Peru with Parker – drenched, confused & delighted

Anyways, a funny thing happened on the way to the Temple, specifically about 3/4 of the way up the ‘stairs of death.’ I was hunched over, my hands on my knees, sweat in my eyes, gasping for breath and wondering how long I would have to live here to be able to go for a hike gasp-free, when a man jogged by me, with a big smile and a cheerful “Buenas tardes, senora.” I was immediately filled with many emotions and thoughts, which included some mild loathing and an urge to trip the cheerful jogging man, and then immediately after that urge, I felt both disgust and deep shame. Disgust because I didn’t think that I had the ability or stamina to actually catch him, let alone trip him, and deep shame because the jogging man was about 80 years old and half my size. The tiny, old jogging man did motivate me to stand up and keep climbing until I reached Parker, who had stopped about 30 steps above me. (It is unclear if she stopped because she was also tired or simply if her annoyingly young, non-gasping self was waiting patiently for her mama.) Anyways, in between my gasps we discussed how we were ‘going for a hike’ but the people who lived in the outer-most neighborhoods and communities were just going to work or school or the market. Cusco is situated in a narrow and deep valley and there are many communities built up on the hills, inaccessible by cars or buses. So while we were ‘hiking’ to get to a ruin outside of the valley, we passed by so many people just going about their daily lives. Noticing this led to a second funny thing, which was Parker wondering if the people in these communities, especially the woman in their traditional skirts, sandals and mantas (a traditional shawl used as a cape as well as a kind of carrying case on their back) laughed at the tourists in their ‘hiking costumes.’ We looked at each other in our hiking boots and athletic pants, with our backpacks, hats, raincoats and large water bottles and started giggling. As I write this, I am giggling again at how often I go exploring in my ‘traditional hiking costume.’

When you reach the top of the climb, there is a field straight ahead with horses grazing and young Cusco people offering horseback rides to the Temple. There are also dirt roads to both the left and right. A persistent young woman kept offering us horseback rides, but we politely declined, explaining that we preferred to walk. And so off we went on the road to the right. She gave us a funny little smile, waving as we walked away, and after coming to the end of the road, a dead end which was not the Temple of the Moon, we realized why she had smiled… we had gone the wrong way. So if you are visiting the Temple of the Moon and decide to hike there guide-free, when you get to the top, please go straight ahead through the field of horses and after walking about 3 or 4 minutes, you will see the majestic Temple of the Moon. Our walk back to the field did provide us with a foray into a tiny little shop, built into the ground, where we got a couple of drinks to go with our picnic lunch. And I like to think that our navigational mistake made the young woman laugh enough to make up for us not agreeing to a paid horseback ride. Plus we did get to walk through, and among, the horses which was really lovely. The Temple of the Moon itself was spectacular with an incredible view of Cusco, really strong energy and weirdly a local man at the very top playing Happy Birthday on his pan-flute (thankfully not the whole time – I love the pan-flute but not Happy Birthday over and over). And not for the blog but forever in my memory, Parker and I had a beautiful conversation while eating Cody’s delicious smoked cheese, drinking high-octane Peruvian coolers and marveling at both the views and our lives. If you visit Cusco, I definitely recommend setting aside a day for the Temple of the Moon and make sure to explore the back side as well, where there are a few little caves and if you are lucky, a herd of sheep with their shepherd. (However, I don’t necessarily recommend drinking a cooler at the top as the 12% Peruvian cooler, coupled with the altitude, made the climb down a wee bit interesting for this light-weight 😉

Thus began an hour of running madly in an absolute downpour, through an industrial area, in the dark, with very few people around, trying to find the elusive Peru Hop bus terminal…with a sad, soggy piece of paper as our guide (with directions to A bus terminal that was sadly not THE bus terminal). Two things stand out in my mind from that hour – Parker can run really, really fast with a heavy backpack on in the pouring rain and I totally, absolutely cannot. And when I am out of breath, drenched and confused, I am terrible at asking for and understanding directions from strangers. So, did we find the bus terminal that night? Or did I convince Parker to stop running wildly and direction-less in the rain after close to an hour and give up all hope? We did not find the terminal…. and we did give up all hope. Actually, we realized that even if the Peru Hop bus terminal magically appeared out of thin air directly in front of us, we still would have missed that night’s bus. So we found a little building entrance, out of the downpour, to check which bus might take us home and then we walked 3 blocks to that bus stop. We waited at said stop for 20 to 30 minutes, hovering in some random doorway, trying to stay warm. But every 2 or 3 minutes, a taxi would drive by, super close, splashing and drenching us. It was like they all knew we were too stubborn to take a taxi and they were punishing us for not supporting them. I have honestly never been splashed so many times by vehicles driving by – it became quite funny actually. And then finally we saw the number 10 bus – hallelujah!! And then we watched that bus sail right past us, waving arms and all, like we were invisible… and that is when I admitted defeat and hailed my first taxi in Cusco. We stopped at a little store by my place and bought a couple cans of wine (we are classy) and the best chips ever (Lay’s Pollo a la Brassa – highly recommend) and then we skipped home in the rain. Now ‘the night of 3 missed buses’ might seem like a sad failure of a night but honestly it was a hilarious and fun night, with one of my most favorite people in the world and I loved it. I loved it because neither Parker nor I got discouraged, had a tantrum or freaked out. We were drenched and ridiculously determined but no one was stressed or angry or ‘woe is me-ing.’ This is the part where I preach about being flexible when you travel, holding on to your sense of humor and being grateful that you have the privilege of even having travel mishaps. And ‘the night of the 3 missed buses’ had a wonderful happy ending… But first, if you are in Cusco, please know that Avenida Industrial 252 is NOT the same as Industrial 252 and Peru Hop is located at Industrial 252 (the “Avenida” will mess up your plans a bit). Also we did not complain about being given the incorrect address because we had such a magical time when we finally got to our destination.

Thanks to the lovely people at Peru Hop who apologized the next morning for the mix-up, we were able to catch the overnight bus to Puno that evening. Puno is the city on the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world. We arrived in Puno around 6am, freshened up in the Lucky Your House hostel (great staff if you need a hostel in Puno) and set off on our day tour by 8am. That day on Lake Titicaca was so freaking incredible for so many beautiful reasons. But one really powerful reason came to me as I was waving good bye to the people of Uros…it is absolutely wild and joyful and simply beyond my writing skills to describe the feeling of visiting someplace that you never really knew existed. To meet people living as they have lived for hundreds of years, to travel someplace that many people have never heard of, to go places that you NEVER dreamed of as a child because your imagination couldn’t dream what it didn’t know… Well as I said, it was an incredible day that I couldn’t have imagined. Our first stop was one of the floating reed islands of Uros – the Uros people are believed to be descended from the earliest inhabitants of Lake Titicaca. Oral history also says that they moved onto the floating islands to escape the Incas when they were expanding their empire. Each reed island houses 4 or 5 families that live simply although they have learned to welcome the tourists and supplement their traditional lifestyle of fishing, bird hunting and egg gathering. They also have implemented the use of solar panels, reducing the risk of open flames on the islands and each island now has a cell phone or two. There is a floating elementary school that is attended by the children of Uros but older children go to the mainland for high school. Our visit to the Uros island was fascinating, educational and strangely calming and I definitely recommend doing a tour if visiting Peru – it was well worth the overnight bus from Cusco.