“I’m a long time traveling here below, I’m a long time traveling away from home.”
I love starting pieces of writing with song lyrics, especially when they apply so very well. And this particular song came into my head during a very particular time in our travels: ten more days, and we head back to the home that we´ve been traveling away from for almost three months now. Not only does the melody of this beautiful song (Long Time Traveler, by The Staves) perfectly fit the preemptive nostalgia I’m feeling for the trip, and the building nostalgia I’ve been feeling for home, but the lyrics also correspond to this point in the trip: we are in South America, geographically below the US (see what I did there), and we have been traveling away from home a very long time. Not only traveling, but traveling on our own: this Carpe Diem group just finished over a week of student directed travel, around ten days spent traveling around Southern Peru, choosing the places we want to go, how to get there, booking hostels, feeding ourselves, budgeting it all, and then actually getting fourteen group members to the scheduled activities. Needless to say, it was quite the adventure: stressful at times, rewarding at most, and great experience nonetheless. I will begin where I think the last blogger left off: our time in Ollantaytambo.
Ollantaytambo (called Ollantay for those who can-t handle the hefty five syllables) is a city situated in the Sacred Valley, about one hour outside of Peru. It is a gorgeous little town, filled with Incan and pre-Incan ruins, which we explored during our four days spent in the city. We stayed in a hostal about two blocks from the main center, and to get to the ruins, it is a twenty minute maximum walk; needless to say, we spent ample time climbing, taking pictures, talking about life and family, playing sardines, and reading while eating animal crackers (ok, that one was just me) (and not a kilo this time…) in these beautiful and interesting ruins. Ollantay is filled with many other activities to do, and so for our second day, we decided to head to Pisac, a town also located in the Sacred Valley about one hour and a half from Ollantay. Pisac is home to a beautiful artisan market and the rumored cui castles (which we were unfortunately unable to find), but the reason for our travel was to climb the ruins of Pisac, which extend up a steep mountain slope that takes about two hours to climb. We could have taken a combi up to the main ruins, but no–we are heavyweight adventurers and decided to attempt the climb. And every person in our group made it to the main ruins! At times, because of the lack of oxygen and the thousands of steep rock steps, we did not think we could make it, but it was so worth it getting to the top. And our climb was interspersed with Peruvians asking us for pictures with them, which never ceases to be weird. Danny, Yael, Cheridyn, and I even continued on past the main ruins to explore more, and to suba (climb) some walls that were not meant to be suba-ed (as I said, adventure heavyweights).
The next day in Ollantay, some members of the group decided to try our luck at mountian biking, something I had never attempted but that I was super excited to do. Adventure activities are usually a challenge for me, but I feel comfortable on a bike, and so I was looking forward to trying my luck on mountain bike. Try my luck it did. We biked downhill (but also uphill…that part cannot be forgotten because it was so insanely difficult) for around three hours, stopping to keep the group together, but the exhilaration of going down a steep, rocky path at high speeds (with the proper protection, of course) is something Id never really experienced before, and I loved it (honestly, much more than rafting, during which I had been scared for my life, and even more than ziplining!). Not to say that it wasnt difficult, because I did wipe out. But only once!
We biked to Las Salinas, the salt pools, which are hundreds of small-ish natural pools filled that fill with salt after the salty river water taht goes through the mountains evaporates. Along with being extraordinary, they are white and pristine and look like snow, and we decided that a holiday movie could easily take place at them. It made me remember that Christmas (and other holiday) preparations were already being made at home, and how, though I missed them dearly, I was happy to be celebrating the pre-holidays in Peru. Speaking of holidays! With the expertise of Madeleine and Laura, SAM pulled off a pretty amazing Thanksgiving meal in Cusco! With Pollo a la Brasa instead of Turkey, fried yucca, lamb butter (my own creation), sweet potatoes, bean casserole, egg and tomato dish, salad, and delicious apple crumble and Betty Crocker brownie dessert, we had a delicious feast! We also created a Thankful For list, which made me remember how much I really do have to be grateful for. I get to travel around South America with an amazing group of people for 3 months! Talk about lucky.
Our time in Ollayntay was action packed, but went by relatively quickly. After our last movie night (the hostal had every Leonardo di Carprio movie ever made, except for Titanic, so we satisfied our Leo fix those four days), we took a combi to the Cruz del Sur bus station in Cuzco to board a night bus to Puno, the town that holds Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world!
