Peruvian Adventure 2016 - Inca Trail Day 1 (Piskacucho to Wayllabamba)

Our alarms went off at 5am. Gotta love planning adventure trips! We quickly showered and finished packing and prepping our gear for the next few days. Both of us were a little nervous about what was in store for us!

A few minutes after 6am, our ride to the start was at our hotel. We loaded our gear and headed off to pick our partners in this journey, Hannah and Brenna, not to mention our porters. Only about 1.5 hours of car time until we stopped for breakfast at Ollantaytambo in the little square we drove by the day before. Since we had driven this same road the day before at night, it was nice to see it in daylight and try to notice things we missed the first time around.

Finally, we made it to Ollantaytambo and got out at a little cafe on the square to use the restrooms and eat breakfast. It was quite delicious.

By the time we were finished, the van was fully loaded with our porters for the trek, and we set off to Piskacucho. To get there from Ollantaytambo, we had another 30-40 minutes on a dirt 1 lane road that supported two way traffic. Our van got a little close to other cars trying to squeeze past the other way. We passed through a few small towns as well.

Once we arrived at Piskacucho, the porters quickly got to work as we posed for a few pictures before heading to the control where we had to show our passports to gain entry to the Inca Trail. We only had to wait a few minutes before we could begin our crossing of the bridge and officially begin the Inca Trail. Of course we posed for more photos before we took off on our way.

During this first part of our trek, we saw a lot of farms and along the side of the trail. The trail followed the Urubamba River, and the train tracks that led to Machu Picchu, as it snaked in the bottom of a valley between the mountains. The combination of farms, the river, high tension power lines and the train tracks was certainly not what I was expecting. Granted, we did not do much research. We just figured that we wanted to see Machu Picchu, and this was there more adventurous way to get there. Besides, it was always interesting when a horse, donkey, or cow came up the trail either in front of or behind you! Added excitement!

Our first real rest stop was in Miskay, a small village that seemed to cater to tourists. There was a snack stand on the trail that sold all sorts of snacks and beverages, including bottled water. We took it as an opportunity to nibble on some snacks in our pack, and Kari got to experience her first squat toilet. Upon her return, she mentioned that she was ready to go to India!

After our quick break, we began climbing up out of the valley. Another lung opener for what was about to come. We also got to see our second Inca site of the hike at Llaqtapata. Our first was a small spot near the train tracks prior to Miskay.

While we did not get to walk around, we had an awesome vantage point on a cliff up above. It was beautiful. There were some pre-Inca ruins on top of the cliff that we did get to explore. Our guide, Christian, mentioned that the higher class Incas used this spot to be able to look over the city. Not far away were two sacrificial spots. Both were relatively flat and away from the rest of the city.

Llaqtapata was the primary city for all the farmlands in the surrounding area. Christian mentioned that this city supported about 1000 Incas during its time. Pretty impressive!

Throughout the trek, Christian would point out various plants and provide a little history and/or information about them. One of the plants he pointed out was the prickly pear cactus. Both because of the prevalence of it as well as the bacteria that grew on it that produce the deep red color when killed. Luckily, we passed a little girl near Hatuncancha, another village on the Inca Trail, and Christian paid her for one prickly pear. We were able to try the prickly pear and, boy, was it delicious!

As we continued our journey, we were in awe of the beauty surrounding us. It was absolutely magnificent. We were also fortunate to have relatively cloudy skies with only a couple quick drizzles. It helped keep us cool without getting super wet. Probably the most entertaining part was a donkey jam we got ourselves in before lunch. We caught a family of farmers hauling their loads home on the backs of some horses and donkeys, plus a few dogs for good measure. When they stopped, we would pass only to be passed back by some. Eventually, we were completely surrounded! Wild!

We were all excited to walk into the lunch spot. Everything smelled delicious and we had some time to rest. Our chef, Mariano, made trout with rice, bread, and other goodies. Despite not really liking fish, it was not bad. We all ate up and finished lunch with some more coca tea to help with the altitude.

