Outdoor Peru

The last 2 weeks have been absolutely exhausting; going to bed absolutely knackered at 8 PM were a regular thing...

From Bolivia we took a bus to Arequipa were we had arranged a 3 day horseback riding trip. Sara is a great rider, I lied a bit about the amount of experience I had to get on the trip; but it was worth it! And besides, our guide was more into riding donkeys so she was the slow one of the three of us...
We started off near the Colca Canyon; the most lovely horseman was waiting for us with his best 4 horses. He had put the saddles on already, but sara and I made sure he didn´t do that anymore. If he was getting up at 6AM to get the horses ready, then we were getting up at that time. No special treatment ´you are rich tourists and you paid for everything´. Oh no, we were in this together! And besides, Sara and I had lots to learn, because Peruvian horses have a different way of saddling them up (can you say it this way in English?)
The tracks itself were through remote villages, lovely to see the houses, the kids, the countryside and not see any tourists. It was just me and Morena (that was my horse...!) An absolute feeling of freedom and the feeling ´I am the luckiest person in the world´ returned again in my blood. (did it leave at all....euh, no, not really!)

After this wonderful trip we headed to Cusco to do some serious hiking. Most people walk the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, but since Sara and I don´t consider us as ´most people´ we wanted to do a different track. So we decided to do the challenging Lares Track. Three days hiking and camping and the fourth day at Machu Picchu. Great, we couldn´t wait! We met our guide José the day before and he seemed to know what he was talking about. He told us that because the Inca Trail was closed for another day, that the Lares Track might be a bit more busy as usual. Ah well, we´ll see....Little did we know...
The next morning at 4.30AM José picked us up with....another guide. José couldn´t come (for some unexplained reason) so his friend Brain would take us. Sara and I quickly looked at each other (do you trust this? Yes, no? Yes, we just want to go!). So off we went to the most dodgy busstation I ever been and there we met our cooking lady who turned out not to be able to cook, but she was lovely. And we met Brain´s lovely assissant Eric...we still wonder what his job description was...With the bus we went into the countryside, off to Lares where we met our horseman who took along 2 horses to carry all the stuff. Peruvians have never heard of ultralight packaging...
From the moment we started hiking we had the BEST time. The scenery was truly amazing, Brain was ok, the mountains were stunning, the snow was still present, the ´even-more-remote-villages-than-Arequipa´ were absolutely impressive and best of all; we didn´t meet ANY tourists...Weird hey?! That´s what Sara and I thought as well, so we figured we walked the best track ever, but it was just not the Lares track... Especially because we ended in a village where were not suppose to end...Hilarious!
Anyhow, the hike was fabulous. We crossed villages without electricity, without running water, just a freezing cold river and no place to go to the toilet (great, open air toilets, we love them!). Men and women wearing traditional clothing (they were even playing soccer in them!) and we met the cutest kids you can imagine. In the freezing cold they walk on sandels or barefoot, girls wear skirts without covering their cold legs and while handing out our candy you could feel their ice cold fingers but they just don´t seem to mind. Different world.
On the fourth day Machu Picchu was impressive. We climbed one of the mountains to have a great view over the place; when we got there it was cloudy, so we decided to sit down and wait. The Gods had a positive attitude that morning, because we got the best surprise while waiting. First bits and pieces of the clouds vanished and eventually it was a clear blue sky.

In short: the best ´goodbye´ trip for Sara who has returned home already. Although I was sorry for Sara to leave (great month!) I am quite happy on my own again, enjoying some good sleep-ins till 8AM, interesting musea and finally arranging heaps of stuff I needed to be doing for ages (like figuring out how on earth I am getting to Suriname in 4 weeks time...)
So what´s next. Well, since I noticed that my Spanish is too limited to understand the people, I have decided to go back to school. As of this monday I am taking Spanish lessons!! My plan is to be the absolute language nerd and to make more progress than the rest of my class I am going to stay with a Peruvian family. So Spanish it is from morning till evening!!