Starring on Radio Salkantay (Cuzco, Peru)

I've now been in Peru for nearly 1 month so it seems like it's time to update. Things have been both good and bad and I generally haven't been sure what to write about.

The people and sights of Peru have been amazing. I've seen Lima, Cuzco, Arequipa, and Macchu Picchu. I've also done two multi-day treks, one in and out of the Colca Canyon (twice as deep as the Grand Canyon and in close competition with another canyon in Peru to be the deepest one in the world), and another trek through Salkantay pass at 4600 meters to Macchu Picchu, both of which were impressive. The canyon was really interesting because it has a desert landscape with dust and cactus, but it actually has several true oases in it. When you approach an oasis, you can be standing near a cactus but looking at lush green fields and trees, which makes for quite a cool contrast.

The canyon adventure was fun because I just left on a whim with a group of 3 Germans I met at my hostel in Arequipa 2hrs after arriving there. To set the scene: we have one 25 y/o German guy who speaks great English and decent Spanish. Two German girls just out of high school, one of which speaks good English and the other which is not at all comfortable speaking in English, neither of whom speak much Spanish. And me with good Spanish but zero German. They had decided it would be better to figure out the route/trip on our own than to hire a guide, which sounded more fun to me as well. However, the only map we had was a vague artistic representation, and the trip recommendations of some French guys who the Germans had met (note we're now operating in 4 languages). Not being sure what to do, we tried to ask some locals (only 2/4 of us can understand the responses). We also met some Germans who were doing the same thing but seemed better prepared and gave some ideas (all of which were lost on me). As you can imagine, this was quite (for lack of a better word) a clusterfuck. The first day we walked for about 6hrs, only 2-3 of which were actually in the right direction. However, miraculously we made it through and had a great time.

Salkantay (the name of a mountain and a glacier) was also really beautiful. On the first day, our group voted to skip the first 4hrs of the hike on a gravel road to see a mountain lake. The skippage part involved loading us all up in the back of a truck (standing room only) as we flew up the switchbacks of aforementioned gravel road, all for the bargain price of 5 soles each. This turned out to be nearly the entire hike that we were supposed to have done for the day. At this point Michelle surmised that we weren't going to hike at all because on every leg of the trip there was going to be some friend of the guide who could make a killing by driving us instead. But, we did walk to the mountain lake, which was absolutely unbelievable. It was a slightly opaque teal-azure blue, surrounded by glacier and snow-capped mountains which were reflecting on its surface. This part of the hike was mostly unobstructed views of beautiful mountains, with mountain horses and cows randomly grazing along the way (no fences, but apparently they all belonged to people). The following day after crossing the high Salkantay pass, we started to descend into boulder-strewn valleys and then finally into green jungle alongside a rushing river. Macchu Picchu itself was also really incredible to see. We hiked up a mountain across from it, as well as Huayna Picchu (the mountain within the complex), getting 3 different views of it, and I just hung out and wandered around Macchu Picchu for almost a whole day.

The Salkantay trek I did with a tour agency and a guide, and like all things in Peru, many things turned out to be not quite what the agency had told us. The final one of these, which we didn't find out until our last day in Macchu Picchu, was that we were on the 9:30pm train back to Cuzco, arriving at 2AM (others in the group were scattered on 5-6pm trains). We had woken up at 3:30am to start climbing up to Macchu Picchu, and were generally exhausted from hiking all day long for multiple days anyway, and by the time we got to Cuzco we were utterly exhausted. We had to take a taxi from the center to the clinic (where we live), and shoved all our backpacks and 4 selves into a tiny hatchback taxi. (Now one thing about the clinic is that there are hundreds of mysterious keys to all the different doors, as well as ways to bolt the doors from the inside. Past incidents just in my few weeks here have included a worker getting locked inside the garage for 24hrs because they didn't tell him they had changed one of the locks, Sally being locked out of the kitchen for an entire weekend, and various persons constantly being locked out at night because someone decides to bolt the front door from the inside.) Fearing we would be locked out, as usual, I jumped out of the taxi and started working on trying to get the door open (surprise: it didn't open). We then started trying to bang on the door and yell, but we figured no one was inside because everyone who lived there was on vacation. About 20 minutes later we gave up and decided we would have to go find a hotel for the night. At this point I realized that I didn't have my small backpack which I had handed to Michelle and Alyssa in the taxi since my lap was full with my big backpack which hadn't fit in the trunk. With my passport inside. And my camera. And all my pictures of the trek. Needless to say this was a bad night.

The following morning after coming home from our hotel, we came to find out that Rita (the cook) had actually been spending the night at the clinic specifically to let us in. Obviously, this was not helpful since she fell asleep with the door bolted and failed to wake up to let us in. But apparently us being locked out was our fault anyway. The clinic director had the bright idea of putting an advertisement on Radio Salkantay, which supposedly everyone in Cuzco listens to, about my lost backpack, and was certain that at the very least my passport would be returned. So, in the afternoon we headed off in search of the Radio Salkantay station where a woman who happens to come to our clinic for her healthcare took down our ad for the following morning's ad hour, and suggested that we go ask the guy who was currently broadcasting sports hour to also give a shout-out. He finally came out to talk to us during a commercial break, and decided that it would be better if he actually interviewed me on the show. So that's how I came to have a 5-minute spot on the soccer show, begging someone to please bring my backpack back. Unfortunately, whoever has my passport and my camera will not be bringing it back it seems. Some Peruvian is dying their hair blonde and moving to America. And I am stuck here to be a Cusquena forever.