Following lunch, we had our final hour hike to camp for the night. It was nice to walk and enjoy the views. Peru is a very beautiful country. To our porters surprise, and I think ours too, we beat them to camp by about 20 minutes. We were laying and relaxing when Julio Caesar, one of the youngest porters, came strolling into camp, all smiles and congratulating us on a job well done. Really, the porters were the studs of the day. They start early, hike fast, carrying all the gear, and work until everything has been cleaned up from dinner. It is super impressive to watch them work.

Once camp was set up, we were able to relax for a bit until tea time and then dinner. It was nice to try to recuperate after our first day of hiking. One of the super fun things about this camp site was the little sheep behind our tents. It would occasionally make noise when we were inside the tents. Only mildly creepy.

Dinner for the evening was chicken with rice, mixed veggies, and bread. We followed dinner with more tea and introductions with our porters. Our porters were Andres, Julio Caesar, Beltran, Juan, Ignacio, Mariano (chef), and Cosimé. Most came from the same area and are related to one another in some way. It was pretty neat sharing a little about ourselves and learning a little about them. Afterwards, we all went to bed early, tired from the day.

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Peruvian Adventure 2016 - Sacred Valley Tour

We started our morning rather early with a delicious breakfast in the hotel, prior to our ride picking us up for the Sacred Valley tour.

A little after 8am, our ride came to get us. Unfortunately, we still did not speak much Spanish and he did not speak much English. He drove us around Cusco until he was given the name of the next persons hotel that he needed to pick up. Then we waited at the bus depot for our tour bus. Quite a confusing few minutes. On the bus, we met our guide, Herman, and began our journey. Herman gave us a fair amount of history while we drove through the countryside.

At the first small town, we stopped to check out the market and use the bathroom. Michael, the other guy in our pick-up car, and I chatted for a while about our families and how beautiful the area was.

Back in the bus, we continued on until a rest stop overlooking the Urubamba River, the sacred river. It was beautiful. As a bonus, we got to watch some hummingbirds play in the flowers a cactus.

Following the stop, we continued on into the town of P'isaq, crossing the "San Francisco" bridge, on our way to the Inca site at P'isaq.

P'isaq was stunning! It was interesting to learn hot they charted the sun, moon, and stars to help them with their agriculture. Also, we learned that each terrace contains dirt from the Andes, dirt from the coast near Lima, and dirt from the jungle to help grow crops more effectively. As we wandered around P'isaq, we were in awe of the construction and at how the altitude was affecting us. At over 11000 ft, every step we climbed seemed to take the life out of us.

On the other side of the canyon from the main buildings at P'isaq were small caves. The Incas mummified their dead by removing the organs, cutting the tendons, folding into a fetal position, and covering in muña oil, as a preservative. The small caves were near the top of the mountain, close to heaven, and in a place condors could help the spirits ascend to heaven. The craftsmanship of the Incas was something truly special to see in person.

Following our time at the archeological site in P'isaq, we loaded the bus and headed into town. P'isaq is known for its silver production. Kari, Michael, and I listened to the instruction of how silver jewelry is made and how to spot real silver. It was pretty neat to watch the masters at work and learn more about silver.

After a short time in the village, we were back on the bus, heading toward Ollantaytambo, to get lunch. Kari, Michael, and I ate at Hacienda Puka Punku, sampling a variety of Peruvian dishes. We even got to try alpaca, adding to our list of exotic critters we have eaten. Now, we need to find some cuy, or guinea pig, which is a local delicacy here in Peru.

When Herman and our bus driver came back, we continued on to the Inca site Ollantaytambo. The city of Ollantaytambo had narrow streets, reminiscent of the Inca streets, tight and narrow with gutters. We drove past the town square and parked with the rest of the buses. After a quick walk up a narrow alley, we were at the gates to the Inca site of Ollantaytambo. Herman walked us in and gave a brief history lesson of the place and surrounding community before walking us up the steps to the temple of the sun. As any true temple of the sun, it was as close to the top of the mountain as possible. Lungs burned as we ascended, hopefully a good warm-up to the Inca Trail. The temple of the sun had a wall made of six huge slabs of interlocking granite. Each slab weighed over 70 tons. I can only imagine how hard it would have been to drag the granite across the river, 2km away, and up the mountain, only to stand them together in a wall of interlocking pieces. Yowser!