Upon our arrival in Puno at 4:30 AM, we slept off the bus ride, and went to explore ruins for the remainder of the day. The next day was the reason for our time in Puno: getting to boat around Lake titcaca, the highest navigable lake inthe world! Have I mentioned that it is the highest navigable lake in the world! This excites me very much! The boat ride lasted all day, and we went to two of the islands on the lake. The first was a man-made floating island called Urus, which contained only around three houses, and the ground was squisky because of the reedy plants piled on top of mud bricks submerged in water that the island was created on. The second island was Taquile, a larger, natural island made of rock where many people lived. This island was also filled with ruins, and it had a nice plaza once we had walked about 20 minutes uphill. My favorite part was the artisan store selling items knitted by the community group of men knitters. I am all for gender equality, but it makes me especially happy when men take up one of my favorite hobbies! Overall, I was super happy that our group got to experience the highest navigable lake in the world.
That night in Puno officially concluded our student directed travel, and at least for me, it was difficult to go back to being led by Ryan and Cheridyn. Though planning even ten days of travel had been a challenge for the group, we had made it so much more successful than any of us thought we could, and being able to do that gives me confidence that each of us will do just fine next semester when we are on our own, regardless of what we are doing. Giving the reigns back was difficult nonetheless, becauese I like being in charge, and the group really learned what we could have improved, but also the many things we did right. I am so proud of what we accomplished!
But the nature of the trip prevailed, and before I was able to think about this for too long, we were on another night bus out of Puno, traveling to Cuzco and then back to the Sacred Valley, where we spent five days in a yoga retreat through the organization Yoga Inbound.
The retreat was certainly well needed, but I dont know if I would call it a retreat so much as a mental and physical work out in a different way than we had experienced thus far in the trip. Each morning, we would wake up in silence requested by the resident yogi and head of Yoga Inbound, the awesome Chaitanya. We would have an hour of morning meditation, tea, and then an hour and a half of yoga–all before breakfast! I grew to love how much we were able to accomplish before eating in the morning, and I hope to bring this practice with me back home, where I am unable to do anything before Ive had my bowl of Captain Cruch. When we got to breakfast, however, it didnt matter how difficult concentration had been during meditation or how taxing the sun salutations had felt, because the food was absolutely fantastic, my favorite breakfasts of the trip: five types of fresh fruit, granola with raisins, quinoa oatmeal, bread, natural butter, natural honey, organic cereal puffs, natural yogurt, scalding hot tea. I had thirds, to say the least. Breakfast was followed by Seva, or work to clean up around the retreat center, which is situated in a valley surrounded by the most gorgeous mountains and a river flowing right outside the yoga building. Chaitanya taught classes every day, and I learned so much, about Chakras (seven spiritual centers in the body that are correlated with personality and health), pranayama (breathing in positive energies through exercises), mantras (the different types of vocalizations used as a type of meditation), and vedic astrology (what your birthday says about your personality in accord with how the planets lined up at the exact time you were born–it was surprisingly accurate!). More yoga in the evenings was followed by dinner and the expansive stars, and though it was a retreat, the days flew by, and I could not believe that we were already leaving today. We ended our time with Chaitanya by having a goodbye ceremony, during which we threw rice into a fire to get rid of bad karma and marched around in a circle with musical instruments, dancing and chanting. We presented him with rocks we had painted as a goodbye present!
Also during the retreat, after dinner one night, Ryan and Cheridyn began our debriefing activities by having us write down favorite memories of each place we have been to. It is still unreal to think that we are leaving so soon, and that these ultimate goodbye preparations are necessary already.
But we still have Machu Picchu to conquer, which we begin in two days! These next days are spent in Cuzco, being briefed about the trek and mentally preparing for the final week in South America. As I said earlier, our time here already has me feeling nostalgic, but if the yoga retreat taught me anything, it is that staying in the present and enjoying this moment is more important than thinking about how soon it will all end. Either way, Im a sucker for retrospect, and so, after these five days of reflection and introspection, I realized how much Ive learned from this trip. I wont bore you by writing even more about this, but Ill leave you with a line from my second favorite song of all time (which connor played for us in Pucara): Ooh La La by the Faces. I think the lyric can be taken negatively, but I see it positively: I know so much more now, and I know that I have so much still to learn that I can only begin to understand with more time and experience.
“Poor young grandson, there’s nothing I can say
You’ll have to learn, just like me
And that’s the hardest way
I wish that I knew what I know now
when I was younger”