Nervous American

Travel, history, social anxiety and etc. from Laura Schreier. Currently of Somerville, Mass. Follow on Twitter @lschreierNE

[nervousamerican]

Mallorca, Spain: Nobody vomited, not even once

I told a German friend I was traveling to Mallorca. This was very amusing to him. Much jolly German laughter.

Which, hey, I get it. For Germans and Brits, Mallorca is like the European equivalent of those spring break beaches that I never went to in college. When they arrive on the island, they flock to the nearest trashy resort hotel and drink until they fact-plant into the sand. 

Mallorca has tried to clean up its act (see 2013 articles such as “Vomiting in public is not on’: Why the party’s over for Mallorca’s boozy British tourists” and “Majorca says adios to hard-partying German tourists”) but the island’s tourism officials’ plan for getting rid of the riff-raff is to instead court a classier (read: wealthier) group of tourists to come there. 

So in going there, my choices were either normal-person Mallorca, which is trashy, loud and urinates freely in the streets, or “new” Mallorca, which caters to rich jagoffs who can probably literally smell the poor on you.

My friends and I chose to believe in option No. 3: Places on the island that had survived the resort-ificiation of the place. So like, beaches that were both open to the public and also not entirely covered in cigarette butts -- a happy medium. We heard it existed, and we figured we’d find it.

Success. Sa Calobra beach, a little pebble cove on the west coast of Mallorca. 

Sa Calobra was tough to get to: You have to take a boat and walk through an actual cave to get there and you’ll be dying of heat the whole time. Also you have to go sorta early to beat the crowds. But once I saw that water I lost my mind. 

I swam out into perfect clear ocean and looked down to watch little electric-blue fishes swim far below my feet; I attained a blissful, childlike contentment that lasted a whole 30-45 minutes. Worth the whole trip, right there. 

(Did I jump off that ledge? I did not. Psyching oneself up to jump is always so stressful, and I was not having stress right then)

View from the boat to Sa Calobra! It was all right I guess

Random cave. That water looks fake. It’s not, though.

Other worth-it areas -- Deia, a town on the north coast.

Sigh. The pics never quite capture how charming all this stuff is.

Bonus: Open-air Stations of the Cross around town.

Doorway in Deia. Town was full of this kind of stuff. We just walked around and were delighted and ate paella and had some of the most respectable sangria I’ve ever consumed, and I’m including my own personal sangria recipe in that ranking so you know I’m serious. 

We enjoyed the lovely town of Soller as well. You can hike and bike around the hillsides there, but it was far too hot so we just drank tinto de verano and wandered around looking at stuff and feeling pretty good.

Beach by the Soller marina.

Soller’s city center, w/ adorable small child.

Probably the most whimsical bank I have ever seen.

Our trip also included a couple days in Palma, the island’s major city and only a short bus ride from the north coast. Not a ton to say about Palma except that there are decent beaches not far from the city center, that its cathedral and main streets are super charming, and that its balcony game is on point. Observe:

Blam.

This was on a dental clinic, no joke.

This was designed by Gaudi, according to a passer-by who seemed legit.

SEE THE LITTLE CREATURES IN THE STONE? Is that not awesome? I love that so much.

Obligatory cathedral shot

So, see, even in August -- the apex of tourist madness in Europe -- Mallorca did right by us. The only exceptions were the massive hordes of tourists (lots of families, actually, despite Mallorca’s rep) that flood the center of a Saturday in Palma, and I would categorize its airport experience as among the top most chaotic tourist airports I’ve ever been to. It was like someone loosed an Italian night club on baggage claim, and a bunch of limeys were clearly there for stag parties. But then they all got into their buses and headed toward their resorts, and we were left in peace. Mallorca, I am fond of you.

[nervousamerican]

St. Augustine: See? Florida can have nice things

We, as a nation, love to rag on Florida. It’s because Florida has weird crime; the rest of the country enjoys feeling superior about this.

But hey, Florida’s all right in spots. St Augustine, for example, is very charming and you should visit it. It is the oldest city in America (eat it, Jamestown!*), and its 450 years have seen sieges, naval battles and pirate attacks, as well as a fling with Gilded Age respectability, so the city center is a pleasingly jumbled mix of eras and vibes. There’s a heavy touristic overlay to all of this, but the kitschiness here is low-key and entertaining, instead of being cloying and unbearable.

*Not a cannibalism pun. I am merely trash-talking.

Rows of low-slung, Spanish-colonial buildings line narrow streets; a white stone naval fort occupies the harbor; 19th century Spanish Renaissance hotels tower gorgeously; gracious Victorian-style houses now hold restaurants and bed & breakfasts. And outside the perimeter of the city center, breezy little bungalows with cute little porches make the whole place feel very Florida. In a good way.

The entryway to town

As for activities, ghost tours dominate. As soon as the sun starts to sink and the day cools off, you see tour guides in cheeseball pirate getups marching along the streets with a bunch of tourists ambling along behind. I know some of these tours are actual history tours and not just nonsense “ghost” tours, but it’s kinda hard to find ones that are rigorously historical (my preference) as opposed to ones that fudge the facts in favor of entertainment value. St. Augustine also appears to have a few tours that are the equivalent of those ghost-hunter reality TV shows where suggestible people wander around old schoolhouses and freak out every time a pipe clangs. We avoided these.

My friends and I wound up with an entertaining-but-full-of-shit storyteller guy who was probably faking his Louisiana Cajun accent. He took us around graveyards and past old houses, through a few side streets we would have missed otherwise, and told us amusingly macabre tall tales. And thus, we passed a pleasant hour.

The main drag

Castillo San Marcos, the old fort where townspeople (and their livestock) used to hole up during colonial sieges. 

My other recommendations: 

1) Visit the old fort and listen to the guide talk about siege warfare (it’s all about supply lines!)

2) Stop in the cathedral -- its interior is different from any Catholic church you’ll find in the Spanish world, which is a nice change.

3) Wander around the old city center and eat ice cream after every meal.

4) Go to St. Augustine beach -- it’s a 20-minute drive or so from the old town, but it’s all soft sand and pleasant waves. 

We missed a ton of other tourist opportunities because we just ran out of time, but there are tours of the fancy hotels, tours of the historic lighthouse, and plenty of delightfully tacky shopping opportunities if you’re into that.

As an aside: Do you think Florida cares very much whether the rest of us make fun of it? I imagine it doesn’t. Either way, I expect some other state is going to have a run of high-profile, interesting crime one of these days, and we’ll all turn our sights on it, instead. My money’s on Delaware. I feel like Delaware is due.

[nervousamerican]

Ikea + Middle Earth = Iceland

I kept thinking about our Peru trip as we traveled around Iceland. Aside from both having epic landscapes, the two places are almost hilariously different from one another. Peru was all about wandering through dusty Andean towns, passing Quechua women with Bowler hats on their heads and lumps of coca in their mouths, watching the eeriness of the storms rolling over the dry altiplano. There, I had the constant sense of being far from home. You are a stranger here.

