To MP: Day One, Part Three: The High Jungle

Before I start the journal entry, I'd like to add an extra thought from my previous post. As I noted, we took the mountain pass in a van, but once we got to the highest point, we met several huge groups of tourists on the highway. At this high point in the road, these other tourists got out of their vans/buses, and got on mountain bikes! They rode down the mountain roads for several miles, mostly sailing along since it was downhill. It seemed to be an incredible experience...except for all the cars! Keep in mind this is a two-lane highway, full of sharp, sometimes blind, curves.

Friday, May 25 (continued)

The day I am discussing here is actually Thursday, our second full day in Peru.

"A few things should be noted before I continue. First Santa Maria has a Quechua name as well as its Spanish one, as many Peruvian towns do. Second, all along our path there were small towns and hamlets, not just open land (although there certainly was a lot of that). Some towns appeared well-maintained by our American standards, and others appeared to be hovels. On the other hand, some of those "hovels," as I describe them, had satellite dishes. I feel as though as Americans we care too much about our outward appearances. (I later learned that those satellite dishes, while costly upfront, are an incredible bargain in Peru. You need to spend approximately one month's salary on one (depending on how much you make), but you never have to give the company another dime for the life of the dish. I think I heard they have a lifetime warranty, as well. Imagine, no more cable bills!)

Travis' beard already begins to look wild!

So we arrived in Santa Maria with the intention of having lunch, then going white water rafting, and finally sleeping at a hostel in Santa Maria. We ate at a restaurant that had "turista" in the name, but the food was very good and we didn't have to worry about it being cooked properly for our tummies. We started with a quinoa soup (see my last post for photos), and then had a main course of white rice with chicken and potato, served in a yellow sauce. It tasted somewhat familiar (and we would later eat this same dish 4 or 5 more times), but I don't know where we had it before.

9:10 pm

The dogs are going CRAZY! Just got out of the shower...

Santa Maria is lower in elevation than Cuzco, so it was much warmer. We finished eating lunch, then changed our plans.We decided to drive to Vilcabamba and spend the night, then do rafting the next day. So, after six or seven hours of driving, we got back in the car for three hours more! It was worth it, though, because the drive was again so beautiful (and different). Vilcabamba is not a tourist attraction (yet) so the roads to it and the town itself were especially nice to see.

I forgot to mention two wonderful things about the road to Santa Maria! First, in Peru they "don't fight nature," as Marla puts it, so instead of making the many mountain streams go under the road (which can lead to erosion and roads washing out) they shape the road to make way for the water! There is a sign that looks like a skateboard half-pipe that warns the driver, then the road is bowed inward (like a half-pipe but not so steep) and slanted downwards away from the mountainside. Essentially the water is just guided over the road. We have seen them all over, but our first experience was on the road to Santa Maria.

Second, we had to take a pit stop (I mentioned this is my previous post). Luckily, there are baños all along the highway. Unluckily, they are pit toilets that you have to squat over. I took a picture of the one I used. The liquid doesn't drain on its own, so you wash it down with a bucket of rainwater. Gross. I fully appreciate my country's sanitation system now.

OK, back to the trip to Vilcabamba. We passed through Santa Maria and crossed the river we would later be paddling, and followed a dirt road along a mountainside. I forgot to mention, Marla's friend Wilian joined us in Santa Maria. Our driver, Fernando, stayed with us an extra day since our plans changed (the road through Ollantaytambo was to be out anyway). So, Wilian gave us cultural insights to the many things we saw on our journey. It was a bumpy road, but the views of the surrounding mountains were spectacular. We stopped to look at coffee plants and tasted the "bean" in berry form- which does not taste a thing like roasted coffee!

The dirt road along the mountain

Picking coffee berries

A small hamlet along the way

 About an hour into our drive, we stopped at one of those "don't fight nature" waterways, and Wilian wanted to show us a waterfall. We hiked up some big stone steps and climbed some big rocks, then we were at the base of the coolest waterfall I've ever seen! We got right under it to take pictures. It turned out that it was called "Place Where the Frog Sits" in Quechua, from down on the road we clearly saw a giant frog sitting at the side of the waterfall. (Keep in mind here, that this is one of those "hidden gems" that most tourists don't get to see. The archaeological site we were headed to is not offered as a typical tour, so this waterfall had only been seen by so many Gringos!)

Do you see the "Sitting Frog"?

As we drove on, it began to get dark. Small communities were hidden among the foliage, at some points appearing rainforesty- we were in the high jungle! We stopped for a photo op on the edge of a cliff (most of the road seemed to be on the edge of a cliff, but this space had room to park) Amazing views of the mountains! Here, Wilian told us that all the fluffy red grass we saw coating the mountains are an invasive species, brought over by the Spanish some 500 years ago. It spread like the plague and completely covered the mountains in this region. However, it was neat to see the wind blowing the long blades up and down the mountain- it looked like the mountain was alive! The red grass was undulating and its yellow underside would show momentarily, making it look like moving skin.

Wilian, Fernando, and Derek "fighting"

In the foreground is some of the "red grass," in the right corner you can see where they carved part of the mountain for our road!

We got to Vilcabamba (the town took the name of the neighboring archaeological site), around 6:30 pm, after the sun was down. We were on a mountain, and it was colder than we expected. We had dinner, and it was an experience I will write about when I discuss breakfast this morning (Friday morning). But first, our hostel..."