Happy Holidays Friends and Family,

I know most of you reading this are in, or near, Wyoming and are suffering from what I hear is one of the coldest winters in a really long time. Nonetheless I hope that you are all in good spirits for the holidays and are enjoying yourselves, and situation, as much as possible. Lindsay and I have been trying to call as many of you as we can to wish happy holidays and to keep you informed about our whereabouts and plans. Unfortunately because we have talked with a lot of you we haven’t posted, except pictures, in awhile but here we go.

So in Lindsay’s last post we were in Arequipa, Peru, a little past halfway through our “Big Bus Fun Trip”. From there we had what was looking like a long trip down through the Andes into Northern Chile and then we were going to cross over into Northern Argentina and see the city of Salta before zipping down (about 20 hr bus ride) to Mendoza. But when we were in Arequipa we found a flight from a kind of small time airline to Santiago for less then the busing would have cost. It was one of the funniest flights either of us has ever been on because it was practically a flying bus. The flight took off from Arequipa and landed first in Arica, Chile - which was about a 30 min flight. Then we got off and did customs and continued on to Antofagasta, Chile – which was another 45 min flight. This time only some of the passengers got off and new people got on. Then we flew to Santiago, Chile – which was maybe a 90 min flight.

We spent a couple days in Santiago which is a HUGE city. As most of you know, or have gathered from this blog, we aren’t really big city people. That being said Santiago is actually a pretty cool place. It felt very safe and friendly (we had a complete stranger stop and ask us if we needed help because we were looking at a map, this isn’t that much different from other places we have been except that he didn’t try and sell us something afterwards). On the downside of things Santiago is expensive like all big cities. From Santiago we took a beautiful 8 hr bus ride over the Andes to Mendoza, Argentina.

This is where we are now. We have gotten a short-term apartment here in Mendoza (which was enough of a hassle it might warrant its own blog post) to spend the holidays and figure out what we want to do next. Mendoza is known for its wine and its proximity to Mount Aconcagua – which is the highest mountain outside of the Himalayas. Mendoza is bigger then we thought (about 850,000) but it still maintains kind of a smaller town feel. Unfortunately we are only at about 2,000 ft altitude here so we should probably change our blog name. It is really hot, which makes us feel even worse for those of you who are suffering through such bad weather right, but we do have an extra bedroom for anyone who can’t take the cold any longer. We have already taken a regional tour which included a short trip to Aconcagua National Park and we are going to take some wine tours soon. So hopefully we will have more to post later about wine tours, our future plans, and anything else that we do and think y’all be interested in.

-Beacon

Mostly Machu Picchu

We climbed up, and down, this ladder and five others like it to get to the top of Putucusi Mountain in order to see Machu Picchu from a distant right before sunset. This ladder continues for another 100 ft out of this picture frame... It was pretty scarry.

The nearby town of Aguas Caliente nestled in the forested Andes from half way up Putucusi Mountain.

More of the Andes mountain range. On this trip we have seen so many different ecosystems housed in this mountain range, from high altitude paramoes to densely covered cloud forests as seen here. Our Machu Picchu guide said that the Incans built more trails then the Romans, and looking at the sorrounding vegetation it no wonder why. This trail that took us to the top of Putucusi is actually an old Incan trail.

A view of Putucusi from Machu Picchu.

Machu Picchu was covered with fog almost the whole time we were there. It really added a lot to the experience. It just made the whole place seem even more other worldly.

Machu Picchu was a sanctuary for Incan itellectuals. It wasn't around for very long before it was abandoned but how amazing it must have been when it was in occupied. We are so lucky that it escaped pilaging and is still so well preserved for people to see.

And of course without the skills of such a talented photographer there would be no way to capture the beauty of Machu Picchu.

When it was for a sacred building the Incans would carve the rocks so that they fit together perfectly and they did it all without morter either.
Now we are out of Peru... but still in the Andes. This was taken during the bus ride from Santiago to Mendoza. We climbed, and climbed, and climbed up this road and when we couldn't climb any further we drove through a mountain via a really long tunnel. When we came out the other side we were in Argentina.