Iceland was the opposite. English spoken everywhere; traffic laws politely obeyed; water reassuringly potable, street grids sensibly laid out, animals properly collared. Such an easy place to be! And the trim little houses were so charmingly Scandinavian. I admire any people who can somehow make cement or corrugated metal houses look sleek and well-designed.

Even a lot of the strange, interesting things, like the sharp cliffs and misty waterfalls -- I mean, I know that stuff. I’ve been reading about that stuff in fairy tales and fantasy novels since I was but a nerdling in elementary school. Those cultural connections run deep. 

So Iceland in June is all about being delighted by views. Your only worries are whether you’ll be on time for your glacier hike, or maybe where you’ll find dinner once you pass Vik on the Ring Road. I’m all for challenging travel, but I admit it was nice.

Highlights from our jaunt:

Geysers! As I already mentioned, I have a childlike delight in them.

Pockets of geothermal water by the Geysir. The crust of earth is very thin over the water -- our guide told us that tourists wander off the path sometimes, where they break through the surface and burn their feet.

Reykjavik, by city hall. Charming, no?

One of our travels took us to Thingvellir, which is -- literally -- straight out of a Viking saga. Viking chieftains met there to hash out local governance issues, and the heroes in the Icelandic sagas reference it frequently. It was the earliest form of parliament in Europe, and I am willing to bet that it’s more fun than the usual city council meeting nowadays. Certainly more beards and axes.

Stone walls form a corridor up to a high point, where the rock wall forms an amphitheater-type gathering spot for the vikings. See? Straight out of dwarf-heavy genre fiction.

The Thingvellir.

The view from the top.

Oh, you want waterfalls? Iceland has your waterfalls:

There are lots.

And ice? Indeed.

The chunks of ice coming off the glacier at Jökulsárlón. The giant Vatnajokull glacier sends tongues of ice out over the land, but in this spot, it pushes ice into the lagoon and then they drift out to sea. 

I highly recommend a glacier hike as well. It was like stepping onto a different planet: A five minute walk, a short jaunt across a wooden slat that served as a bridge, and we were on a piece of ice the size of a town. You’re suddenly walking on a moonscape.

One of the crevasses. Iceland’s glaciers are gritty from the constant belching of the volcanoes.

We got pickaxes and crampons for our little hike, and hauled ourselves around over the ridges and up and down the ice hills until bad weather forced us to turn around early. Not before drinking some glacier water and feeling very pleased with ourselves, however.

 Members of our little group.

And then it was all, “get in the rental car, drive safely down the well-constructed little road, eat a nice meal without fear of food poisoning, marvel at the fact that it is still broad daylight at 11 p.m., go to sleep.” Enjoyable, and easy.

[nervousamerican]

Unexpected things about Iceland that are still a mystery to me

Iceland post two of three.

Feel free to tell me what’s up, if you know...

1) Why hot dogs? Iceland has delicious hot dogs. It’s a thing there. I understand hot dogs are a big deal in Denmark, too, and Denmark owned Iceland for many years, so there’s that. But why hot dogs in Denmark, then? Seems like an odd thing to embrace, although admittedly they’ve done a bang-up job of improving on your standard American dog.

2) Why a museum full of pickled animal penises? Reykjavik is home to a Phallological Museum, where you pay ten bucks and wander around a room looking at jars of giant severed dongs from animals like whales and bulls and goats and stuff. It’s somehow even less appealing than it sounds. The assorted wangs appear to have been hacked off roughly, with less-than-surgical precision, and bits of tissue are floating off the specimens. It’s not a wink-nudge-ha-ha kind of place; everybody there was wandering around thoughtfully, all, “Ah, yes, a decrepit dolphin penis in a jar, hm, marvelous specimen.” I mean, I understand the basic why of the place -- the guy who founded it thinks male genitals are interesting and worthy of study, which, fair enough -- but it’s a curiosity nontheless.

3) Why is this grocery store’s mascot a drunk pig?

Sure looks drunk to me.

4) Who designed Reykjavik's “Boston” bar? It looks like a bordello for vampires. Boston has a couple main stereotypes. It’s either of prudish sailing-boating pocket-square trust-funds, or hardscrabble blue-collar Red Sox Mark Wahlberg. That’s it. That’s what you get. So who decided to design a Reykjavik bar with an opium den/sex dungeon vibe and name the thing “Boston”? Red velvet upholstery, gold-patterned wall paper, sexually explicit paintings on the walls -- neither Boston’s Brahmins nor its longshoremen know what is going on here. It’s enjoyable, but puzzling.

5) Girl, what’s that thing on your head? The traditional costume for Icelandic women and girls is fairly standard-issue Scandinavian dress, except for this white spike they wear on their heads. What’s with the crested white wave, ladies? Really pulls focus from the rest of the look, imo.

Internet archive photo via Flickr

6) Why was there a boulder-sized chunk of glacier ice by the Iceland National Theatre in Reykjavik? Saw it while we were on one of those hostel walking tours. Even the tour guide was like, “shrug.”

Huh.

[nervousamerican]

Unexpected things about Iceland that make total sense when you think about them

Iceland, part one of three

Maybe because it’s so tiny -- only 323,000 people; fewer than Omaha -- and maybe because it’s so out of the way up there, floating by itself in the north Atlantic, but I didn’t expect Iceland to be as fascinating as it turned out to be. That was dumb. Iceland is fascinating because it’s so tiny, and because it’s all by itself so far up in the north Atlantic. 

That’s how the trip went. We’d encounter some weird thing, and then I’d flail my arms at Geoff and be like, “of course! of course.” It was great.

Some stuff:

1) The hot tapwater in Reykjavik smells like rotten eggs. Duh it does; the whole island is a hectic mass of geological activity. The water in Reykjavik is all pumped from geothermal sources. Fortunately the rotten egg water isn’t all that bad -- just be ready to turn the tap cold and let it run a sec before you brush your teeth, because if you don’t, you will not feel minty fresh afterward.

2) Iceland’s traditional dishes are appalling. You think haggis sounds bad? Iceland is amused at your haggis. Iceland sees your sheep’s guts and raises you some ram’s testicles that have been soaked in milk for months. Iceland makes aggressive eye contact with you over a plate of dried shark meat that it recently dug up from under the dirt. Iceland wants to know, “Have you ever eaten a sheep’s face? Iceland didn’t think so.

The island isn’t an easy place to grow food. Short growing season + dang volcanoes = a lot of starving people. They did what they had to, for generations. Good lamb there, though.

