Jan. 15 - Cusco or Qosqo?

in

This week I made my way to Cusco.  My last night in Puno, I met an Argentinian girl named Victoria and we hit it off.  She was heading to Cusco as well so we decided to team up.

Cusco!

Cusco!

Inca Jungle Tour

We booked the 4-day Inca Jungle Tour to Machu Picchu, replete with adventures in biking! hiking! partying! zip lining! and history!

Day 1: Downhill Biking

Our first day kicked off with a 3 hour downhill biking tour. We weren't allowed to bring our phones because apparently a bunch of people have crashed trying to take pictures.  Whoops.

Anyways, here is a picture of us suited up in protective armor.

Check out that beautiful view of the valley

Check out that beautiful view of the valley

Day 2: Inca Trail and Snake Tequila

Our 8-hour hike took us from Santa Maria along the Urubamba River all the way to the thermal baths of Santa Teresa.  Along the way, we walked part of the Inca trail and learned about the history of the Chasquis, the Incan messengers that used to run these ancient routes. Today’s world record for the 40-mile Salkantay Trail is just 6 hours and 13 minutes! The official Salkantay tour takes 5 days.

We also stopped at a small house along the trail to learn about Incan agriculture, hand grind some coffee, and drink snake flavored "Incan Tequila".  It... tastes like rotting snake.

We finally arrived at the thermal baths and they were perfect.  They had cold waterfalls to cool off after the hike, and hot waterfalls to warm back up and feel clean.  Surprisingly, even though these baths are heated by volcanic activity, they do not have any of the sulfur smell you get in Yellowstone or Iceland.  I would highly recommend this place.  It's just 10 soles.

Post baths, we made our way to our Hostel, got settled, and then kicked off our dinner party.  The definite highlight of dinner was taking tequila shots out of X-rated Incan fertility statues. Modesty is not part of this culture.

Day 3: Zip Lining

Damn I was hungover.  Those Incan tequila shots really got me.  I went ziplining for the first time which was super fun!  But I didn't bring my camera so you'll just have to use your imagination.  On the last zip of 4, they let us go upsidedown which was super cool.

Afterwords, we started our 3 hour walk along the train tracks to Aguas Calientes.  This was pretty boring but I got some cool pictures!

Day 4: MACHU PICCHU

We started our hike in the dark at 4:30am. The bridge doesn’t open until 5 so we had to wait in line to cross the river and start the Machu Picchu ascent.  Past the bridge begins the hour long ascent up the stairs to the entrance.  Was tough for a lot of people, but compared to the Gran Vilaya trek in Chachapoyas it was no big deal.

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We started with a guided explanation of the history of Machu Picchu but our guide's English was pretty bad.  I did learn that Machu Picchu wasn't meant to be a real city.  It was a royal vacation home and an education/religious studies center for the elites of the Incan society.

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We then hiked up to Intipunku: The Sun Gate which has a great view of the entire city... except when it's cloudy.

When we returned to Machu Picchu the place was SWARMED with tourists. Apparently, in the low season, 4000 people visit per day.  In the high season that jumps to 8000!  I know I'm a tourist, but tourists are awful.  There were tons of bottlenecks we had to wait for because someone needed the perfect selfie.

Spanish

I had a really hard time understanding Victoria.  The Argentinian accent drops "s" sounds, and turns "ll" and "y" into "sh" sounds.  Plus they have some different words like “vos” and “sos”.  I felt like I could understand at first, but as we started talking about more interesting things I got completely lost.  At some point she started making fun of me, which, of course, makes me even more determined.  I'm going to spend this week doing serious immersion, particularly in the Argentinian accent using Podcasts from Posta.fm (an Argentinian podcasting company) and Millennials (a Netflix show from Buenos Aires).

Meditation

I had two revelations this week that change the way I think about meditation.  You can read more here.

I also managed to get my streak up to 15 days despite moving around every day. Unfortunately, my first day back to Cusco I fucked up and broke my streak. Oh well.

Anyways, that's all I got for you folks this week.  Thanks for reading and see you next week!

Dec. 29 - Double Dip in Arequipa

in

Merry Christmas!  Happy Hanukah! And a Happy Festivus for the restofus!

Apologies for missing last week's entry of Weights and Whethers.  I decided to embark on a 3-day trek through Colca Canyon and didn't return until Christmas Eve - and I certainly wasn't staying inside and writing a blog post on Christmas Eve!  I decided to do a double entry this week instead.  Because it's so long, I’ve broken it into pieces so that you can read what you're interested in.

Fundraiser update

We've successfully raised $503 through Gofundme + $205 in direct transfers. Adding in my $500 that gets us to $1208 so thank you so much for all your support! If you haven't yet shared with your networks I would really appreciate it! Even a simple Facebook post helps reach new donors. Link to fundraiser here.

