Lake Titcaca, Arequipa, Mollendo...Big Lake, Big City, Big Beach

Well, we are approaching the ½ way demarcation of our South American sojourn and what a better way to recharge our batteries than burying our feet in the sand. Currently, we’re shacked up in a little beach community in the south of Perù named Mollendo (between Arequipa and Tacna). It’s mainly a simple vacation spot for Arequipans. Our simpleton Spanish is more evident here...a lot of blank stares and missed explanations. Mollendo is a ways off the Gringo Trail, so there are very few foreign travelers here. It’s been a good spot to figure out our next move and save some loot. We’re preparing for the price shock once we hit Chile.

We begged off from the Cusco/Machu Picchu area on the 10th and headed south east to Puno and the Lake Titicaca area. The lake is either the first or second largest lake in South America (depending on the source), the largest lake above 2000 meters and the tallest navigable lake in the world....which makes for some unique ecological and cultural attributes. We joined a group of other travelers and took a full day boat tour of two islands. We first stopped at the Islas Flotantes “Floating Islands” of the Uros. While the whole experience was made possible only for tourists, it was fascinating to see how the people of these islands have been able to survive for hundreds of years on floating islands made of reeds. The Uros use “totora” reeds to build large, mobile islands on the lake just east of Puno. Primarily, they survive through tourism, fishing and hunting. Most all of their homes, boats and crafts are made from the reeds. Carrie caught this darling girl prancing around while make friends with the group.

From Islas Flotantes we made the two hour boat ride to the second island, Islo Taquile. This island had gorgeous panoramic views of the bluish/gray lake and was home to a small population of farmers and crafts people. The women wore beautiful, elaborately embroidered dresses and the men could be distinguished by their colorful, long hats (men wearing red hats were married and men with red and white hats were single...the bar scene pretty cut and dry). Between the two islands, we spent every cent we had on crafts from a cooperatively run shop and local artisans. A group of us sat on the top of the boat on the way back to Puno and shared our traveling adventures. That night we all went out and had a raging conversation about global economics and politics over countless rounds of drinks (no kidding, it was the Irish dude’s fault). If we all had not run out of loot, we probably would have stayed up all night. There was one free-market junkie amongst the lot of us, so it made the conversation quite colorful.

The next day we headed to Arequipa, a city of a million peeps towards the south west coast of Perù. Arequipa sits on the edge of the Andes and the insanely arid Perùvian desert. We really enjoyed Arequipa...tons of great restaurants, museums and two enormous mountains/volcanoes surrounding the city (Mt. Misti and Mt. Cotahuisi). No worries, there hasn’t been an eruption since the 15th century. We spent an afternoon roaming around the Monasterio de Recoleta, a large Franciscan convent for aspiring nuns that opened in the late 1500's . It had an enormous collection of religious art, primarily originating from the Cusco School of Art.

We also took in an exhibit describing the ancient Incan sacrifices that took place atop of the nearby mountains. Numerous remains of ornately dressed girls sacrificed to the mountain gods along with dozens of valued gifts have been found over the years. The tour and the exhibit was one of the best we’ve scene thus far.

That morning, Carrie had a few hours to kick back and stroll through town while I went on a little mountain biking excursion through some of the surrounding mountains. I hired a guide to show me around the area. Interestingly, my guide was Aldo Peña Altamirano, a three-time national cross-country mountain biking champion. He took me around the city, up into the small mountains sprinkling the city limits and through some spectacular countryside. It made me want to get back into mountain biking once we get back. We talked most of the way about Perùvian politics, economics and ecology. He had just seen An Inconvenient Truth and got pretty worked up about the lack of interest the U.S. has in doing anything about it.

Speaking of An Inconvenient Truth, did anyone catch the Oscars last month? Aside from nearly wetting myself after watching the musical-skit by Will Ferrell, Jack Black and John C. Reily, the big news was the big wins and big speeches for the movie. If you haven`t scene it yet, definitely go out and rent it. Regardless of the personal saga and baggage surrounding Gore, the content discussed needs to be common knowledge for all of us. Now if we could only get the dems and repubs to stop squabbling over how many more kids to kill in Iraq or what millionaire will "represent" us in 2008, and start taking some legitimate action. Check out the website above. It has some seriously good stuff on there, and most importantly, things we can do.

On Saturday we met up with two other trekers and our guide Pepe and began a grueling two-day hike through the Cañòn del Colca. This is the second deepest canyon in the world and exhibits a diverse ecological landscape. Saturday was a seven-hour, all downhill, 1200 m (3600 ft), switchback hike to the Calca River. We only saw one other group hiking, so it was amazingly tranquil. There were tons of birds, numerous kinds of cacti and we walked through several abandoned villages. That night we actually stayed in n oasis...no lie. It was this small, emerald green spot just off the river, sporting several thatch bungalows and a main hut for eating, drinking and what not. Seeing we had been up for 20 hours at that point, we crashed straight after dinner. We awoke at 5 am the next morn for the 1200 m hike... straight up. We were running behind to catch our bus, so our stops were just long enough to keep us from passing out. Once we conquered the cloud covered canyon, we took a bus to Chivay and spent an hour in the public pools fed by hot-hot springs.

The very next day...we love our adventures, was all about whitewater rafting. The two of us joined five others and rafted down the Chile river, a few clicks out of Arequipa. What a load of fun and damn what a beautiful day! We all stripped down and threw on some old wetsuits (very necessary for the frigid water) and goofy pink helmets. The guides did most of the work, we just tried to stay in the boats. For the most part, the river was raging, so there was a lot of excitement going on. They told us that some of the rapids were class 3’s and 4’s, but that may have been a bit overstated. Along the way, we chatted for awhile with two construction workers from Alaska. We ended up hanging out with them for awhile here in Mollendo.

We’ll be sticking around here for a few more days until we head to Chile. We may possibly wonder on back to Arequipa next weekend...who knows.The first week of April we’ll be rushing down to Viña del Mar (on the central coast of Chile) to visit our pals Clay and Petra and meeting up with Carrie’s sis Jen and her man. We still need to figure out our approach to Argentina. I’m looking for an organic farm we can volunteer at through the “World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms” . We also want to head to Buenos Aires and the Iguacu falls...not to mention the wine region surrounding Mendoza (what do you think? At least a week, yeah?) A lot to see, a lot of people to meet and a whole lot to learn. We’ll touch base in a couple of weeks. Happy spring up north gang! Say hi to the flowers for us.

Chad + Carrie = Charrie