3) Puffins are also a traditional dish there. See: reasons stated above. Although lately puffins have been less common on menus. Puffins have been short of food sources lately -- warmer ocean temps; the usual -- so the population has taken a hit. If we’d had the opportunity, I may have goaded Geoff to try some and begun a “Geoff travels the world and eats adorable animals” streak. Alas, no such chance came our way. We also skipped the ram testicles and shark meat and sheep’s faces. It was sad enough to gaze upon the hundreds of precious lambs gamboling about the countryside and then order one at dinner -- I didn’t need one’s mother staring up at me from my plate.

Leif Erickson probably loved eating ram’s testicles.

4) Geysers are rad as hell. This sounds dumb, but I did not expect that! Geoff and I wandered up to the crowd of people around one of the geysers -- at that moment, it was just a shallow pool of very pretty blue water -- and I was like, “hey ok when’s the show start what’s the deal OH MAN WOW” 

There’s the moment of boiling, the seething and shifting, then a bubble of perfect blue water pops up before exploding and shooting 20 feet over your head. I imagine some nearby tourists’ videos from that day caught my idiotic shout of “Holy crap!!” the first time I saw one (note: I did not say “crap,” but this is a family-friendly blog). (second note: I really did sound like a moron, but whatever, it was great).

The moment of popping...

The actual explosion. 

5) Everyone in Reykjavik is cooler than I am. Reykjavik has about 120,000 people in it. That is tiny. That is nothing. But that is maybe partly why Reykjavik is so awesome. It’s a prosperous country these days, which helps, but Michael Lewis (of “Moneyball” and “Blind Side” fame) noted in his book “Boomerang” that everyone in Iceland just counts more. They’re encouraged to get advanced degrees and take up artistic pursuits, so the city is booming with art and music and fun. 

Patrons at the less-touristy Reykjavik bars have this habit: They all quickly glance toward the door anytime someone walks in. I recognize that move. In a town this small, they might know whoever just walked in, so they look up to see if the new faces are familiar. That’s something that happens at my college town’s bars; it never happens in Boston. Reykjavik -- cool and close-knit. Too bad about the weather, though.

Some precious Icelandic snowflake did a nice job painting this mural

6) Icelanders figure, “why bother building really nice roads and bridges? Gonna be a volcano soon anyhow.” Not a lot of infrastructure when you get outside Reykjavik. We drove along the southern coast to Skaftafell national park and were amazed at how little there was, of anything. Our glacier hike guide told us the area has been called the “desolate lands.” Eruptions have wiped it utterly wiped clean of all farmland and human inhabitants four successive times since Iceland was first settled in the 9th century. Yay?

Lava flats. These have been here for hundreds of years; moss is the only thing that grows there still.

7) Icelanders lived in “turf houses” until like the 1950s. See: Volcano references in previous items.

Turf house ruin by the roadside.

8) Nearly 24 hours of daylight really screws with you. Really, it does. It’s weird to walk out of a bar, decently buzzed at midnight, and find the street flooded with daylight and everything looking just as it did at 2 p.m. It’s harder to wrap your head around than you might think.

9) The coffee in Iceland is fabulous. Even gas station coffee. They need caffeine for their long winters, so they make it really really good. See? Makes sense.

[nervousamerican]

Meet the Uros: They live on floating reed islands in Lake Titicaca and I didn’t make them up

I don't know how to say this without being offensive to Peruvians and Latin Americans generally, but when I told my friends I was going to visit Lake Titicaca, about half of them stopped, looked at me, and said, "Wait. Lake Titicaca's a real place?"

I don’t blame our school system for this; I blame Beavis & Butthead. Specifically Beavis. Well, really it was Lord Cornolio, who was Beavis' alter-ego who emerged every time Beavis had too much sugar, but whatever, the point is, he yelled “Lake Titicaca!” a bunch.

(Fact: Shrieking "Lake Titicaca!" was a comedy gold in the mid-90s. Pull the collar of your shirt over your head, hover your arms up, and scream it in a very shrill voice, and boom, you had ‘em rolling. It killed on the playground.)

I knew Lake Titicaca was a real place, of course, because of that dang social studies textbook I have referenced in every Peru blog entry. I paid so much attention to that thing! (Did I get an A in that class? Inexplicably, no. Life is unfair). Everybody else just forgot that vocab word and remembered Cornholio instead.

One thing the textbook did not mention -- and it would have blown my mind it if had -- were the people who live on floating reed islands out there.

Behold!

That island is one of about 40, strung out in Lake Titicaca. It is made entirely of reeds. The houses are reeds; the ships are reeds; the ground, which squishes under your feet, is woven from reeds. The idea sounds like it was hatched in a middling fantasy novel, but no, this place is real. Roughly 1,600 Uros indigenous people live here, padding around on reeds and sleeping on reed beds at night. 

The boats, and a few little houses on the islands.

Here I'm like, 'Yep. Story checks out."

You may wonder, as I did: How? And more importantly, why?

To back up: Lake Titicaca is huge. It’s 118  miles long, up to 50 miles wide, and in some depths it goes down 900 feet. It's the biggest lake in South America, and it's at a very high altitude (3, 800 meters above sea level).

Before the Incas rose to power, Peru was a patchwork of different tribes, many of which clustered around the area. The Uros were a smaller, weaker group, and had a hard time holding onto any land of their own. As the legend goes, they first started building large reed rafts as a defense mechanism. No one would come hassle them out on the water, after all, and they could fish and hunt birds and scrape by. Then they just... kept doing it.

But about the islands -- they’re anchored in place so they don’t float off, and they need to be regularly maintained. Reeds grow in big clumps around the shallower parts of the lake, and Uros people harvest them and build new layers of ground. 

A little cooking stove..

The Uros are down with solar power.

You'll notice that the villages seem empty, which brings me to another salient feature of Uros life. Namely, that these islands attract enormous hordes of tourists. It’s annoying for the Uros, but it’s also a major financial boon. As a visitor, it’s both a fascinating place to visit and a total tourist trap. 

When you hitch a ride out to the islands -- there are a ton of boat operators who go -- you basically just walk around chilly, semi-deserted villages, hear a little spiel on the Uros lifestyle from one of the native people, and then they try to sell you bright-colored handcrafts that will clash with absolutely everything in your apartment back home. They keep you herded in a few specific areas, so you don’t wander off and bother anybody as they hang out in their reed houses. Geoff and I were out there for maybe two hours, tops. 

Another option, if you have the time, is to spend the night at some of the locals’ houses on one of the farther islands. I didn't know anybody who stopped, but some reports are positive. 

On our return trip to the “mainland,” we watched the sun come out over the lake as the gritty town of Puno came back into view on shore. We passed some reed houses and overheard someone listening to a soccer game on TV; on another island, we saw some dudes setting up a stage and hooking up guitars to generators, getting ready for some kind of Sunday afternoon concert. They paid us no mind.

