It has been a busy few weeks since I have last written here. After climbing Cotopaxi, we were looking forward to taking it easy for the last few days in South America. We headed to the town of Banos, which is a town at the edge of the jungle. In Banos we went on a half day horse ride to a waterfall. Afterwards we went to a vista point overlooking the town of Banos.

After Banos, we headed to Quito. One of the days in Quito we walked around the city to visit the main plazas, churches and sites. The next day we headed to a park called Mitad del Mundo, which translates to Middle of the World. The equator runs right through the middle of this park.

There is an interesting museum here detailing the importance of the equator to the Incas and the civilizations prior to the Incas. Somehow these cultures were able to determine the exact location of the equator and build structures based around the equator line.

We went to another museum that had a few interesting science exhibits which use the equator. In one experiment, we stood on the northern side of the equator, so we were in the northern hemisphere. Here, we poured water into a sink and watched the water drain in a counterclockwise direction. Then we walked a few feet away to the southern hemisphere side of the equator and watched the water drain in a sink in a clockwise direction. Finally we stood right on the equator and watched the water drain straight down the drain without swirling in either direction. This effect is due to the centrifugal force of the earth’s rotation. Here was another interesting effect of standing at the equator.

The next morning we packed all of our stuff and somehow crammed it all into our backpacks. We have accrued a lot of stuff throughout the five month trip. My backpack was double the size from when we first started the trip. We hopped on our flight to San Francisco, with a layover in Houston. We were excited to have some good ole American food during our layover. I had a turkey sandwhich from Subway, and Su made the mistake of eating Wendy’s. After traveling in South America for 5 months, easting mostly fresh food without preservatives and additives, the Wendy’s made Su sick for a couple of days. Ironic that neither of us ever got very sick down on South America from the food, but American fast food was finally the culprit.

San Francisco was a lot of fun. We went out almost every night and saw all of our friends. One day we went to an Oakland A’s game with a big crew of friends. Here are some pictures.

After San Francisco, we started the drive across the country. We headed to Portland, Seattle for the 4^th of July, Yellowstone, the Tetons. Now we are in South Dakota. Today we head to Mt. Rushmore and the Badlands. Then we will drive two days to Memphis. Then we head to Raleigh. I will write about these travels next week.

Su convinced me to try and climb a volcano down here called Cotopaxi. At 19,500 ft in elevation, this is the tallest active volcano in the world and is much higher than the other peaks we have climbed so far. The peak we climbed last week was around 16,000 feet tall. Cotopaxi is much taller. I did not really want to attempt the climb, but Su suckered me into it with the argument that our bodies are more adjusted to high elevation now than they ever will be and there are only a few mountains in the States that are this tall. This was an opportunity that I should take advantage of. Unfortrunatly, I agreed.

We hired a guide in Riobamba and headed towards the base of the volcano on Monday. This is just a 2 day trek to the top. On Monday we climbed for about an hour to the elevation of 16,000 ft. where there was a refugio we stayed at for the night. Next came the difficult part.

To climb Cotopaxi successfully, you have to start at 1am. This is becuase it takes about seven hours to reach the top from the refugio. The top portion of the volcano is covered in a glacier. You want to reach the top before the sun is too high and starts to melt the glacier, which would cause an avalanche. We started out at 1am in below freezing temperatures. After walking for an hour, we reached the beginning of the glacier where we had to put on our crampons and rope ourselves together. This is done as a precaution.  If one climber falls into a crevasse in the glacier, the other two can pull him or her out.

Next began a grueling 6 hour steep walk up the side of the volcano, on the glacier. I don't think I have walked as slow on a hike in my life. At that elevation, the oxygen levels are very low, so it is very difficult to breathe. The best way to hike in these conditions is very slowly. I would take a step, take a few breathes, wiggle my toes, wait a few seconds, and then take the next step. It was pretty tough. What also made it difficult was the fact that it was pitch black, we were using headlamps, a blizzard rolled in cold winds, and it was really steep.

Around 6:30 the blizzard past us, the sunrose, and we were able to see without the headlamps. We reached a plateau near the top which had many beautiful ice formations. At this point we were almost at 19,000 feet up and breathing was very difficult. We slowly continued on and were very close to giving up from exhaustion, when the next blizzard came whipping in. It was very difficult to see much at all. Our guide made the call that we had to turn around because of the bad weather. Most likely, we would have turned around in just a few minutes becuase we were so exhausted.

At the turn around point we were 150 meteres in elevation from the top. We ended around 5750 meters, which is just shy of 19,000 feet in elevation. Not bad for two rookies. One thing I can promise you is I will never attempt anything like that again. It was an interesting challenge and worth trying once in my lifetime, but I don't think mountain climbing at those elevations is for me. You live and learn.

Now we are in Quito for the last few days of our trip. There are a few interesting markets and museums which we´ll visit before we depart on Tuesday.  

