Yesterday we reached a milestone on this journey: we can now count the days we have left on our fingers. A whole lot has happened since my last post in Puno. We went from Puno to Cusco for a quick break before departing to the Sacred Valley for a week long yoga retreat. Each day consisted of 4 hours of physical yoga practice and two yoga lifestyle workshops covering topics like chakras, the yogic diet, mantras, meditation and vedic astrology. For an entire week I undertook a completely vegetarian diet and didn’t put shoes on my feet once. Tuesday the group took a vow of silence and didn’t speak one word for 24 hours which was a gratifying challenge. Our yogi, Chaitanya, taught us a lot and it was the most beneficial yoga practice that I have ever done. After the yoga retreat we were all excited to return to Cusco for our first bite of meat in seven days.
We didn’t spend much time in Peru’s tourism capital before boarding an overnight bus to Puerto Maldonado on the Brazilian border in the Amazon river basin. The heat and humidity were surprising after spending almost a month at over 9,000 feet. We took a four and a half boat ride up the Tambopata river to Camino Verde, a reforestation project run by an American named Robin. We stayed at a hostel 5 minutes up river, and got to start our day with a beautiful boat ride to the farm. The work days consisted of pruning trees in the morning then a two hour siesta and lunch followed by other odd jobs around the farm.
Robin gave us the morning off one day to go explore the jungle around us, so our group elected to hike to the Macaw clay lick. The macaws were one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen on this trip. We saw approximately 35 macaws holding on to a clay wall while they licked the clay to treat indigestion resulting from a dietary change. There was one bird in a tree opposite the clay wall who was on guard. When he sensed danger he gave an alert call and all 35 red and blue birds flew off the wall in unison; it was an awe inspiring sight.
Macaws at the clay lick
I can’t write about Camino Verde without including the blow dart pepper. Our group’s risk-taker, TJ, discovered this pepper in the garden and inspired three others, Charlie, Noam, and Ryan to also try this pepper. The boat ride home was marked by tears, saliva, sweat and dry heaves. Ryan claimed to ”…feel it in his ears.” Any normal humans would watch that reaction and quickly distance themselves however Jack, Levi and I had the opposite reaction. Just two days after Ryan’s display we walked right through the caution tape and words of discouragement and ate blow dart peppers of our own. The feeling was much more than just heat. My hands started to shake uncontrollably and my mouth went numb. I felt it in my chest, in my throat, in my head, and a few days later, in my stool. I certainly feel prepared to take on the blazing challenge at Buffalo Wild Wings after eating that pepper.
We were excited to return to the city after a week in the heat and humidity of the jungle and after spending a few hours in Puerto Maldonado we took the ten hour night bus back to Cusco.
After a few days we left Cusco for Oollantaytambo and a final week of Spanish study, volunteer work and exploration of Incan Ruins. TJ and I stayed in a homestay with a woman named Ana Maria and her family. They lived on the corner of the ruins and a majestic glacier. The Carpe Diem itinerary described Ollantaytambo as picturesque and I can completely see why. It was a quaint little town but there were always ruins to explore and appreciate; it was certainly one of my favorite stays so far. We got to explore Ana Maria’s farm and on the walk over I took the opportunity to get acquainted with a 450 kg bull named ‘Ali’ after the famous boxer. Ali was a star at the town’s local bull fighting arena where they have a bull fighting ceremony twice a year but the animals aren’t killed. I marched into the bull’s pasture despite Noam, Jack, TJ and Levi tellingme otherwise and I wasn’t fully over the fence before the black horned behemoth turned his attention my way. I felt my heart bumping beneath my ribs as I blocked out the shouts of ”You don’t have to do this” and ”This is a bad idea.” I offered Ali a peace offering of a corn stalk to gain his trust and inched closer and closer until I reached out and petted his snout. I felt really accomplished and glad that I proved to myself that I was stupid enough to get in the pen with a 1,000 lb bull.
Another highlight of our time in Ollantaytambo was cuy for lunch. Cuy is a Peruvian delicacy which costs up to 50 to 60 Peruvian Soles in most restaurants. Ana Maria and her family raise cuy on their farm and it was obviously one of their prouder products. On the first day of the homestay she showed us her cuy which numbered over 80 in total. TJ and I had been looking for cuy since we arrived in Peru but found it was too expensive. Ana Maria asked us if we wanted cuy for lunch and we couldn’t turn it down. Tuesday afternoon we came home from Spanish class and found cuy al horno on our plate. We found cuy to be tasty, but hard to eat and didn’t have a lot of meat. As far as taste goes, I give cuy a 7/10 rating, but you’d have to eat an entire cuy to be satisfied. Oh yeah, in the United States we call cuy ”Guinea Pig.”
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TJ and I were intrigued by Ana Maria’s mother. She was quite old, couldn’t hear, barely spoke Quechua, and spoke no Spanish at all. She had no teeth and even with the language barrier we felt like we understood everything she muttered. Through her gummy smile, and often times indiscernible hand gestures, we could decipher her message and couldn’t help but smile back.
Exploring Incan ruins in Oollantaytambo
Today we are back in Cusco and the talks of returning home and re-acculturation are in full swing. We depart December 1st for a five day trek to one of the Seven Wonders of the World, Machu Picchu. Everyone in the group has been looking forward to this for many weeks now and we’re ready to take on the physical challenge of six to eight hours of trekking per day. Visiting Machu Picchu has been on my bucket list so I’m very excited to take in the amazing ruins first hand.
Read more about the pepper and the yoga retreat here: https://www.carpediemeducation.org/category/inti-sam-peru-and-ecuador/ TJ wrote a great piece about our time in the Amazon and Jimmy gave a great review of our time at EcoYoga