[nervousamerican]

Non-Bostonians, I want you to understand some things about the kind of month we've had

I feel like you understand that we just got a lot of snow: Nearly 8 feet of snow in three weeks is a lot of snow, by anybody's reckoning.

But this is insufficient! I don't want you to understand this intellectually; I demand an emotional toll from you, readers. I want you to taste our despair and hear the dark mirth in our laughter. Boston is Hoth. Boston is North of the Wall. Winter is here.

Around Boston, our world has shrunk. Our open spaces, never particularly wide in this crowded town, are filled up with drifts. Roads are choked, and our antiquated subway system has become a nightmare limbo, full of blank crowds that dumbly shuffle to each train door, or wait in silent, mindless endurance for a train that will not come.

Our streets are a maze of Les Miserables-style barricades of snow. I have spent many days hermetically sealed in my apartment, listening to the wind softly push large fluffy piles against the house until half our window is blocked. I recently sat in my dim, quiet living room and wondered; Did I ever open those windows? Did a warm breeze once waft through them? I seem to remember something like that happening, but... no. Surely I dreamt it.

I keep getting confused about which storm we're talking about. It's all a blurred cycle of snow, partial dig-out, then more snow. Which one was the blizzard with the bad winds, again? Wait, when did New England win the Super Bowl? Did that happen recently? I remember a parade...What happened before the snow? Was there a 'before the snow'?

About a week ago, brown fluid started leaking from one of the light fixtures in our ceiling. It has been a Chinese water-torture drip ever since, slowly filling up bowls with a greasy brown liquid. Why brown? Why greasy? It is not for us to know. We also lost water for a morning; you don't fully appreciate functioning toilets and faucets until they're gone, that's all I can say.

We're all  handling this in various ways. One minute we're deeply frustrated by the failings of our infrastructure and general seasonal affective disorder; the other, we're full of dark amusement. Or at this point we're just like, ya know, whatever, snow is life. Until the T breaks down again, and then suddenly our serenity ruptures INTO WHITE-HOT RAGE, and then later we laugh about it and go buy more whiskey and feel fine.

One thing I do remember -- the very first blizzard. Do you remember that one? It was supposed to savage the entire northern East Coast, but it only really hit New England. We got 2 feet, I think. Anyway, that was the one our nation's weathermen were losing their minds over, referring to it as "The Blizzard of 2015."

That name! The name really got me. "The Blizzard of 2015." The Blizzard of 2015. They were already calling it for the whole year -- the blizzard. Everybody was acting like this would be a one-and-done situation. So you see, my natural pessimism had left me ably prepared for more bad weather. But even I am feeling ragged after all this.

We're supposed to get more precipitation this weekend -- rain, this time. Yay?

Our ceiling drip.

[nervousamerican]

Shut it down. Geoff found the best anniversary present, so everybody else can just give up now.

This is the Parker 51 pencil/fountain pen set. It was Geoff's anniversary/Valentine's gift to me, and here's why I'll never get him anything as good:

1) The Parker 51, introduced in the 1940s, is considered history's greatest pen. Everything about it was newly patented: The plastic interior, the special, quick-drying ink (to be used only with the 51!), even the nib. Parker hired a metallurgist away from Yale to design the perfect metal tip -- one that would flow out the ink evenly and never wear down -- and hit upon ruthenium as the ideal metal. Everybody lost their minds over this pen.

2) Geoff and I have been listening to an audiobook of "The Disappearing Spoon," about the history of the periodic table of the elements. We heard about the Parker 51 while road tripping together.  

3) Geoff reasoned that:

-- Laura is both a writer AND a noted curmudgeon. Antique pens are the ideal gift for such a person. 

-- The first anniversary gift is supposed to be "paper," but a pen totally counts as paper-adjacent.

-- It's small and doesn't take up much room in our apartment.

-- You can get a good deal for these on eBay.

This gift was a total surprise to me. As in, I was unaware that we were even going to DO anniversary gifts, as a thing. (We try to live a relatively minimalist lifestyle in the Schmitchell household). But Geoff has touched off a gift-giving arms race that will no doubt span many years. Our real anniversary is in April, and even with months to think about it, I doubt I'll get anything as spot-on as this. It's dismaying.

At least I can console myself with my boss new pen. 

[nervousamerican]

Machu Picchu: Peru's Disneyland

You can almost hear the sound of pan flute.

Machu Picchu is an ethereal, spiritual place. It was built here -- on this impossible, incredible site -- to be closer to the Inca's holy mountains. You can almost sense the presence of --

"OMG, ALPACAS!!!!"

Some college-aged chick from Missouri or Illinois is over there spazzing out about another alpaca, like nobody's ever seen one before, not like they're not everywhere in this country, I mean jeez -- but, oh hey! yeah! there are alpacas just chilling over there in the ruins. Grazing and stuff, trimming the grass. I guess that's cool.

I would really like to lose myself in the grandeur of this place, but the girl over there, looking like she's straight from a Neutrogena ad, has just led five of her friends over to snap endless photos of the alpaca and they are gabbing VERY LOUDLY about it. Meanwhile, some Germans are trying to take a picture behind me; I am clearly in their shot, so I shuffle over to the side. 

And suddenly there's a bunch of Peruvian middle schoolers buzzing around everywhere, mostly gossiping with each other and paying only very slight attention to this amazing part of their national heritage. Exhibit A for why I wasn't popular in middle school: I would have been drifting among the ruins alone, whispering to myself about horoscopes and the earth's spiritual energies and how I could feel them.

A very rare shot that doesn't include people but does include grazing alpacas -- sunrise over the hills.

Just before sunrise -- if you're going to Machu Picchu, go during the shoulder season (we were there in the first days of September, just barely after the crowds began to wane) and get there by sunrise.

The crowds here are huge, and that's even with the Peruvian government setting maximum numbers of tourists at the site (2,500 a day, currently). 

The government keeps threatening to limit that number further, and I definitely understand why. This place is amazing, and obviously fragile. It's on top of a damn jungle mountaintop, after all. 

Not to get too technical about it, but this place is like, nuts. Like, crazy impressive. You can see the clever irrigation systems cut into the rocks – they still work perfectly, catching the rain and moving it cleanly through the structure.

You can also see the perfection of the temple architecture; just like my old textbooks said, the big gray granite stones were cut cleanly and placed together with mind-boggling precision. No mortar, just perfect stone-cutting. Indeed, you couldn't fit a knife between these stones. The people’s houses were made less perfectly; they didn't survive the long years and had to be reconstructed in the last century.

Must of the city has been restored (check out the nicely placed stone steps), but the temple building is original.