After our history lesson, Herman let us wander around for a bit before meeting to head back to the bus. Kari and I explored the ruins, as much as possible, before heading back down the mountain. At the bottom, we went to the temple of water to see the various fountains and pools of water. There were also two llamas hanging out. I was pumped to take a picture of a llama without having to pay for it!

Some of our group stayed in Ollantaytambo while the rest of us continued on to Chinchero, our final Inca site for the day. The road to Chinchero climbed up into the mountains. We were able to see our first glaciers in the distance. For some reason, I did not think that Peru has glaciers. What a silly thought! Peru is home to the third highest glacier in the elevation! Only Everest and a mountain in Argentina have a glacier at higher elevation. Also, on our way to Chinchero, we passed a plot of land that is in the process of becoming an airport. It appears that there might even be direct flights from Miami, which would open Cusco without requiring passage through Lima. Kind of neat to see how the country is trying to make the remote regions of the Andes more accessible.

At Chinchero, we wandered around the Inca site. The terraces here are believed to be more of an agricultural test lab for the Incas. Incas would try different soils at different angles to the sun to find the optimal growing conditions for something then share with all of the other locations. Pretty neat! We also saw how the Spaniards built directly on top of the Inca construction. Beneath the Spanish church was likely the home of the Inca upper class for this area.

As the sun was beginning to set, we all headed back for the bus. Herman decided to take us to meet some ladies working with alpaca wool to show us the different dying techniques and agents, as well as how they worked with and cleaned the wool. The most surprising was how the Inca people get the color red, from a bacteria that grows on cactus and looks white until killed. It was really awesome to learn how more about their culture that they have been passing down for generations from the time of the Incas.

Following our pit stop, we headed back to Cusco to have a nice meal, again with Raul, and get ready for the beginning of our trek on the Inca Trail. Man oh man was 6am, our pick-up time, going to come early!

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Peruvian Adventure 2016 - First Day in Cusco

Our plane landed at 8am in Cusco. After landing, we quickly felt more and more like outsiders. We could not read any signs and could not speak the language. Plus, we did not have confirmed transport from the airport to our hotel. Yikes!

As we wandered through the airport, we were hounded by people trying to "help" us find our way. We, as politely as we could, said no gracias, and continued walking. We found baggage claim and a bathroom, trying to take care of necessities while waiting for our bags.

Once we had our bags, we walked to the taxi sign and asked for a ride to our hotel. Thankfully, the lady at the counter spoke English, and we were off. Our driver spoke a little English and tried to point out the sites on our 25 minute drive into Cusco, after giving some random Peruvian a ride downtown with us. We always find it interesting to see new places from a car or on foot, really helps us feel like we are exploring it.

At the hotel, the JW Marriott El Convento Cusco, we tried to check-in. Since we were super early (~8:30am), our planned room was not ready yet. When I asked if there was somewhere we could stow our bags, they decided to upgrade us to a room with a terrace overlooking the courtyard. Gotta love platinum status with Marriott! Needless to say, the room was outstanding! We had an awesome bed, rainfall shower, a separate soaker tub, and an awesome little terrace!

We got settled and took a shower. It felt so great getting clean following almost a day of travel.

After our shower, we met Christian, our guide for the Inca Trail, for a short briefing on what to expect. It was nice to be able to ask someone questions about what we were about to experience who has done it many times.

Following our briefing, we walked back to the hotel to take a nap. The jet lag and lack of sleep was really affecting me. I know that if I had my hope of enjoying our time in Peru, I needed to get some rest.

The nap was awesome! For better or worse, we were awoken part way through for a "platinum thank you" snack. We got to try some Inka Cola, which tastes a lot like cream soda, and four small treats.

After our rest, we wandered around Cusco, seeing some of the sights and taking some pictures. The architecture is absolutely beautiful. Additionally, I am always amazed how people know what to do driving on the small narrow streets.