Travel Update

The last two weeks have been split between Ica and Arequipa enjoying classic colonial architecture, natural wonders, and Holiday Spirit. Click here to read more about:

  • Sandboarding and Dunebuggying in Huacachina

  • Making Latkes with fellow Jews in Arequipa

  • A 3 day hike through a canyon TWICE AS DEEP as the Grand Canyon.

Spanish Update

I discovered the MIA approach to language learning 2 months ago and I've finally figured out a method and toolset that I like. I wrote a separate post describing my process. Now that I’ve figured out my toolset, I hope I can quickly pass through the plateau that Steve Kaufmann recently posted about.

New Section: Meditation

For many years I have “known” that meditation is good for me but I have always struggled to get started with it. As I’ve been working through the MIA content, the founder Matt often recommends meditation as a way to increase the effectiveness of language learning. I finally decided to dive in which lead me to a book called “The Mind Illuminated”. Written by a neuroscientist/guru, this book provides a map of how to progress through the stages of meditation towards enlightenment. Finally, I have a framework I can use to help me work through it. Click here to read more about my first week of meditation practice.

Politics

During my trek through Colca Canyon, I was accompanied by an Estonian couple and learned some very interesting things about their country. Estonia is incredibly tech-savvy. In their most recent election, 44% of the populace voted online. I support any effort to make voting easier but am all too familiar with the security problems that digital voting has had in the US. So I was surprised to learn that Estonia has been voting online since 2005! I’ve written more about Estonia in a separate post here.

That’s all she wrote folks! Happy New Years and see you next week!

Nov. 10, 2019 - The Ancient and the New

in

I suffered an afternoon of existential despair on Thursday. This happens to me occasionally. I feel tiny, insignificant, powerless, and alone. I feel like curling up in a ball and never unfurling. If I had had internet access I would have watched Netflix to take my mind off of it, but my host didn't have Wifi. I remembered two summers ago, in Ireland, I wrote a poem about the same feeling. Reading it made me feel a little better. If you ever feel similarly here's the poem. Maybe it will help you too.

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New Friends

I tried Couchsurfing for the first time and it went great! My host Luis lives just outside central Trujillo. He recently finished his dentistry schooling and is trying to figure out what to do next. One theme amongst the people I met is that they want to get out of Trujillo and live somewhere new. We toured two markets and cooked dinner together.

On the bus to Trujillo, I met a girl named Matilde. She invited me to the restaurant where she works for breakfast. She rides a scooter, is way cooler than me, taught me all sorts of slang, and convinced me to get a haircut. She also works at an LGBT friendly, underground punk bar named “Abril” with dark, grungy art that I really like.

Chan Chan - Ruins of the Chimor Empire

Chan Chan was the capital of the Chimor empire that spanned from Lima to Ecuador from ~850AD until the Incan's conquered them in 1470AD. The city was home to 40-60k people and is massive. I didn't realize until later that all the piles of sand I saw were walls of the ancient city.

I toured the ancient city of Chan Chan with my guide Jose. Jose is a combo Archeologist/Tour Guide/Artist and has worked at the site for 40 years. After the tour, I visited his workshop where he makes woodblock prints of ancient artwork. Below you can see how he took artwork on this piece of pottery and carved it in wood for the print.

I found the artwork fascinating. If you do too and would like one, here's his contact information.

Ancient Morality

He told me some interesting things about the Incan moral code: "Do not steal, do not lie, do not be lazy".

This moral code was enforced by a concentric hierarchy of community:
If there is a thief in the family, the family must kill him
If they don't, the community must kill the entire family
If they don't, the army kills the entire community

This is morbid but makes sense to me. The responsibility for maintaining social cohesion is shared. It is everyone's responsibility to maintain that cohesion at their level of influence. I worry that in American society of individualism, we outsource this responsibility to top-down organizations (eg. government & business) and don't invest enough in the bottom-up cohesion of our communities.

Spanish

Two personal wins this week!

  1. When I arrived at Luis' apartment I managed a 15-minute conversation in fluid Spanish which felt really good!

  2. I managed to have a conversation in Spanish at a loud club which has never happened before. At clubs, I can barely understand people in English!

The people on the coast definitely speak more clearly than the people in the mountains. Unfortunately, I very quickly ran out of topics I knew how to talk about. I'd like to do a targeted study of vocabulary in areas of interest (movies, music, politics).

It was difficult for me to invest fully in MIA this week without access to Wifi so I spent the week listening to the media already on my phone - mostly Harry Potter. I thought it would be useful to listen to something I knew but I was wrong. I can follow the story without listening to the Spanish. I've now downloaded hundreds of hours of Spanish podcasts and will focus on those in the next week.

Politics

Good-ish news on the Bolivia front. Over the past two weeks, the Organization of American States (OAS) has investigated the results of the October 20th election and released a preliminary report showing clear election fraud including widespread data manipulation. In response, the President has agreed to a new round of elections. This may quell the protests in the short term but I will be continuing to monitor the situation to determine if it's safe to travel. 2019-11-11 update: The president has resigned after loss of military support!

That’s all folks. Thanks for reading and have a great week!