The whole city went up in 90 years; This NOVA article talks about the insane level of planning that had to go into making this spot viable, including the extremely well-thought-out drainage foundation -- this area gets 76 inches of rainfall per year, twice as much as falls in the city of Chicago -- the canal and fountain system could handle 25 gallons of water per minute. The city was also planned wisely for waste-water runoff: They had a plan for separating waste water from drinking water. In other words, centuries before European people had figured out that it was a bad idea to let waste water and drinking water co-mingle, the Inca builders were purposefully keeping the two apart.

Visiting

If you're curious about the experience of actually seeing the place, it is indeed a bit like a very ethereal amusement park. You start at the bottom of the mountain, in a town called Aguas Calientes, where you get herded onto a bus (you could slog your way uphill on foot, but we wanted to beat the crowds).

These crowds, you mean? But really, we actually did get there before the rush began in earnest.

You get up there, pay your very expensive entrance fee at the ticket booths, and then you're free to roam. Alejandro, our guide, gave us a little tour of the place -- he explained what all the rocks were supposedly for, although I wonder how much of that was certainty and how much was still contested theories.

There were no written accounts of this place from the Spaniards, as Spaniards never found it. Alejandro said that when the Spaniards came to Peru, lots of indigenous people quietly faded into the forest; just cut their rope bridges, got to the tallest peaks, and stayed there. Some of those communities are only barely touched by modern life; they follow traditions very much like they did 500 years ago, he said, with a note of wonder in his voice.

With its intense hordes of daily tourist traffic, Machu Picchu is... the opposite of that. But at least you can look at the temples and be suitably impressed.

Looking up at the temple building (I think. It was possibly a priest's house, though).

Alpacas!!!!

A nice vantage point,  yes?

A path on the other side of the mountain. Observe my shoe there. I was standing up, looking down into a rather steep chasm. Also, observe the lack of safety fence. I sorta like that, in these countries, they still trust people not to fall off of cliffs.

Hey! Here I am, and stuff.

[nervousamerican]

Hiram Bingham III, Maccu Picchu's original hype man

Machu Picchu was discovered ("discovered") in 1911 by Hiram Bingham, a Yale lecturer with stunning good looks, a rich wife, and a prominent family. And that's... it, really. He was no archaeologist -- he had no training in archaeology, and his theories were usually wrong -- but he liked Latin America and wanted to get a closer look at it. And why not? He was a very educated, wealthy white man. Guys like that can kinda do whatever they like, especially in 1911.

True, most don't stumble upon the greatest archaeological marvel of their era, but Hiram was tenacious. Lucky, and tenacious. Mostly lucky.

And did I mention handsome?

Hey girl

Gentleman adventurers were all over the place back then. Rich guys with some military or scientific background were always plunging off into the jungle, and they were bona fide celebrities, too. They did have to be tough to do this work -- some of them even died doing it (I mean, so did a lot more of the locals they hired to carry supplies and act as guides, but it was the nineteen teens and nobody cared about non-rich foreigners so big yawns all around on that one). 

(Btw, check out "The Lost City of Z" if you want a good rundown on this stuff.)

Another thing: These trips were expensive, and you basically had to compete with the other gentleman adventurers for funding dollars. Bingham worried about this far less than other people -- his wife was heiress to the Tiffany & Co fortune, so yeah, he was in good shape -- but everybody needed money. Good PR and showmanship were essential when you were competing to impress the Royal Geographic Society or whoever.

You might even say these guys were worried about keeping up with the Indiana Joneses, ha ha hahaha ha...

Fortune and Glory, Kid. Fortune and Glory.

So rugged. So moody.

Bingham had begun to make a name for himself as an explorer, but 1911 was really his year. When he got home from that trip, boy did he have a story to tell. 

He claimed to have found a mystical city in the clouds; he even thought it was the wellspring of the Inca civilization itself. All the other gentlemen explorers gasped and dropped their monocles right into their cups of tea, because once word got out, everybody knew it was a huge deal.

The killer of the whole thing was, while rivals like Percy Fawcett were dragging themselves through the freaking Amazon, fighting off piranhas and having spears thrown at them by furious jungle people, Bingham wasn't really that far off the grid, relatively speaking. He was just 50 miles northwest of Cuzco, chatting with the people who farmed the area -- it was a tough slog at that time, but nothing compared to the Amazon.

Indigenous people were well aware of Machu Picchu's existence. Campesino families had settled around the hillside -- our guide to the ruins, Alejandro, said some were laying low to skip out on debts, but I cannot confirm this -- and were basically just hanging out. Farming ancient Incan terraces. Eating guinea pig. Kickin' it. Bingham found the great lost city, this great wonder of the world, by asking around. A farmer waved up at the mountain and mentioned that there were old ruins up there -- then the Quechua locals sent an 11-year-old kid to show Bingham the way.

Once he figured out that these ruins were hugely important (and it did take awhile to dawn on him), he was "euphoric," according to one thing I read. He was a Presbyterian Yankee, so I don't know what "euphoric" would look like on a guy like that, but he probably smiled with his whole face and maybe even laughed out loud.

Contain yourself, Mr. Bingham! 

To Bingham, the presence of native locals didn't diminish the find in any way, and it's true that the farmers didn't understand the old ruins' significance (and after all, why would they?), so his arrival was a big deal.

He wrote about his adventures exploring the site ("Escape from Fire in the Jungle" "A Narrow Escape"), in reportorial prose that he knew would make a good yarn and cement his legend. And then he went on to go wander around more jungles. Nothing he later found, of course, compared with Machu Picchu. 

It was the making of him, of course -- he went on to become Connecticut's governor, then a U.S. senator. He had seven sons with the heiress, until she divorced him over repeated infidelity. Along with womanizing, he was big into aviation, and later headed up an anti-communist committee during the Truman administration. Truly, a man of many interests.

As a footnote to all this, people are mentioning now that Bingham likely wasn't even the first white man to know about the ruins. Several earlier explorers had written of a similar site, and Machu Picchu itself appears on a German map that dates from 1867. The difference was that Bingham went and told everybody about it, and he did so at a cultural moment when everybody was really interested in that kind of stuff. Like I said: Tenacious, and very lucky.

[nervousamerican]

Sweat-soaked clothes and mild vertigo: Our trip to Machu Picchu

The day before we were to go to Machu Picchu, we dropped our clothes off at a laundry service. Our clothing was promptly lost.

The lavandería, which was really just a couple washing machines manned by a 14-year-old, had accidentally given our stuff to another customer -- a couple Panamanians who'd dropped their things off around the same time. This was tearfully explained to me by the 14-year-old, who fetched her father to go pound on hostel doors and track the Panamanians down. This proved fruitless. I, meanwhile, sputtered heated questions at them in Spanish while Geoff wore a tragic expression. 

Night was falling in Cuzco; it was cold; Geoff wasn't feeling well; we had almost no other clothes; our shuttle to the ruins was due to arrive at 5 a.m. the next morning. 

And so it was, on the next day, that I was hiking the cloud forests of Peru wearing hastily purchased pants and an unwashed T-shirt, deeply lamenting my lack of sports bra. 

