was living there, studying Spanish and took me out to a cookery class with her school group. I won’t pretend the cooking was great, but we followed this by going to a poetry reading in the back of with sweet little bookshop. It felt nice to see this side of Lima.
It’s hard to believe I was only in Peru for 3 weeks when it feel like everything happened during my visit. There were highs and lows for sure and it certainly isn’t as safe as Patagonia, but I’m pleased I went in a little naive and got to experience all the genuine folk how crossed my path.