Peru Itinerary

The first blog I wanted to write when I got back home was our itinerary. I planned on creating a similar map to the one I made for the Costa Rica itinerary. But let's be honest, my work in Adobe Acrobat isn't that cool. I figured that there has to be some kind of itinerary/map-maker somewhere on the internet... and voila! I stumbled upon Tripline.

Tripline is basically an interactive map. I've only spent about half an hour playing with it but so far, it's awesome. Check out the itinerary I made below. From what I've seen, you can get really creative with this thing: animate your traveling on the map, upload pictures from your trip, import check-ins from your Foursquare, and of course, share your maps with your friends and family.

Once I spend more time exploring Tripline's features, I will probably write another blog on it. For now, here is the itinerary that me and Ignas did while in Peru! The map is not an image! It's a video! Don't forget to PRESS PLAY in the top right corner. :)

If you zoom out on the map below, you'll see that we only got to spend time in southern Peru. We were sad that we couldn't include any northern destinations, especially Ignas since there's really good surfing there.  

We were debating on including Lake Titicaca or the Amazon but we decided not to do either. We felt that we would lose too much time traveling and we didn't want to exhaust ourselves by constantly moving. Although we really only visited the regions of Arequipa, Cusco, and the Sacred Valley, we were happy that we had as much time as we did. And as always, we also wished we had more time at each place! There was just so much to see and do!

Hola Los Angeles

Plaza de Armas - Cusco, Peru

We're back home and I'm sad to report that I'm sick. My invincible boyfriend, on the other hand, is on an extended vacation due to an incoming swell and all of the waves coming with it. So while I stayed home sick today, he went surfing this morning before work! Then again, I just finished making the best congee in the world and I'm uploading pictures from the S95 so I guess things aren't so bad.

Santa Catalina Monastery - Arequipa, Peru

Peru was definitely an experience I will never forget: breathtaking landscapes, delectable cuisine, friendly people, and a culture overflowing with history and pride. Looking back, I'm really happy with the itinerary we choose. I felt that it gave us enough time to see all of the touristy attractions in each region we visited while embracing a bit of the local daily life.

Colca Canyon, Peru

In comparison to Costa Rica, I would say that Peru is NOT relaxing. There's just too much to immerse yourself in. In Peru, I wished that my stomach was bigger so I could eat more of the delicious food. I wished that I had more muscle and stamina to trek through the mountain ranges and valleys. I wished that I paid more attention during my college art classes to have a deeper understanding of the art and architecture. And of course, I wish we had more time. We barely scratched the surface with our 2 weeks.

Machu Picchu, Peru

I hope to upload pictures and blogs as soon as I can. Ignas will too, he promised! (Writing that in here as insurance ;) Thank you Peru for an unforgettable experience!

Ciao Peru!

We are at Lima airport right now, hanging out at a Starbucks. We will both miss Peru so much! What an awesome trip!! We aren't a tired as we look in this picture. We stayed at a beautiful hotel/home last night called Second Home Peru and it was probably the most charming place we have ever stayed at. I'm sad that we are going home but I can't wait to go through the pictures and videos!

Last Night in Peru

Ignas and I are at in Lima's Plaza de Armas. We are trying our best to soak in our last bit of this beautiful country. I'm sitting in front of Peru's "White House" and Cathedral. It's a gorgeous evening. Ignas is sitting across the street on a curb. We asked a police chic to take our picture. Here it is!

Buenos Dias from Cusco

Just wanted to do a quick blog update because I found a spot in or hotel room that gets wifi! We are leaving the Tambo Del Arriero today, a lovely boutique hotel that we spent the last two nights at. Here is a picture of our hotel room door. There is a beautiful courtyard right in front. Today, we will be heading into the Sacred Valley where the Machu Picchu is. Peru has been absolutely unforgettable and we will be blogging more about it soon!

Colca Canyon

Oh my gosh. Me and Ignas just came back from one of the most unforgettable experiences ever: a 2-day trek in the Colca Canyon of Peru. Both of us agreed that it felt like one of those things you have to do before you die. Personally, I went through so many emotions trying to get through the actual trek. It was quite a challenge, both physically and mentally. Here are the stats:

On the first day, we hiked a total of 17 kilometers to get to the Oasis at the bottom of the canyon, where we were spending the first night. It took us about 7 hours. On the second day, we climbed all the way back out of the canyon, a 5 kilometer climb with a 1,100 meter elevation gain, in 3 hours.