Pictures from Trujillo, Peru

This is a polychrome frieze from the Huaca de la Luna (Temple of the Moon). This is original paint that has been preserved for centuries by sand. The Moche people built this temple over 6 centuries to 600 AD. It has survived numerous El Ninos and is still being painstakingly excavated.
This is a very small portion of Chan Chan which is the world's largest adobe built city. It covers 28 sq kilometers and was home to 60,000 people around 1300 AD. The city is divided into 9 different subcities. Only one of which is open to the public.
This cute little guy is a Hairless Peruvian Dog. They were always hanging around the different temples.
These are traditional reed built fishing boats in the fishing village of Huanchaco. The locals here are amoung the few that still know how to build and use these boats that date back 2,000 years.
We got to watch this guy set out for some evening fishing. The boats only last a few months before they become water logged and another replaces it. Absolutely amazing watching these guys paddling out into the open ocean.

southern peru

Friends, family, maybe random blog readers from the internet,

Jeff and I have made our way almost through Peru; we are now relaxing and soaking up sun on the terrace in Arequipa. Last you had read we were to fly to Cuzco, the famed belly button of the world, this saved us our sanity from 24 possible bus hours. We found the best little hostel in the colonial city close to the main square. Cuzco is busy with tourists wanting to explore the ancient trials left by the Incans- who’s to blame them the Incan ruins are absolutely stunning. The large amount of tourists encourages the emergence of touts hawking city and Inca Trail tours or over-priced restaurants.

We tried to visit as many sights in the city and around as we could without wearing ourselves out: the ruins of Saqsaywaman and the art museums of the city. Of course the main purpose to head to the 11,000 feet high city was to launch a visit to the Big MP (Machu Picchu). We opted out of going with a tour so that we could travel the way we chose. We toyed with the idea of hiking the 4-day Inca Trail but decided that wasn’t our priority. Our tour began early in the morning with a Vanaxi (I believe Jeff already explained this mode of transportation) ride to Ollantaytambo, a fabulous Incan city ruin a few hours from Cuzco. We took a tour of the complex before catching the train (the only way to travel to Machu Picchu Pueblo not via the Inca Trail) to the little crummy town that would house us for the evening. We arrived, checked in to our hostel, and immediately set off to hike up an adjacent mountain.

Although the mountain Putucusi is quite a bit lower in elevation, ≈ 8,500 feet, than the places we have been living; the hike was VERTICAL with parts only possible by climbing up established wooden ladders. We were unsure we would make it, especially since we were racing the daylight to not get caught in the forest in the dark. But as you can see in the pictures we made it! It was worth every pain; the view across the valley to Machu Picchu was gorgeous. The evening was uneventful and we went to bed early to be up to make one of the first busses (5:30) up the mountain to the ruins of Machu Picchu.

I had wanted to go early to beat the crowds and to see the ruins blanketed in fog as they are known to be in the early morning. We of course had no idea that the city was going to remain engulfed all day. Nevertheless we had a great visit of the majestic citadel accompanied by our guide Ernesto. We stayed as long as we could in the rain walking around the ruins before returning to the town and taking the train back to Ollantaytambo and then vanaxi to Cuzco.

We stayed one more day in the city and took another night bus to the white city of Arequipa, Peru’s second largest city. It’s called the white city because many of the old colonial buildings are constructed using sillar, a white volcanic stone. The view almost anywhere in the city is fascinating because of the volcanoes: there are always three to be seen on the horizon all over 19000 feet. We have been here for a few days and will set off again on Sunday (the 13th) in hopes of making it to Mendoza by the 17th, so we are at some type of a destination for Christmas.

We love you all and think of you often,
Red

Photos of the Southern Peru

Saqsaywaman

Ollantaytambo

Our mountain, Putucusi, with rays of light shinning on Machu Picchu in the background

Us wet and cold, but happy at the big MP

out of our hostel window, "el Misti"

Big Bus Fun Trip

Our “Big Bus Fun Trip” is underway and going strong (which is only easy to say right now because we’re not currently in a bus). To bring everyone up to date, we left Cuenca on November 28^th. We took a morning bus to an un-noteworthy town north of the Peru/ Ecuador border called Machala. From there we were able to catch a CIFA bus that crossed said border to another un-noteworthy town called Tumbes, Peru. This was our best option for crossing the border because otherwise it is supposedly a real pain in the ass requiring multiple bus/ taxi/ walking changeovers. According to other travel blogs the border crossing here is one of the most dangerous in South America (we had no real issues and were only consciously cheated out of $10). From Tumbes we hooped into a van-taxi (a vanaxi if you will aka combis) with about 10 other people and headed to Mancora, which is Peru’s beach town-of-choice. We got there around 8 pm which put us at about 11 hrs of travel for our first day. That night we stayed at a horrible hostel which I don’t want to get into right now because it’s still too fresh. However, we were able to get into another hostel the next morning and have a great couple days in Mancora. We spent those days burning on the beach, watching surfers, and drinking cervezas – officially we didn’t drink any beers on Sunday because it was elections and for some reason Peruvians aren’t aloud to sell alcohol during elections.