Back at the hotel, we joined the tour of the hotel. The JW Marriott is only three and a half years old and is built on top of an old Inca palace and Spanish convent. The details and what was preserved are breathtaking. With it being a historic site, no heavy machinery was used in the construction of the hotel. Also, in the basement, the Marriott left some of the old architecture in tact, creating a mini-museum on pre-Inca, Inca, and Spanish architecture. It was a really cool history lesson.

Following the tour, we had dinner at the restaurant within the Marriott. I had lomo saltado and Kari had sweet potato ravioli with prawns. Super delicious! Plus our waiter, Raul, was pretty fantastic!

We closed the evening relaxing and preparing for our tour of the Sacred Valley!

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Peruvian Adventure 2016 - Travel to Peru

We awoke early Friday, March 4, morning to finish loading the last few things into our bags, take care of final household chores, and begin our journey to Chicago O'Hare International Airport. Typically, we just fly out of Madison from the Dane County Regional Airport due to time and convenience. The major reason we can justify it is that the cost is not overly different. For this trip, however, there was an almost $1000 cost difference to fly out of Madison vs Chicago, so we sucked it up and made the 2 hour drive to one of the busiest airports in the world.

We had relatively smooth sailing down I-90 and through security at O'Hare. Our only "snag" was that the $10/day parking lot I was expecting to use was under construction, causing us to bump to the $17/day choice. No biggie, just unplanned. On our way down and in O'Hare, we spent time reaching out to loved ones to say goodbye before we dropped off the grid for a few days. It was nice catching up while waiting for our flights.

Our flight from O'Hare to Atlanta was pretty straight forward. When we arrived in Atlanta, we had plenty of time to grab a snack, exchange some currency, and make the walk between terminals in preparation for our six and a half hour flight to Lima.

On the flight, Kari and I were able to finally cross one of our saved movies off our list: Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials. It was pretty good, but I am not totally sure that it lived up to the hype we built for it. We were also served a pretty tasty meal and tried to catch some sleep, knowing we had a long night ahead of us. Kari took some muscle relaxers. Big mistake.

In Lima, we went through immigration, grabbed our bags, and made it through customs in under an hour. Considering we were sleep deprived and it was after midnight, I call that a success. We also managed to get checked in and drop our bags with our Peruvian airline, Avianca, and walk back through security. At the time, they had not announced which gate we were going to fly out of, so we found some benches in a corner and tried to get some sleep. As much as I struggle to sleep on planes, I struggle even more to sleep in airports. It was definitely a case of futility for me, especially when the loudspeaker would have some announcement every few minutes. It was 3am! Come on, now! The worst was when they started cycling through the same two ad nauseam every couple minutes.

Finally, it was our time to board. If you fly through Lima and expect some kind of orderly boarding process with announcements, you can forget about it. We did the thing I dislike doing, hover around the gate, until the magical moment when they made one announcement to say the "A" group could board the bus to the plane. We were in the "D" group, but as I continued to watch people from all groups shove their way forward, I figured we should follow suit.

Similar to the boarding process for the bus, the boarding process for the plane was just as much a free for all. They open the bus doors and people start walking towards the steps at either the front or back of the plane. Your call at which you pick. We chose the back, since I thought our seats in row 16 must be at least halfway back.

The flight from Lima to Cusco was pretty short, only about an hour. The view of the peaks of the Andes above the cloud line was stunning. I was hoping I might be able to see more, but the cloud cover and my being on the aisle certainly did not help.

Once we landed in Cusco, we grabbed our bags and found a taxi to take us to our hotel. Concluding a long travel period and beginning our Peru exploration!

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2015 Year in Review

While I was writing our recap of the Peruvian Adventure, I realized that I had not written anything about what we did in 2015. As we were still getting used to living in the Madison area and I was accumulating enough vacation days to actually go anywhere, we did not plan a large trip.

