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We’re at our final volunteer project on this trip and have set some roots for the next month at Wilka T’ika, a yoga retreat center with a vegetarian kitchen. They don’t have a volunteer program like most yoga centers, because this place is not like most yoga centers. The staff is all local Quechua and the center is more set up for outside yoga groups to come and tailor their own trip. The place is beautiful and made with all local materials and the details are so impressive. Gardens galore filled with territorial hummingbirds of all sizes, rooms with natural stone work, large yoga rooms with hardwood floors..it’s so nice to sit on the ground again and stretch or read in the grass not filled with litter and nastiness.

My project here is to teach vegan and gluten free recipes that they can add to their lacto-ovo repetoire. Matt’s project is to teach English and answer computer queries. The staff is really friendly and most of them are family that helped with the construction of the site. I’m having a lot of fun teaching them stuff in the kitchen. Last night we served my first entree here and it was a big success: Lasagna! We made the pasta dough from scratch, ricotta and sauce from scratch and sauteed up some spinach and garlic to give it a kick. It was delicious and the guests liked it so much that a group of them requested it for lunch today. We didn’t have time to make the pasta, but it still came out yummy.

It’s fun teaching comfort foods and homemade bread and vegan cuisine. The gluten free teaching hasn’t begun yet, as I can’t seem to find any buckwheat or sorghum flour. Not sure if it exists in Peru, but we will try. Oats just seem too risky to use…especially since the only oats in Peru are Quaker brand. Yeah, it’s probably all sorts of tainted with wheat.

Our free time has been spent meditating and reading and we don’t really have much of a desire to leave the center most days, it’s just too beautiful and peaceful here to want to go anywhere else.

After months of having one of the top questions by locals be: have you been to Cusco? We can finally answer YES. We took an overnight bus from Arequipa via Cruz del Sur, THE western friendly bus to take in southern Peru. We liked it, but didn’t think it was anything over the top, especially since part of the route was on a dirt road and kept Matt awake.

So, we are back at high elevation, and it is cold! It feels possibly colder than Puno, although it is at a lower elevation than Puno. A little rain at night, but not too much. The streets remind me of Granada, Spain. The sidewalks are barely wide enough for one person, the cobblestone roads are barely wide enough for a car. The houses have terracotta roofs, and it could be quaint, except for the obvious fact that it’s a tourist town. Meaning, people approach quite often selling you paintings, jewelry, alpaca hats and massages. They aren’t very pushy, which is nice. And it’s cute to see the llamas walking around with their owners, even if they are just doing it for photo money.

So far we’ve walked around the city, did a trolley tour, and saw a local soccer game versus Arequipa (and the crowd was pretty rowdy. people brought flares and drums and trumpets into the stadium with them. we didn’t witness any violence, and cusco won. when we made the first goal, a guy rushed the field to hug the player that made the goal, so that was neat. Sadly, no streakers.) Things obviously cost more here than the rest of Peru, but the food is good. We had breakfast at a place called Jack’s, aptly named. I think Jack would be pleased with the large portion sizes. Very yummy breakfasts!

We found the Cusqueña Beer Factory but were not allowed in. I guess the concept of factory tours isn’t really understood here. The guard told us it’s just a factory, but if we really wanted to go in, we’d have to gather a group of 10 people and give them a week’s notice…notice for what? I’m not sure.

We decided to break up our bus time to Cusco by stopping for a night in Arequipa, Peru. We both really enjoyed this city the first time around and it was comforting to return to a place where we knew our way around and didn’t have to seek out food. We already knew where we wanted to eat as soon as we got off the bus (Lunch at Gopal, fill your gut with a 3 course lunch of fake meat and veggies for about $1).

We did see something new this time, though. We took a little walk to the suburb of Yanahuara, which felt like a richer section of town. There was a nice mirador and shady park to enjoy, but the view was limited due to smog or fog or something. No volcanoes visible this day. There was a church built from the white volcanic rock in the main plaza, which had a nice fachada. Fijaos!

Chile was breaking our budget. We were not used to paying more for a meal than we do in the US, and I’m not talking McDonald’s, folks. We paid $14 to camp in a dusty, noisy campground in San Pedro de Atacama. We hurried back to Arequipa, Peru, where we had a room with 2 beds and a private bathroom for $8. BIG difference.

We took a night bus to Arica, which was only a Semi-Cama but we slept okay on it (Frontera Del Norte). Once we arrived in Arica at dawn, we hopped in a shared taxi to cross the border and head to Tacna, Peru. The buses weren’t working that early in the morning, so we had no choice but to pay $6 a person instead of $3 a person for the journey. After being in Chile, we didn’t care as much.