After two days of relaxing we were ready to hit the road again so we took a day bus to Trujillo. It was hard to find a good bus to Trujillo because most departed at times that would have delivered us to Trujillo in the middle of the night. We had only one option which was with the company El Dorado, which to say the least isn’t the best bus company. For starters we had an unscheduled bus change in Chiclayo not once but twice (we got off our bus for who knows what reason onto another bus only to find out 10 minutes later that the new bus was broken). We got onto the third bus, which the driver then scraped up against the huge metal exit gate, to figure out that there weren’t as many seats as the first bus and some kid ended up having to stand... for the next 4 hrs. The rest of the ride was uneventful except for when we drove through a cloud of smoke caused by a roadside fire.

We got into Trujillo around 8 pm again without any reservations (fast learners) but this time with an idea of where we wanted to stay. Our hostel was a couple blocks from the main square in an old colonial mansion – it had great wooden floors, quirky setup rooms, and courtyards. Trujillo is a really cool colonial city. We spent the next day touring Chan Chan – the biggest adobe built town in the world – and Huacas del Sol and de la Luna. All three sites were awe-inspiring but if I had to rate them Huaca de la Luna would be 1^st for it amazingly preserved painted friezes from 2000 yrs ago, Chan Chan 2^nd for sheer size (28 sq km), and Huaca del Sol 3^rd basically because it is just a giant mound of mostly-washed away adobe bricks.

We spent the next day hanging out around town and then got a night bus to Lima. We didn’t just get any night bus, we got the ‘realamente cama 180’ aka the ‘real bed 180’ – it was pretty sweet. We were also in the very front row on the second level of the bus so we could see out the windshield (for better or for worst). We arrived in Lima at 730 am, got a taxi to the airport, and were in a plane flying to Cusco by 1030 am. Now I know this is the “Big Bus Fun Trip” and we kind of cheated by flying to Cusco, but the bus ride would’ve been 24 hrs and we flew in just over 1 hr. You do the math. Anyways that pretty much brings us up to date. We are in Cusco right now and planning on going to Machu Picchu in a couple days. I will post some pictures soon. I hope everyone is well.

-Beacon

Plans for the future.

We have now been living in Cuenca for almost a month, which means that we need to commit to another month on our apartment´s lease or move on. We have really enjoyed Cuenca for its wonderful art and variety of food. But because there isn´t a possiblity of getting a work visa here we have decided to move on. Our destination is Bariloche, Argentina. We have looked into flying down there but the cost of tickets is out of our budget so we have decided to bus. It is going to be a long bus trip. But this way we get to see Peru. We are planning on taking our time so we can see as much as possible. Destinatons on our list include the beach, Chan Chan (an ancient adobe city), Machu Picchu, El Misti Volcano, colca canyon, mendoza... I don´t know thats starting to sound like a lot so we´ll see and keep everyone posted. Before we go I thought I´d post some last pictures of things from Cuenca.

The New Cathedral. This is right on the main plaza downtown.

This is our apartment building. The photo is taken from the 84 stairs across the river which we climb multiple time a day to get to downtown.

We saw this awesome pot we saw at a museum. I don´t remember which culture it came from but it is pre-Incan.

Vilcabamba

A little glimpse into the town of Vilcabamba. A nice little town nestled against the surrounding mountains.

This picture was taken from the bus on the way back. We must have climbed to over 12,000 ft. The views were just expansive, and luckily there were some clouds to make for good photos.

Podocarpus National Park

A nice relief from the hot and humid day at La Cascada Poderosa (the strong waterfall).

The Eastern side of the Podocarpus which is mostly cloud forest.

A catepillar which we saw on the trail. Look, don´t touch.