We started off experiencing our first winter in Madison. While we have lived in Wisconsin for quite a while, our time was predominately spent in the Milwaukee. It might surprise to realize that Milwaukee and Madison have slightly different climates. With Lake Michigan, Milwaukee remains more temperate, not getting quite as cold or as hot as Madison. That being sad, the active culture we found in Milwaukee only seemed to be intensified in Madison, even in the winter. People are hitting one of the handful of ski hills in the area, cross country skiing in the various parks and golf courses, and ice skating, fishing, playing hockey on the frozen lakes and ponds. We decided to try cross country skiing for the first time, and we had a blast! The only thing we would have hoped for was a little more snow to be able to try again.

One of the perks of my work travel is the ability to tack on extra time in the location I'm in or add-on a small trip using where I am as a launchpad, paying the difference in my personal travel and business travel costs. In June, I was able to visit our little niece Hattie in Sacramento. We had a blast playing over a couple days. She is growing so big and magically becoming a little person. The only thing that would have made that trip better was if Kari would have been able to join.

In August, we joined Kari's family for a week on the beach in Topsail Island. This was my first time joining Kari's family for a vacation, and we had a blast! We swam, ran on the beach, went kayaking in the ocean, and a lot of time reading. The relaxation was needed during the midst of a pretty intense few weeks of work travel.

Our Fall was a whirlwind of activity with Kari cheering on the athletes competing in Ironman Wisconsin, loads of cyclocross racing, catching a play at the American Players Theatre, and Kari's 10-year high school reunion. We also decided to have Kari join me in Seattle for a weekend getaway. While she was there, we went to the EMP Museum, the Seattle Aquarium, the Pike Place Market, the Space Needle, and much more. It was an absolute blast sharing this with her!

Earlier in the year, I convinced my family to celebrate Christmas in a small cabin in Lake Tahoe. The idea was to see what Christmas was like in the mountains and be close to Chelsea, Rob, and Hattie so that we could have a large family Christmas. Other than a slight medical issue for my mom, it worked pretty well. We got to play with Hattie in the snow, and I got to go downhill skiing for the first time. I figured the best place to ski for the first time was Squaw Valley. What better place to try than the host site of the 1960 Winter Olympics?! Kari was a little terrified of being my teacher, since Rob backed out of that role last minute. Oh well. She did a great job! We managed to make it down several greens and even a blue with her tutelage.

What a year! Even though we did not go anywhere super exotic, we had a pretty incredible year. It seems that they just get better and better!

African Adventure 2014 - Final Thoughts

Africa was an amazingly beautiful place. Our trip there was both everything and nothing like we expected. The big cities, such as Cape Town and Johannesburg, were surprisingly westernized. In Cape Town, we were continually amazed at both the beauty of the area and how "normal" life seemed. Out in the bush and more rural areas, Africa was every bit as wild as we expected. Kari, imagining a scene more like the Serengeti, and Ben, knowing it was more densely scrub like, had very different ideas of what our safari experience was going to be like. In the end, the bush was a different world than either of our imaginations.

Even though there were some similarities to America and the Western World, there were also many differences. First off, the general pace of life is much slower. The biggest and easiest example occurred when ordering food. A meal at a restaurant, not a fast food joint, was minimum an hour commitment, no matter what was ordered. A simple order of two burgers and fries would take well over an hour from the time we were seated to the time we had paid the bill and were leaving. It was incredible! Another difference with meal time was the requirement to ask for the bill, despite the waiter knowing we were done ordering anything. Without explicitly asking for the bill, it may never arrive until closing time.

Language was another big change. Though English, that is British English, was at least one of the official languages everywhere we went, every country and village had a different complement of languages. For instance, South Africa has 11 official languages with English and Afrikaans being some of the most widely spoken. Outside of the major cities, many different languages, such as Zulu and Swazi, were spoken, with each village having a different dialect or, often times, a completely different language. Most people we met on our travels knew 4-6 different languages. Thankfully, rudimentary English was one of them. It was challenging enough to communicate with other tourists from around the world.