Thankfully, I had a few things to distract me:

Views!

Ruins!

In my experience, people vaguely know Machu Picchu to be a picturesque collection of rocks on an Andes hilltop. They are not wrong.

But what a hilltop it is.

The lost city, viewed from a distance

Obligatory posed photo

And it's quite the rock collection -- although really, it's only one of several. Reconstructed hamlets, staircases and structures dot the entire area. 

Machu Picchu sits only 50 miles northwest of Cuzco. But, again, in Peru, a 50-mile distance can put you in an entirely different ecosystem. We left dusty Cuzco in the cold pre-dawn, wending our way uphill past peeling-paint buildings and farmsteads hidden behind rusty gates. By sunrise, the view from our bus window was leafy and green, even in this dry season. We were going to do a day hike up to the site, spend the night in nearby Aguas Calientes, then spend the next morning exploring Machu Picchu proper. Mournful as I was about the laundry situation, I was keen to get hiking.

Our path was unusual: Backpackers typically hike for four days along the famous Inca Trail, sleeping in tents and seeing all the scenery along the way. We declined this option. 

Reasons:

- It is expensive - about $600 per person, plus you have to rent sleeping bags and the like, plus you must carry all this stuff or pay a porter (more $$) to haul it for you.

- With only two weeks' vacation to work with, our time was too limited.

- Accommodations are quite rustic along the way, and that seemed like a drag. I observed this firsthand when I used one of the bathrooms near the end of the trail. It's really just a hole in the ground where hundreds of people appear to have very violent bowel movements and very poor aim. I emerged from that bathroom shaken, but firm in my conviction that a day hike had been the right way to go.

Nontheless, I understand the Inca Trail's appeal. The best part about Machu Picchu is the walk up there.

Our shuttle dropped us at a train station, where we boarded the famous Inca Rail for the second leg of the journey. Chatting with our guide, Alejandro, we skirted the Urubamba river and watched the hills around us grow taller and taller, and the air got thicker and warm as the sun rose. It was to be an afternoon of climbing until we reached the Sun Gate and could behold the lost city.

But first, the climb:

Straight uphill, with backpacks on. Alejandro seemed mildly surprised that we could keep up... we must not have looked like very promising gringos.

Obligatory waterfall shot

See that little ribbon of trail there? We walked that - we could stand on the hillside and trace that line for miles. Neat, yes? I certainly thought so.

Then, up ahead, a strange stone outcrop. 

That, friends, is an Inca settlement now referred to as Wiñay Wayna. It's perched right on the mountain's face, carved in as unlikely a spot (to me, at least) as can be imagined.

Terraces again. People actually farmed here. Incas, amiright?

These terraces were very steep -- the whole place was steep, really -- and the steps very high. I felt like I could pitch right off the side of the mountain. Suddenly I remembered that I was afraid of heights, although I kept this information from Alejandro and just kept climbing.

We ate a lunch of chicken and quinoa at the top of the ruins. Here was my view:

Why yes, that is a sheer drop-off. Beyond the houses there in the middle ground, you can again see the ribbon of trail we walked. 

In a couple more hours, we'd be at the Sun Gate, and see Machu Picchu for the first time. I'll get to that in Part II -- Machu Pichcu: Peru's Disneyland. 

In the meantime, more trail shots:

[nervousamerican]

Budget travel vs. prepaid tours: An internal monologue

Budget travel can be exhausting. DIY-ing the whole trip is a huge process: Finding the long-haul buses, navigating new places, overcoming language barriers -- it's just a whole big thing. But on balance, I still prefer it to pricier package tours.

Allow me to illustrate.

A selection of my internal thoughts when I'm backpacking in a foreign country:

So can I just... sit down at this cafe or is there like a hostess or....?

We need a cab. Not that cab; the driver looks like a pervert.

Will I get food poisoning from this? Will this food wage a terrible battle on my innards?

Is this the correct bus? IS THIS THE CORRECT BUS?!! If we end up in the wrong city entirely, I am going to be very upset. 

Is the headrest of this bus seat swarming with lice? It probably is.

WAIT is this the correct bus?????? It is? Are you sure? OK. OK.

This dude is looking at me funny. I may have accidentally said something filthy in Spanish just now.

Where am I? Seriously, where am I?

The hostel probably lost our reservation, didn't they? We'll have to wander around in the darkness for hours. That is definitely going to happen.

Everybody everywhere is a pickpocket. I'm sure my wallet is gone. See, I can't find my wallet! Oh God, I need to Skype with the bank right away! oh there it is nevermind.

Oh... kay, it's super dark and everybody in this neighborhood is staring at me. Am I in imminent danger, or just potential danger?

WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU LOST OUR LAUNDRY.

Thoughts I have when I am on expensive tours, where everything is planned out for you and you don't have to worry about anything:

I am so bored right now. Can we leave?

[nervousamerican]

November: Vodka appreciation month

Tito's vodka. I'm going to drink that.

In these days of fancy cocktail bars, I've ordered many drinks where I straight-up did not recognize most of the ingredients on the menu. Rhum? Bénédictine? Pamplemousse? Shrug.They are expensive but usually delicious, so I hand over my $13 and don't think too much more about it.

One thing you don't see terribly much on the menus at Saloon or Back Bar or such places -- vodka. Vodka has a "neutral profile," which is a nice way of saying that it tastes like nothing. I can see why fancy bartenders often ignore it -- it isn't terribly interesting.

This is precisely why Americans love it so much. Vodka is the reality television of booze -- unchallenging, and therefore immensely popular. Smirnoff is the No. 1 liquor in this country, and one-third of all liquor consumed here is vodka of some type. And it's not that we're sipping it like a bunch of coat-wearing Russians with firmly set jaws. No, we buy Cinnamon Raspberry Meringue Pie vodka or something, because I guess pouring Sprite in there isn't enough.

Speaking of Russians (who drink a terrifying amount of vodka, by the way), we Americans fell in love with Russian booze just as we were at peak levels of hating actual Russians. When the suburbs sprang up in the 1950s and 1960s, so too did the at-home bar. People weren't going to the neighborhood pub anymore (planned suburbs didn't have neighborhood pubs, which is a tremendous oversight), so they had to make their own drinks. That's when vodka surpassed the popularity of both bourbon and gin, and so it has remained, even throughout our current era of fancy cocktails. I read this in a book, so I am assuming it is true.

Which brings me to my bottle of Tito's vodka, direct from Austin, Tex. Tito's is fine stuff, according to the Internet, so I need to appreciate it better.The Schmitchell household's newest tradition is to declare certain liquor Appreciation months, wherein we try different cocktails based on that liquor all month long.