I don´t remember the name of this waterfall exactl. I think it translated to something like "the little joker".

We didn´t have to cross this bridge... but we did just so that we could say that we had. The biggest fear was probably tetnus (which we are now vaccinated against).

Pictures of Zamora

The view of town from our hotel room. Every morning we woke up to clouds hidding the mountains and town.
This is the plaza and church. Both were really nice.

traveling

We returned home to Cuenca on Friday night form our little vacation to the South of Ecuador (this is a ridiculous statement…true in some sense and a very enjoyable concept to toy with). We needed to travel; Cuenca is lovely but without having a job, school, and a purpose it is easy to get wrapped up in one’s own head of “what the hell am I doing here?” So you get out of the city and all of a sudden drinking a Pilsner (local beer) at a café on the plaza in a silly little town gives you purpose, “it is all so clear to me now.”

The trip started with a four and half hour bus ride through the winding mountains to Loja (pretty much the biggest city in the region, 160,000 people) where we hopped off that bus and hopped onto another within 15 minutes that took us to Zamora. The primary reason we wanted to go down to this part of Ecuador was to visit the Parque Nacional de Podecarpus (Ecuador park baggin!) which is a pretty extensive area at least in diversity: if you visit it on one side, more by Loja, you have similar terrain as the Cajas park (see older post for photos). Conversely, on the Zamora side you are considered in the Orient of Ecuador which is the lush Amazonish jungle part of Ecuador. I am sure by now you see the draw that Jeff and I had to go to Zamora.

Other than the national park the town of Zamora didn’t offer that much, it was cute but very quiet (other than all the roosters). We took a taxi the 8 kilometers to the park entrance early Monday morning and arranged for the man to come and pick us up at 4 in the afternoon. From the entrance there was still a 1 km. hike into the ranger station just to weed out the timid hikers. From the ranger station there was a map showing the network of trails mounted to the wall. There was no ranger to provide us any interpretation of the map (since it was hand-drawn with no indication of trail length or elevation change), so I took a picture with the digital camera and we set off to see something. Although the cloud forest was pulsing with life it was sadly not orchid season so there were not many to be seen.

We had a terrific time; we saw a couple of waterfalls and swam in the river only ever seeing a lone Spaniard and the ranger who was at his post as we were leaving the park. We foolishly thought we would hike the mirador trail (lookout) and try to get a vantage point because the canopy was so thick it was impossible to get a photo showing the lush green valley. The trail was super steep and covered with fallen leaves which made it slippery to boot. We probably climbed 80% of it before we decided it wasn’t worth it since the climb down might be harder than the way up. Later we found out that there used to be a rope handrail on the trail to make it not an “on all 4s” scramble up the mountain.

We had planned on only spending the one day in the park and heading out on Tuesday. The plan changed while waiting for our bus we watched the longest parade I have ever seen (it must have been for the entire state, Zamora is the capital) and later found out that busses weren’t even running to Loja due to the parade!?!? Sometimes you just shrug your shoulders and say well that is inconvenient and doesn’t make any sense and change your plans. So we went back to the park hiked the last couple of trails we missed the first day and sat by the river and painted.

We got out of Zamora on Wednesday morning and headed to Vilcabamba (tiny town south of Loja), because it was hailed as the place to go and relax, get massages, and enjoy spa services offered by all the hotels. We stayed at a silly cheep hotel that had a pool, Jacuzzi, and Turkish bath which was all very nice. It was a very touristy little town (more expats than travelers) which made for a lot of really good food options. We enjoyed the little hippy village but all the expats gave the town a feeling of already being discovered and exploited by the Europeans, Americans, and Canadians (this is just my jaded perception). From Vilcabamba we returned back to Cuenca with no hassle.

Hope the long story blogs work for you all and you don’t get bored midway though, we really enjoy sharing our experiences this way. Hope all is well where you are…sorry to those in Laramie with the snowy weather.

Love, Red.