Before you read this, I will let you know that I just posted a previous article about our remaining time in Cuzco.

After Cuzco, we took a flight to Lima. We were only in Lima for a day and then we headed up to northern Peru to visit the town of Huaraz. This town is next to an area of the Andes called the Cordillera Blanca, or white corridor. In this area there are over 50 mountains higher than 18,000 feet. Many of these peaks are over 20,000 feet. We hired a guide and a donkey to carry our packs and headed into Huascaran National Park for a four day trek through these mountains.

The first day we only had to hike for four hours. Most of the hike was spent walking up through a valley between some tall mountains. Here is a picture of the area we setup camp for the night.

The next day was another casual day of hiking. We only had to hike about five hours to reach the next campsite. We continued to walk up the same valley. The snow covered peaks that you see in these pictures are over 20,000 feet high. Along with us were two girls from Switzerland and also a couple from the Bay Area, Ethan and Ema. Here is a picture of the sunset from campsite on the second night.

The third day was the toughest day. We had to hike up and over a pass that was around 15,500 feet in elevation. This was the highest I have ever climbed before. The lack of oxygen at that elevation certainly makes hiking more difficult. But we managed to climb up to the top of the pass without too much of a problem. Here is a view of one of the lakes that we hiked alongside on the way up. Afterwards, we climbed down into a valley on the other side of the pass to the next campsite.

On the fourth day we had a simple three hour hike down a beautiful valley to the place where we would take a bus back to Huaraz. Here is a funny picture of three grumpy kids we met along the way. On the bus, on the way back to Huaraz, we came to a vista point of the Huascaran Mountain, which is the tallest mountain in the area at over 22,000 feet. Huascaran is the tall peak on the left side covered in a cloud.

After Huaraz, we took a very long trip up the coast to Ecuador. The trip took two full days, and involved three different busses with two very long 12 hour layovers. Now we are finally in Riobamba, Ecuador. We will be here for a few days, and then head to Quito. Our time in South America is winding down as this is our last week here.

We spent this few days after the Inca trail visiting the Incan ruins around the city of Cuzco. We learned a lot about the history of the Incas during these two weeks. I am only scratching the surface of this history.

On Thursday, we spent the afternoon walking to four ruins outside the city. Here is the ruin of Tambo Machay, which was associated with the Incan water cult. Here is another ruin of Puca Pucara. The most interesting ruin of the day was Sacsayhuaman. When the Incas built Cuzco, they designed it in the form of a puma, which was a sacred animal to them. The walls of Sacsayhuaman were meant to represent the teeth of the puma. This site had some of the best stone work of all of the ruins that we had seen. Some of the stones that were used weighed hundreds of tons. They were shaped to fit each other perfectly. This is impressive considering the Incas had no machines to help them build such massive, perfect structures.  

On Friday we took a day tour of the sites outside of Cuzco in the Sacred Valley. The two main sites we saw were Pisac and Ollantaytambo. Pisac is an old ruin with lots of agricultural terraces and a temple of the sun.

Ollantaytambo was an important Incan town where some legends say the first Incas were born here from the sun. The town itself was designed in the shape of a llama. The llama was an important animal for the Incas because it was a food source, and because its usefulness in being able to carry heavy loads and requiring little water. Many of the buildings and temples are oriented to the sun. On June 21st, the winter solstice, when the sun rises, it lights up the area of the town that coincides with the llamas eyes.

What was also interesting about this town was that some structures in the town were not finished when the Spanish attacked. You can see evidence of the large stones left exactly where they were when the Spanish attacked.

Another interesting design was that the fields were built in the shape of a tree. And on one side of the tree, the fields were shaped like a pyramid. One of the fields in the pyramid is shapes like a window of the pyramid. On the summer solstice, December 21st, the first rays of sun fit into this window of the pyramid perfectly.

There are two giant figures carved into the mountain above the town. These were figures from old Incan legends that were said to have frozen into stone and look over the town to protect it. During the solstice, the sunlight hits the eyes of the figure carved into the mountain. There are countless other examples of how the Incas oriented their buildings towards the sunlight of the two solstices.

Here is a picture of one of the many fountains in the ruin.

We just returned from the four day trek on the Inca trail. We were a bit skeptical of how the experience was going to be becuase we are used to hiking and camping in solitude. Each day, 500 people are allowed onto the Inca Trail, so we were afraid that so many people would ruin some of the peace and quite that we are normally used to when camping. It turns out that we were partially correct. The name of the trail should be changed to the Gringo Trail since there are so many Gringos and no Incans. Having so many people on the trail all at once was a bit annoying. But there were lots of positive aspects of this trek to talk about.