After rum and gin months, which were both an unqualified success, I'm going to try to create something interesting with vodka. I already used Tito's to elevate my Nantucket Nectar fruit juice (hey, sorry, I was lazy and it was there), but I'm going to try maybe a decent cosmopolitan, maybe a real actual vodka martini -- who knows! The sky is the limit with Vodka Appreciation Month! If you have a vodka cocktail to recommend, do let me know. Otherwise I may just end up with a month of Cape Codders, and that seems like a waste of Tito's.

[nervousamerican]

Peruvian mummies, and the lonely grave of Juanita

In the Museo Santuario Andinos in Arequipa, you must leave your purse at the front desk; they really, really don't want you to take pictures in there. You're next ushered into a room to watch a film about the museum's main attraction, where you marvel at 90s-era production values and try to recall what life was like before HD. 

Then you get to see the mummy and all her stuff.

That's it. This is the entirety of the experience. But it was one of the most oddly affecting museum displays I've seen.

They keep this frail, tragic 13-year-old Inca mummy in a dark, cold room, where she sits in a glass case. Her knees are pulled up and she's wrapped in a cloth that's spun around her like a spiderweb. Through the fog of the glass you can make out dark hair and a shrunken white face, teeth sticking prominently out of a lipless mouth. Her face is tilted slightly up, empty eye sockets looking toward the ceiling. It's quiet as a tomb in there --  the museum guide's voice didn't even break the spell -- and I got the loneliest feeling, looking in at her. We were a few inches away, but I felt like I was looking at something very far off. She may as well have been back up in her grave at the top of the volcano. 

This human sacrifice, nicknamed Juanita, had sat up there for hundreds of years, while her civilization crumbled and even its conquerors passed on. Fueled by coca leaves and chicha (corn beer), she'd walked all the way up the 20,700-foot mountain with the priests -- a tough climb, to put it mildly. They performed a ritual, cracked her over the head with a club, arranged her body and left her up there in the holy mountain. And there she stayed, until an archaeologists' team stumbled upon her by complete accident in 1995. A glacier had shifted, and she, a little bundle with a skeleton face, had tumbled from her spot. 

She was freeze-dried by accident, but Andean people were actually quite big mummification fans as well. Maybe because it's just so easy there? Mountain and desert air is pretty handy for preserving remains -- there's probably a reason you don't hear much about jungle mummies.

Consider:

-- Incans frequently kept mummies around in their cities, including Macchu Picchu. As recently as 2012, 500 bodies were found under a shantytown on the outskirts of Lima. 

-- This has been a regional obsession for a very, very, very long time. The Chinchorro people in Southern Peru were mummifying remains 2,000 before Egypt started doing it. And while most people mummify the elite members of their society, the Chinchorro were equal-opportunity mummifiers. Elderly people, stillborn children -- everybody was deemed worth preservation. And the Chinchorro were, if anything, even more hands-on than the Egyptians -- they'd replace your innards with animal hair or plants, and they'd skin you and plaster clay over your flayed corpse. You have to admire the commitment. Surely these people had other stuff to do, but they still took time out to elaborately prepare the bodies of every man, woman, and child in their community. 

-- The Chiribaya (900-1300 AD) of Southern Peru mummified their dogs. And it wasn't that they were sacrificed when their owners died -- they died natural deaths, and then their humans preserved them carefully for an afterlife. So, really, spending $40 on your pet's Halloween costume seems pretty mild in comparison. You still shouldn't taxidermy your pet, though, because that's weird.

Juanita's death was elaborate as well, in a different way. A lot of children have been found in Andean volcanoes, all wrapped up in a seated, fetal position, all bludgeoned to death to appease the gods. Juanita is special because she's unusually well-preserved, and her grave hadn't been robbed yet. Her things are displayed in other little glass cases all around her -- little dolls, pins for her cloak, bags for carrying possessions in the afterlife.

Some guides claim these children were selected very young for the purpose, and were honored to be sacrificed. More recent finds indicate that the kids were selected from poor families and only fattened up in the year or so before they were drugged and killed. I wonder how it really was with Juanita? I am anti-child-murder, but I hope she believed she was doing the right thing and was serene about bring sacrificed. 

[nervousamerican]

When people get entirely too comfortable

  The cabins. Ours was the one in the middle.

The night before our massive climb out of the Colca Canyon, Geoff and I were in our tiny cabin in the green valley, trying to sleep.

It wasn't a bad spot -- tolerable for the night. However: My pillow was so hard, it felt like I was getting punched in the ear. The bathroom situation was less than optimal. Also outside, stray dogs roamed around; they often tried to follow us inside our cabins.

The main problem, though, was that these cabins were like glorified cubicles -- the walls were high, but didn't quite reach up to the ceiling. Every word, every sigh, every cough from our neighbors was perfectly audible.

We shared one of those walls with an American college student and a young Italian man. I'd thought they were an established couple, but no -- they met on the bus over here, apparently. Looking for some action on the road, I guess? 

Their courtship was a strange one. I know, because I could hear it all through my earplugs as I was trying to sleep. I heard them chattering away loudly and awkwardly, taking forever to figure out who'd make the first move. (I fail to see how it was so ambiguous; they'd already agreed to share a one-room cabin with a reasonably attractive, straight person of the opposite sex, whom they had literally just met on a bus -- it would have been puzzling if somebody hadn't tried to hit that).

Anyway, they finally got down to business, and with great zeal. There was no point ignoring it. They couldn't have been more than five feet away from us, going at it with all the enthusiasm of young people abroad who will now be able to brag to their friends that they'd totally done it with a sexy foreigner. My husband and I, resigning ourselves, propped up on our elbows and grimaced/giggled at each other as the situation unfolded. But as their loud lovemaking subsided into also-loud, somehow-still-awkward pillow talk, I got exasperated.

It was now nearly 10 p.m. We'd had a tough hike down that day, and we -- along with half the other cabins, who were also no doubt listening -- needed to be up at 4 a.m. for the jog back up. My pillow was still punching me in the back of the head. They were still talking. 

I think the last straw was when she made some joke about how the sex had been unprotected. Unprotected! First they're indiscreet, and now they're being reckless with their health?! Que escándalo!

I got up, put on shoes and walked next door, trying not to look through the slats of their window (where they were clearly in there, naked and chatting), pulled out the prim little voice I use when I call customer service, and asked them to maybe talk a bit softer?

They were so startled! So apologetic. I think they were genuinely surprised that anybody was there. Too busy trying to negotiate the sex-having, I expect, to think about anybody aside from each other. 

I huffily clomped back to our cabin door and latched it behind me... just in time for some stray dogs to come running and ram into the door, once again trying to get into our cabin.  

[nervousamerican]

Peruvian Food: I will eat ALL of your adorable animals!

Even meeeee....?