My New Panama Hat

Last week, while Lindsay and I were wondering around town, I was flagged down from across the street by a man who was very concerned about my bald head being exposed to the sun. He was a really nice guy who immediately went to work trying to find me an appropriate hat. We had to go upstairs to his studio because my head is too large for standard hats. When we got upstairs we realized that we had been flagged down by Alberto Pulla who was written up as the most famous panama hat maker in Cuenca. Which says a lot because Cuenca is known for its panama hats. Why? I have no idea. But they even have a museum dedicated to them. Alberto Pulla is over 70 and has been makin hats since he was 6 years old. His studio was filled with paintings of him making hats, articles and photos published about him, and of course lots of hats. he took it upon himself to find me the perfect hat. I had a little say which one I got I pretty much just gave myself over to his judgement and he picked me out one just for me. so now I finally have a panama hat which I promised I´d get for Deb. You were right Deb its exactly what I needed.

Jeff (Beacon)

P.S.
Last week we were at a fireworks show downtown and the President showed up. So thats 2 of the last 10 Ecuadorian Presidents that we have had the chance to see or meet. Oh Yeah this is a small country.

We finally got out of the city.

As i am sure many of you are aware Jeff and I are not city folk, i have moments of love for the bustle but I enjoy my mountains and the fresh air compared to the smelly bus exhaust. So Jeff and I took a day trip to the national park south of Cuenca called Cajas. It is a rather extreme panorama: a conundrum of dry but also marshy land with lakes around every bend. We thought that since we are seasoned hikers and coming from relatively high altitude background that we could handle a hike that was up a mountain…we would just take our time. We ended up finding a “easier” hike that just traversed around the many mountains with some elevation change- it still felt like a punch to the lungs. Just marching up a little incline would leave us breathless and in need of a break. After all our hike started somewhere at 12,500ft and reached over 13,000 ft. It was great to get some fresh air and see a few birds, if only we could have been able to stop (we took the bus back to the city so no control over the breaks) at one of the little mountain restaurants on the side of the road advertizing fresh trout.
Today we are back in the city, but planning our next tour which will be to Loja in the southern part of the country to visit el parquet nacional de Podocarpus…a little bit more of lush tropical hiking maybe with orchid viewing.

Hope all is well,
Lindsay (red)
p.s. we saw llamas

Pumapungo

This is from Pumapungo which is an old ruin from the previous city before Cuenca was built. It was left by the Inca´s long before Cuenca was settled so there is only speculation about the size and siqnificance.

Too adorable

This whole week has been here in Cuenca holiday to celebrate 'living basin'. On Sunday we went to this park where there was a festival celebrating tradional food and garments. We watched these kids dance for awhile to some traditional music. Our adorable meter could´ve only been higher if there would have been a dancing panda in the mix.

The first picture is from the bridge over the river in front of our apartment. The second is one of the many Churchs around downtown.

The New Cathedral and some cool grafiti in Cuenca

'Mital del Mundo' aka The Equator

Hello From Cuenca

So Lindsay and I decided that Quito wasn’t for us and high tailed it to Cuenca. It was a pretty fun experience because we weren’t able to buy plane tickets ahead of time due to erratic internet service. So Monday morning we packed up, paid our hostel owner, and took a taxi to the airport hoping that we would be able to buy tickets on the spot. Believe it or not, it was really easy and an hour later we were in Guayaquil and 30 minutes after that, Cuenca. The plane ride was so short they literally started the descent one minute after they finished ascending. So in a little over 2 hours we were here. It would’ve taken 12 hours by bus but it also would’ve been a beautiful mountainous drive. We didn’t get to see any volcanoes piercing through the clouds during our flight (which we heard was a common view), but we did see an amazing mountain range coming out of the sea of clouds.

Cuenca is much more our cup of tea. It is a smaller more manageable size and it has a lot of art. We are currently staying at ‘EL Cafecito’ hostel and bar, but tomorrow we move into our own apartment. We found an apartment for rent right along the river and close to downtown. It’s nothing special but it is big and cheap. We also didn’t need to sign a year long lease which is really nice because it is looking like we might not be here that long.

That brings me to another realization that we have had. It being that we might have a harder time finding a job then we expected. It sounds like it is really hard and expensive to get a work visa in Ecuador and they don’t allow the border jumping for a couple days to renew tourist visas. Who knew? But that doesn’t mean that we will be home any sooner. Now we are thinking of spending 1-3 months exploring Ecuador and then continuing south. Travel Peru, manage the mountains through Chile, and ultimately make it to/near Mendoza. Wine anyone? We’ll be in touch soon. Hope everyone is doing well and braced for the snow that I hear is coming.

-Jeff (Beacon)