Needless to say, I have never done anything so physically strenuous in my life and I was THIS close to renting a damn mule to take me up the canyon. On the other hand, the whole way through, my Trojan boyfriend kept commenting, "This isn´t that bad!"

Apart from the trek, the actual canyon gave me a whole new meaning to the word "grand." Colca Canyon is truly grand. It´s huge and the canyon walls are menacing. You can still see traces of how the lava dried.

The most interesting part for me was seeing the villages within the canyon and learning about the people there. They have a bartering system with neighboring villages but by neighboring, I mean that they have to trek out of the canyon while bringing all of their goods, exchange everything, and then trek back home. Each village within the canyon only has about 5 families with 2-3 people each.

While walking through the canyon, I thought to myself that it was like walking on another world (specificially, a Halo ring - excuse the nerdiness). The canyon made me feel so small and I couldn´t believe that people live within the walls of this enormous canyon.

We had lunch at one of the villages and it was the first time we tried alpaca meat. The Oasis was beautiful. It´s so lush at the bottom of the canyon.

We woke up at 4:30am to start our trek out of the canyon this morning. It felt like I was climbing a never-ending staircase made out of loose rocks and gravel. It just kept going and going and it never got easier. Can´t believe I did it!

After the getting out of the canyon and having breakfast, we took a bus around the canyon and the views were absolutely breaktaking. I´m getting butterflies just thinking about it. A signature characteristic of the canyon is the terracing done by the Incas and pre-Incas. The terraces and farms added so much to the scenery. Honestly, the best writer and the best photographer couldn´t do justice to the canyon's greatness.

At the end of the day, we relaxed in the hot springs within the canyon which was perfect after our exhausting trek. Then, we ate a buffet for lunch in Chivay, the capital city in the canyon.

We will definitely add pictures to the blog when we come back. I´m currently writing this from an internet cafe in Arequipa and I could only add a few pictures from my phone. So far, our experience in Peru has been amazing and I can´t wait for what we do next!

Primera Noche en Peru

Buenas noches! Ignas and I are all tucked in bed and ready for a good night's sleep, especially after a long day of traveling. It took us 3 planes to get here in Arequipa. By the time we got to our hotel, it was dark so we haven't seen much yet. We're sippin on Arequipena as I write this. Ahh vacation high is sitting in. Either that or soroche is slowly taking over (no obvious symptoms yet)...

Taca Airlines is awesome. We pretty much had first class leg room during our first flight because we had the row right behind first class. They served us a meal on both of our flights, which were pretty good for airplane food. Each seat has their own screen with several movies and TV shows to choose from. Maybe other airlines have the same features but I've never seen it before.

Everyone has been very nice to us. We could really use more practice with the Spanish though. Many people don't bother trying to speak English with us. They just speak slowly and use a lot of hand movements, which is perfect except for when we have to reply haha.

We are both very excited for tomorrow. The manager of the hotel told us a lot about the city and we are definitely starting early.

With that said, buenas noches! Here is a picture of me and Ignas at the Lima airport.

Adios!

The day has finally arrived and Ignas and I are at LAX right now waiting for our plane to start boarding. I think at the moment, we are more tired than excited but hopefully we get some rest on the flight.

Less Than A Week Until Peru

Fight On Trojans! The gangsta trojan grandma on the right always cracks me up.

It's been a while since we updated but we've been in a frenzy learning Spanish (me), doing research on Peru (him), and cheering on the USC Trojans in football (both of us). With October being in the thick of the football season, it was hard for us (mostly him :P) to think about anything else. Game days are almost fully dedicated to the Trojans (with tailgating on campus or finding a cool place to catch the game, watching the 3.5 hour game, being drunk, celebrating when they win, mourning when they lose) and since we only see each other on the weekends, Peru progress has been slow.

Mind Snacks was THE best iPhone app that helped me
with basic vocabulary and verbs.

On the other hand, I've been really proud of my progress with Spanish! I went to the library and checked out several books to help me learn, including fun children's' activity books! I also downloaded Spanish audiobooks for my car and my shower/workout playlists. I spent several nights playing every Spanish iPhone app until I fell asleep with my phone in my face. Livemocha has been really fun too. It's a website that allows you to converse with other language learners around the world, in addition to having traditional lessons. Native Spanish speakers who were learning English were the best to chat with since we would help each other and many that I chatted with were from South America. I think I know enough for our trip but Ignas always points out my horrendous Spanish accent (or rather, the complete lack of).