Speaking of culture, mostly unknowingly, we were exposed to lots of different cultures. Like many big cities, there were street performers, dancing and playing drums, in Cape Town. Several of the lodges had dancers come in for performances in the evening. We also tried to talk with everyone we had contact with, our drivers and guides especially, to learn more about them and their culture. One of the most memorable experiences was the drive from Nelspruit to Chapungu, swinging through the Marula Market on the way. Our driver, Jason, shared a lot about his culture and the happenings in the region as we drove through several towns and cities. On the drive, we got more of a taste of how people live in this part of the world. Our drive also seemed to occur during the end of the school day, as many kids in their uniforms were walking home from school as we passed. Another memorable cultural experience was our walk in the Namibian village. We were able to have a more personal experience of their daily lives as they showed us around. The most surprising thing was the ubiquitousness of satellite dishes attached to mud-walled dwellings. We kept thinking we have a more permanently constructed structure and we do not have a satellite dish. Wild! While Ben was only vaguely interested in the cultural aspect, Kari was super excited to see this and hoped we could see more.

Onto the specifics of each location and our trip:

Cape Town

• Primi Royal is a very nice bed and breakfast with 10 total rooms a couple blocks from the beach in Camps Bay. We would be interested in staying here again or looking for something closer to the V & A Waterfront.
• Camps Bay is a beautiful beach near Cape Town, consisting of primarily restaurants and relaxing by the beach.
• Hussar Grill is an awesome steak restaurant, that we highly recommend.
• The Codfather is for the seafood lover, very fancy, that we recommend but is not essential for us when we return.
• We would like to go shark diving in winter, take a ferry to Robben Island, learn to surf in Muizenberg, and climb Table Mountain.

Chapungu Luxury Tented Camp in Thornybush Game Reserve

• It was our absolute, favorite accommodation on this trip, possibly ever.
• It has awesome rooms/tents, great food, great service, incredible staff, and loads of personal attention.
• Four nights was a good amount of time.
• It has 8 tents for a maximum of 16 total people, so it is a very intimate setting.
• The rangers and trackers are great but the enjoyment of game drives is a bit group dependent.
• The jeeps work together to find the animals.
• We would absolutely love to go back.

Chobe Safari Lodge

• It is a beautiful location and set up.
• It is more geared towards large tour groups with hundreds of rooms/guests.
• Meals were predominately buffet style; food was not impressive.
• It was a cool opportunity to go to a Namibian village.
• There are loads of monkey pests.
• There was a lack of personal attention.
• It was a cool experience, but we are not interested in returning.

Victoria Falls Hotel

• It is a very fancy accommodation; beautiful and luxurious.
• It has decent personal attention despite its large size.
• The showers were too small for Ben.
• It has great views and proximity to Victoria Falls.
• It offered unique activities.
  • Elephant-backed safari was a little depressing; not likely to do again.
  • Lion encounter was very educational and interesting. We really enjoyed the experience.
• The food was super expensive.
• There were lots of aggressive peddlers on the streets; can be intimidating.
• The Falls were beautiful and a fun experience.
• Once was likely enough and we are unlikely to return.

Johannesburg

• African Rock Hotel
  • It is very beautiful, but it is not really close to anything; a bit isolated.
  • More than what we need for a night waiting to catch a plane in the morning.
• Though we will most likely avoid Johannesburg, there are a couple hotels by the airport that we could walk to instead of needing a transfer.

Transfers

• Ilios Travel was an excellent group in South Africa. We always seemed to have friendly, informative drivers, that were happy to share about the area.
• Wild Horizons was a good group in Zimbabwe.
• Schoeman Tours was also good in South Africa.

Flights

• Never again will we take the multi-layover flight from the US to Africa.
• Non-stop from here on out through either ATL, JFK, or IAD.

Travel Agent

• We booked our trip with Ramona at Go2Africa. She was super helpful and put together a fabulous trip!

When we return to Africa, we would love to go back to South Africa, particularly Cape Town and Thornybush. Outside of that, we would be interested in seeing other parts of the country, including Port Elizabeth and the Garden Route. We are also interested in seeing Durban and the Zulu people, as well as other parts of Africa like Kenya and Tanzania. Ben is now open to renting a car for portions of the trip, though transfers were incredibly simple. South Africa was an absolutely beautiful place, that we cannot wait to return to!

Click here for photos from our African Adventure!