We signed up with a tour company called Andean Life a few months ago. Each day, the government only allows 500 people onto the trail, so you have to book your spot months in advance. Our group consisted of 13 tourists, 2 guides, 1 cook, 1 assistant cook, and about 15 porters who carried most of the supplies. For an additional $50, you could hire a porter to carry your backpack for you during the four day hike. Su and I were some of the only people we saw during the 4 days who were carrying our own packs.

This was by far the most plush camping we have ever done. Even though we carried our own backpacks, the porters still carried our tents and the food for the group. All we had to carry was our sleeping bags, sleeping pads, water and clothes. Each morning, we were awoken by the cook who would unzip our tent and offer a variety of tea to drink. So, for the first chilly moments of the day, we got to drink hot tea and stay in our sleepíng bags. Then they boiled water and poured it into a small wash basin, and provided soap and towels so we could freshen up before breakfast. Breakfast was an assorment of pancakes, eggs, hot cereal, tea, coffee, hot chocolate, toast, and fresh fruits. After breakfast, the porters broke down camp, packed up and ran ahead to the lunch spot where they prepared lunch for us and waited for us to arrive.

We would usually stroll into camp a few hours behind the porters. When the porters saw us coming, they ran to us to take the packs off of our backs for the last few yards, and another porter would pour us a glass of juice. Not too shabby. Then we would sit down to lunch which could be trout, or fresh pizza, or chicken rolled with ham and cheese. The food was amazing. I think we gained weight on the trek.

Onto the trek itself. The first day, we had a simple hike along a river, beneath a giant mountain, and alongside two small Incan ruins. Here is a picture of one of them, which is a town called Llactapa. We hiked for about five easy hours this day.

The second day was the hardest day. We climbed to the top of dead womans pass, which was an elevation gain from about 9000 feet to 14000 feet. This was the hardest hike I have ever done at this elevation. I struggled a bit, near the very top, but was fine compared to most of the others in our group. The others have never really hiked before. And they all just arrived on vacation to Cuzco, so they were not adjusted to the high altidude yet. That usually takes atleast a few days. So, the rest of our crew slowly limped up to the top of the pass, in complete exhaustion. Afer summiting, we walked down the other side of the pass to our camp, where our porters were waiting with a hot meal.

The third day we walked almost all day. First we walked past a ruin called Runturacay, which was used as a lookout point and supply store for people walking to Machu Pichu. The next ruin we came to was Phuyupatamarca, which is the last town on this trail on the way to Machu Pichu. After having lunch, we continued walking down this huge mountain until we reached our camp for the night. Next to the camp was a beautiful ruin called Huinay Huayna. This was an agricultural site near Machu Pichu. At its height, Machu Pichu had about 1000 people living there, but they couldn't grow enough food for themselves. Sites like  Huinay Huayna grew food for the people living in Machu Pichu. After visiting this ruin, we returned to a great dinner and went to bed early.

The fourth day, we woke up at 4am and started hiking around 5:30 after breakfast. We arrived at the Sun Gate, Intipuku, to watch the first rays of sunlight hit Machu Pichu. There, we watched the ruins for about an hour, and then continued on to into Machu Pichu. Look at this picture. And this one. Our head guide Freddy was an amazing guide with a wealth of knowledge. He lead us around Machu Pichu for a few hours explaining most of the towns highlights.

What was most amazing about the ruins was the precision of the stone work. Take a look. Another picture.  The terraces were also amazing. Look. Here is a picture of one of my favorite places…..the Temple of the Three Windows. Here is a picture of the main plaza. And another.

Afterward our tour ended, we were free to roam around the ruins on our own for a few hours. Su and I climbed the small mountain behind the ruins called Huayna Pichu. Afterwards, we headed down to the entrance of the park and took a bus to a nearby town called Aquas Calientes, where we relaxed for the next day.

The history of Machu Pichu is interesting. The Incan Empire was at its peak when Pizarro and the Spanish arrived in the early 1500's. Once the Spanish saw all of the gold and silver in the capital of Cuzco, they wanted it all. And they wanted control of the territory. A war broke out, which the Incas lost. The Incas fled the capital of Cuzco for the jungle. All of the Incan temples were destroyed and Catholic churches were built on top of them. Local Incan sites were dismantled and the stones were used to build the houses of the Spanish conquerors. This is a grim history about the wiping out of the native empire. As the Incas fled into the jungle, they destroyed all of the paths and trails that they had built in the mountains. They did this hoping that the Spanish would not find some of the towns and cities in the jungle. This is why Machu Pichu remained unknown to the Spanish. Machu Pichu was redicovered, uninhabited, in 1911 by an archeologist.

Even though the Incan Empire was wiped out, many traces of the culture still exist. For example, the langauge of the Incas was Quechuan, which many locals here in Cuzco still speak. Even though 85% of Peru is Catholic, most people still practice the same rituals as the Incans and believe in the same gods.

Tomorrow we head into the Sacred Valley to explore more ruins.