The red section is the size of Costa Rica - tiny compared to all of Peru. Taken from a nifty website: www.ifitweremyhome.com

Planning Peru has honestly been overwhelming because its gigantic compared to Costa Rica and Hawaii, where Ignas and I took our previous major trips. We knew that visiting Machu Picchu was a must but other than that, the possibilities were endless. Peru is extremely varied and has almost every type of climate. There's the desert coastline, the Amazon jungle, the Andes, culture, history, ruins, museums, beaches, wildlife, food... and we would see it all if we could but we don't want to spend too much time traveling from place to place. The first way we narrowed our options was by choosing to stick to Southern Peru.

I put up a makeshift calendar on my bedroom wall when Ignas visited last weekend. As of today, this is still what it looks like. Needless to say, it'll be a very interesting and surprising trip.

With Southern Peru in mind, we are considering Lima, Cusco, Arequipa, Lake Titicaca, Machu Picchu, and the Colca Canyon. How and when are we going to do all of this? We still don't know. We want to get enough in to embrace the best of what the country has to offer but we also want enough time to explore and trek off the beaten path.

My new 24" suitcase vs. my standard carry on. 

With less than a week before we depart, we are in the process of finalizing our itinerary and figuring out what to pack. I decided to buy a new suitcase since I anticipate to pack bulkier clothing. The low's in Cusco and Arequipa have been in the 40s (F) and the high's at 70F. Brr! I spent forever looking for the perfect one and I finally found this cute black/purple one that was very functional and had a lot of compartments. I knew Ignas wouldn't like it though. In fact, this is what he had to say when I sent him this picture: "That looks terrible. You'll probably be stopped from leaving Peru because they'll think you killed some exotic endangered purple leopard and made luggage out of it." That's my boyfriend <3

At this time next week, we'll be taking off from our layover in Costa Rica! :D Oh and check out the new Instagram gallery in the sidebar! I'm hoping to upload a few pictures on the trip and Instagram is so much easier to work with than the Blogger app on my phone. Follow us! :)

Pachacamac... Not this time

I had read about Pachacamac in a few of the books I got from the library and I was immediately interested because of its historical significance and its pyramids. After reading a little but more and seeing a few pictures, however, I'm not sure if it's worth the visit on our short trip.

Taken from TripAdvisor. Very austere looking...

I don't know if Machu Picchu is spoiling me but the Pachacamac seems so... ordinary. Similar to the Nazca Lines, I'm sure Pachacamac would be awesome to see but I'm not sold on trying to fit in into our itinerary.

Nasca Lines are a No-Go

The Nasca Lines are these amazingly large etches into the land of southern Peru. By large, I mean like up to 200 meters large. The drawings are of animals and geometric shapes and some of them get pretty complicated.  Their original purpose is uncertain and there are several theories about their existence (calendering, agriculture, sport, etc.). Many recommend to view the lines by plane - this will allow one to really embrace the mystery and vastness of the shapes.

"The Monkey" -  Taken from Wikipedia

Taken from http://escapedtonazcalinestours.com

Taken from TripAdvisor. A picture from one of the plane tours. This looks very anticlimactic...

With such a short time to explore Peru, however, we've decided to rule out the Nasca Lines from our itinerary. A plane to see the lines would cost $45-$100 (for a very short flight) and I'm not really sure how much we would see from above that we can't see from pictures online.

Peru planning continues!

Altitude Sickness Part 2

So I've done quite a bit of reading about high altitude hiking and how to prepare for it.. or not prepare for it. Basically, there is no way of ensuring that I will not suffer from soroche. I can train all I want but in the end, I may still be flapping my arms.

However, there were a few tips I read that I will be incorporating into my pre-trip training regimen to hopefully make high altitude activities as enjoyable as possible while in Peru. Currently, I would consider myself to be of average fitness level, definitely not above average (Ignas is superior).

Cardiovascular Fitness
This is a must. Typically, I set a miles/month goal for running, usually 30-40 miles per month. For Peru, I plan to do a 30-40-50 mile goal from now until October. I'll probably throw in some biking, just to switch it up. I like to use the stationary bike at my gym because I can read or study my flashcards while I'm pedaling. Swimming was probably the most recommended exercise to prepare for high altitude hiking because it is a low oxygen activity. The key is to increase distance or intensity as the trip gets closer.