Border formalities were pretty quick and efficient, and in Tacna we hopped on the next local Flores bus to Arequipa. This bus wasn’t too noisy, but it was HOT. We were the only tourists on the bus and there were at least 3 aduana stops where officials got on the bus and seized bags of clothing off the bus. We figured there were about 4 women involved, sitting on piles of clothes, stuffed under their seats. A number of people on the bus were sitting on piles of clothes as well. We didn’t understand what the deal was. I asked a guy nearby and he told me that they were carrying used clothes to sell. I don’t see what’s wrong with that, unless the clothes are made of cocaine or something. Maybe there’s a law against ugly secondhand clothes. I estimate at least a pickup bed truckful of clothes was confiscated by customs officials. When we arrived in Arequipa, the women started organizing their hidden stashes of clothes and I don’t understand how they got it all to fit in the first place. They started throwing out 50lb rice bags filled with clothes out the windows. I think they had more luggage than everyone else combined. They must have lost only 1/4 of their inventory, because there was a lot left. I’m still confused, and I don’t care about them carrying clothes on a bus…except that all the aduana stops increased our travel time to Arequipa…I estimate our travel time from San Pedro to Arequipa to be about 20 hours. Time for a day off from buses!

We took a day bus from Salta to San Pedro in Chile (if you’ve seen the desert scenery, it’s pretty repetitive). Once again, we were shocked at how expensive Chile is. Most of the tourists we’ve met in Chile are from the UK. Perhaps they are the only ones who can afford it. San Pedro is a tourist town, which means better food but everything is soo expensive. I think the food we had here costs more than most food in the US.

We spent half of a day trying to book some tours. Some places were full and we found one that took credit cards to only find out that their line was not working. Typical drama. We ended up having to go to the ATM (which for some reason does not work for 4 random hours during the day) and booked the sunrise geyser trip through Desert Adventures and the Valle de la Luna tour through Atacama Connections. Both seemed to be about mid-range in price.

So, on my birthday there was no cake or sleeping in. We woke up somewhere around 3am to be ready for the 4am pickup and a 2 hour ride to the geyser field. It was about 10 below 0 celsius and dark. The sun doesn’t rise until 8am and sets about 8pm as well. We got to the ticket entrance spot and our bus broke down! We had to wait a bit, but another bus came to get us and bring us to the field, which was really cool.

We saw a lot of steaming vents, some noisy gaseous things, some throwing up water everywhere. Our tour guide, Juan, brought eggs and cooked them in one of the boiling holes in the ground. He also gave us cheese sandwiches, hot tea and cookies. Juan was a great guide, but he was worried about the bus situation making us miss our evening tour, so he passed us off onto another tour group (Terra Extreme) with another fun guide, Antonio. The new group was mostly South Americans, with a few rowdy older Brazilian men, who kept everyone in the bus laughing the whole time. We went to a hot springs and soaked for a bit. The hardest part was getting out of the water because the elevation was over 4,000m and it was COLD.

Antonio took us to a local village in the barren highlands that seems run by tourism now, they grilled up alpaca kebabs and made fresh goat cheese empanadas. On the drive back we learned about local folklore and saw flamingos, llamas and one sole ostrich, running about and looking silly.

That evening, we did the classic Valle de la Luna tour with tour guide Stefan. He was not a very good guide, his microphone on the bus made him sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher. He would start his talk before the whole group gathered and spoke very softly. I’m sure he’s a nice guy, but he was weird and not a very informative or articulate guide compared to the other two we had in the morning.

Anyhoo, the tour itself was neat. The whole area reminded me of the 4 corners region in New Mexico and Arizona. Striped mountains, vast expanses of desert, etc. We went to the Valle de la Muerte and enjoyed dry, barren landscapes with lots of geology that we wish Larry was there to explain it better than Stefan. Basically, volcanoes in the distance and old mountains and canyons with visible stratified layers showing their age and composition. The rock formations were beautiful and best explained through photos…for now you can look at the Wiki link until we get our pics uploaded to Flickr.

We had a few vista point stops to admire the rocks and horizons full of volcanoes, then we went to the Valle de la Luna for sunset. We saw some rock formations that were carved mostly by wind (reminded me of the hoodoos in Bryce Canyon Nat’l Park). We hiked up a cool sand dune and out onto a plateau to watch the sunset. The sunset wasn’t anything spectacular, maybe they need more air pollution for a more colorful sunset. But I’m not complaining, watching the light change on the sand dunes and the volcanoes turn purple in the distance was a nice way to end a birthday. It may be my first birthday I woke up for the sunrise and saw the sunset as well.