I've found my favorite version of Christ's Last Supper: It's in a corner of the Plaza de Armas Cathedral in Cuzco, which is your standard cavernous, dimly lit Spanish-style Cathedral. High on a wall, there's Christ, surrounded by apostles, blessing the meal. Except, instead of bread and wine, the spread is brightly colored corn cobs, purple corn drink (chicha morada), and what looks to be a boiled guinea pig.

It's not actually a guinea pig, according to one of the church guides, although every article and guidebook seems to think it is -- the guide insisted that it's a viscacha.

This is a non-boiled viscacha. Little guy was getting his bearings after taking a nap on some ruins in Machu Piccu.

(Another fun thing about that Last Supper -- Judas Iscariot was painted to look exactly like Francisco Pizarro. The painter, you will not be surprised to learn, was Quechua.)

But regardless, yes, guinea pig is a Peruvian delicacy. And yes, we ate some.

This is how they serve it to you. A deep-fried nightmare.

By "we ate guinea pig," I mean, I took a single bite of Geoff's meal and then ate my own roasted chicken, trying hard to look anyplace except the grinning skull directly opposite me, while Geoff chewed away.

It tasted like rubbery pork to me. Geoff thought it was decent, but nothing to write home about. Too many tiny bones to pick out.

Honestly, alpaca tastes much better. I had it in salami form, which was sort of gamey-tasting, but a filet of the stuff is pretty decent.

The thing about alpacas and guinea pigs, obviously, is that they're super cute animals and it's best not to think about that when you're dining. It will bum you out. But if you're a Peruvian, it just makes sense to eat them, especially the guinea pigs, called cuy. Guinea pigs are everybody's favorite elementary school classroom pet, but they're also cheap to raise and are a good source of protein.  

One last thing that everybody should know: Peruvian cuisine is damn tasty. Soups, sauces, strange and tasty fruits, plus the biggest and best avocados I've ever seen. It's all because of Peru's amazing variety in altitude and climate -- and people there were ingenious in their cultivation techniques. This is the place that invented the potato, after all. About 2,800 varieties are available there -- a rainbow of knobby lumps, in a surprising variety of shapes. Red boomerangs, pink horseshoes, deep purple oblongs, orange-red ones with bulbous clusters on them. Potatoes! Who knew?

In other words, if a Peruvian restaurant opens up in your neighborhood, you should eat there.

Quinoa and queese on a crepe, with chicha morada to drink, in Arequipa.

Aji de gallina (chicken with sauce) in Puno.

[nervousamerican]

Peru's Colca Canyon: Twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, and a rather difficult hike

After the hike down. Me in a hammock, splayed out like a corpse.

At the bottom of the Colca Canyon, after walking about 4,000 feet down steep, dusty switchbacks for an intense 90 minutes, we arrived in an entirely different climate. We'd just skidded down a vertical desert, and now we found ourselves in a lush garden with flowers blooming everywhere.

This is what it looked like on the way down:

Beyond that scrub-covered outcrop, you can see a temperate climate. Peru is like that; one hour you're baking under a dry heat, and the next you're shivering in a valley somewhere. Dressing for the day was always a challenge in that country.

That's what it looked like as we started our descent. The path got awfully narrow at parts -- if a donkey plowed past us, we were warned, hug the mountainside. Never stand on the cliff side of the trail, or the donkey might jostle you right off the edge. Donkeys are jerks like that.

But let's talk a little about Colca Canyon. We went with the Colca Trek tour group (expensive but totally worth it) and went rattling along in a van full of Europeans, up out of the Arequipa valley and to the lunar Altiplano.

Our tour guide, Paul, was a young man with the typical Andean jet-black hair, dark brown skin, and short stature. He pointed out some of the physical features of mountain people -- we have wider torsos, he said, to house bigger lungs. Bigger lungs are better equipped to grab oxygen out of the thin air. Wider nostrils, too. Wider nostrils = bigger breaths. I looked on Wikipedia later, and yep, story checks out.

Paul was full of this type of information. He must have trotted out these little factoids to a new vanload of tourists every week, but he genuinely wanted us to know this stuff. Standing at the front of the swaying van, hollering back at us, he passed around print-outs of different types of Andean animals; on our stops, he picked wild herbs and passed them around for us to taste; he lectured us on the proper way to chew coca. We loved Paul.

And outside, the landscape rolled by. It changed constantly.

Herds of alpaca (or was it llamas? I forget. Paul would be disappointed in me).

The "stone forest" on the way to the canyon. Like a mini-Cappadocia set smack in the middle of nowhere.

A surprise flatland marsh.

I think we'd broken 5000 meters at this point. All I know is, we were higher than the Alps and I was feeling woozy and chilly.

Some dudes from our trip, takin' pictures. I forget which volcano that is. Again, Paul would not approve.

Then, suddenly, it's green, terraced country.

Green!

The sun sinking over the canyon on the first night, where we stayed at a place on the canyon's rim.

Little towns dotted the road. Not a lot going on, but they had great restaurants to serve tour groups. Lots of the towns are emptying out as people leave for the city, Paul noted. He himself was one of them -- his hometown just didn't have good employment for young people anymore.

An Andean condor, coasting around in the sunlight. Also, these mountains are really in your face with their mountain-ness, aren't they? The Andes don't mess around.

The van zipped around breathtakingly narrow mountainside roads; we took walks, we biked downhill as condors circled high over our heads; we ate at what has got to be the world's best roadside buffets.

We reached Cabanaconde, the site of our descent. We gave our packs over so they could be secured to donkeys, and started downhill. As we stumbled down the switchbacks, we came across a middle-aged woman in peasant dress. A brown, weathered face, a brimmed hat and a giant load on her back, she was halfway up the canyon. "Taking a walk?" she said in Spanish, quite pleasantly.

Us: *breathless* "Hello! Yep!" *panting* "Pretty big walk, over here!"

She: "Well, a good day to you! Bye bye!"

She strode on, climbing upwards with her giant pack. We watched her for a second, her skirts swaying as she clambered up at lightning speeds.

Mountain people. They are tougher than you.

We got to try it ourselves the next morning. We needed to beat the heat, so we rose in the cold, pre-dawn darkness and dressed by the light of flashlights. We assembled at the foot of the trail, shivering. Looking up into the pitch darkness, we could see lines of lights creeping high up along the mountain -- other hikers' flashlights, bobbing as they went along. 

We began our own slow progress on the narrow paths. I was already winded by the time the sun started to rise, and the light got soft against the gray hillside. But the air was impressively cool and light on my skin. With frequent stops, it was almost refreshing. For nearly three hours, we hauled ourselves up stepping stones among cacti and scrub. The mountain was full of tourist hikers, taking hard breaths and careful steps, mostly in silence. 

The sun, it rises.

Donkeys are much faster than people in these situations. And in general, really.

Dawn on the hillside.

Three hours felt like a long time, but then we were there. Victorious! And then our legs hurt for like a week after that.