Hiking at High Elevations
Hiking in itself would be good training but the ideal practice would be to hike at high elevations. I read about Mt. Whitney and Mt. San Jacinto, which are two mountains in the Southern California area that I would like to trek before Peru. It was also suggested to wear a (heavy) backpack while hiking.

The path I plan to do interval training on.

Interval Training
Interval training is when you do an intense cardio exercise, rest (either by completely stopping or decreasing to a lower intensity), and then go full out again. There's a hill that leads to the beach path that I run at. I plan to run up that hill, walk back down, and then run back up again - slowly increasing the repetitions until Peru.

Other Suggestions
There were other interesting suggestions that I read about: snorkeling, wearing a gas mask while training, bilateral breathing while swimming, breathing through a straw... not sure about these but just wanted to throw them out there. 

On another note, my Arequipa > Cusco > Lake Titicaca plan from the previous post makes zero sense. I had hoped that we could go from Arequipa to Cusco and then on to Lake Titicaca since, in this order, these locations are in ascending elevation. Unfortuantely, this make zero geographical sense in terms of trip planning. Lake Titicaca is completely out of the way! Definitely going to keep this in mind when planning the final itinerary.

Altitude Sickness Part 1

Altitude sickness, acute mountain sickness, hypobarothapy, high altitude pulmonary edema, soroche... whatever you want to call it and all of the above. I am afraid I will get it in Peru.

This goldfish has not acclimatized.

I remember learning about acclimation, or acclimatization, in a college biology class. We did an experiment with goldfish where we put them in differing temperatures of water and counted how quickly they flapped their fins. The faster they flapped, the less acclimated they were to the new temperature. I can just imagine myself, on the top of Cusco, flapping my arms in panic as soroche overcomes me.

Why am I so convinced that I will suffer from altitude sickness? Compared to this Superman boyfriend of mine, I've found myself prone to physical and health impairments while traveling... stories for another blog post.

Perhaps I will not fall victim to altitude sickness. There is no way of knowing whether one will get altitude sickness unless actually going to high altitudes. However, it's still something I would like to prepare for as I know we will be spending a decent amount of time at relatively high heights.

Taken from Peru Travel Diary: http://www.machupicchu-inca.com/acclimatization-at-peru.html

Symptoms of soroche include: headaches, vomiting, loss of appetite, fatigue, difficulty sleeping, rapid pulse rate, dizziness... lots of things I can do without on our trip to Peru. I guess the one thing about altitude sickness is that it is easily treated: I can just go back down. As soon as any symptoms appear, I can descend to a lower height and hang out until I acclimatize (preferably spend the night). Once symptoms subside, I can continue up. Here are some other treatments I've read so far.

Treating/Preventing Altitude Sickness at High Altitudes

• Ascend slowly
• Increase sleeping elevation (the altitude where you spend the night)
• Drink a lot of water/fluids
• Do not drink alcohol
• Eat regular meals high in carbohydrates
• Take it easy!

A common treatment for soroche in Peru is to chew or make tea out of cocoa leaves. Apparently, the leaves are non addictive. Peru Travel Diary explains, "It is legal to buy this product in Peru, but illegal in most of the neighboring countries. For a very short time, cocoa leaf 'users' will test positive for cocaine. But as long as you are in Peru, there is nothing to worry about." Yeah... not sure how I feel about that.

Another factor I must be mindful of is my anemia since this lowers the oxygen in my blood. At some point before Peru, I'll have to make a visit to the doc. 

From what I've been reading so far, the recommended route is to go to Arequipa first and then Cusco. Some who have gone straight to Cusco, especially those who flew in, felt altitude sickness. Hopefully I'll be ready to tackle Lake Titicaca after spending time in the Cusco region. 

I'm curious, though, as to whether there is anything I can do before the actual trip, like physical training. Since I usually do some sort of training before our trips, I want to see if there are any activities or exercises I can incorporate into my typical pre-trip routine. Part 2 will tell.

Helloooo South America!

Between Ignas's typical Ignas schedule (being absolutely booked every single day from 5am to midnight) and me being caught up in Diablo 3, our blog has been neglected. However, after coming back from the library earlier, I was reminded that I had yet to make THE announcement on this blog!

WE'RE GOING TO PERU!

Hit up the Katy Geissert Library after work today to check these babies out!

I received another once-in-a-lifetime deal and we had to close in immediately. Peru. PERU! Oh and check this out, our flight layovers are in... San Jose, COSTA RICA! :D

Our trip isn't until late November but I'm already so excited, it's ridiculous. Peru! <3