The Peruvian Misadventures of Zach and Paraag, episode 1

I've been at it again, though it has been a while since I've last written in this forum. But true to my word, my next travails have indeed been to the land of the Pervs, ummm... Peruvians. But this time, I did not go it alone. My Buddy Zach joined me to keep me company. My Buddy Zach and I are good friends from our short time living in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, home of everyone's favorite talk-show host, Rush Limbaugh. Yes, I do hold the honor of having lived in the hometown of His Largeness (or is it His Annoyingness?) in great esteem. I should have a plaque on my wall. Saturday, August 22nd Thanks to my pretty healthy travel schedule while working in P&G Cincinnati Engineering, I was blessed with many Delta Frequent Flyer miles. I finally used them. So, me from Philly this afternoon to Atlanta, then on to Lima. My Buddy Zach was flying from Kansas City to Atlanta, then on to Lima. By now, you are likely wondering why I keep referring to My Buddy Zach as "My Buddy Zach". Normally, I refer to most of my friends as "My friend ", but for some reason, Zach always seems to refer to his friends as "My Buddy ". Which reminds me, of course, of that little kids' toy that used to plug the TV commercial airways non-stop years back - "My Buddy, My Buddy... Wherever I go, he goes...". You know... for that doll (it certainly wasn't an action figure) for little boys. Remember? Okay, fine. That was a tad on the obscure side. But you're a better person for having read through this. Trust me. You'll thank me later. Really. Oh yes... back to the story. Zach's plane from Kansas City had a "mechanical failure" and was cancelled. As we all know, "mechanical failure" is shorthand for "not enough passengers". I'm in a complaining mood at the moment, so humour me. Net: Zach was re-scheduled for a later flight to Atlanta, then to Miami, and then to Lima overnight via American Airlines. So, Zach left me a message with the airline to go on to Lima and he'd meet me at the hotel. Sounds like a foolproof plan to me. Sunday, August 23rd It was not a foolproof plan. I awaken in my hotel room at 5am to a knock on the door. Standing in the doorway is Zach and his little Camelbak backpack. And that's it. His bag was not as fortunate as he to make it to Peru. After unsuccessfully attempting to get a few hours of sleep, we got up and hit the phones to get an answer regarding when to expect Zach's bag. The American Airlines rep at the Lima airport opted to take a laissez-faire "what bag?" approach to helping Zach out. Needless to say, he was a tad on the peeved side. The phone lines were not doing a much better job, so we opted to head back to the airport. We were originally scheduled to leave today to go to Cusco by plane anyway, so the airport wasn't exactly out of our way to begin with. Again, the American Airlines rep was less than helpful. After confirming with Lan Peru that we could move our flight to Cusco out a day, Zach decided to hit the phone lines again. An hour later, Zach had a hoarse voice, 40 Soles ("So-les" = Peruvian currency) less in his pocket, and no better idea what the heck happened to his backpack. At this point, our theory rested on a missed "hand-off" from one airline to the other. Bags? We don't need no stinkin' bags! Zach is about 5-6 inches taller than me, so my clothes were not about to fit him. He was also beginning to get cold since his one pair of shorts wasn't doing a good job in the body heat conservation arena. So we got a taxi and headed over to Miraflores, where we could eat, shop, and get a hotel, not necessarily in that order. Hold a sec, actually it was in that order. How to get to Miraflores? Why, that's simple - just hail the nearest slimy commission-seeking taxi driver you can find. We did rather exceptionally well at finding a slimy taxi driver if I do say so myself. I just did. We had lunch at a very exquisite and romantic restaurant on a pier jutting out into the ocean. Too bad that we weren't quite looking for an exquisite and romantic restaurant. Zach's not that cute. No es el guapo. Funny story (not funny ha-ha, but funny nonetheless)... throughout the trip, Zach tried his best to speak Spanish using the French he had learned in high school and whatever Spanish words he had learned through media and pop culture (think: yo quiero taco bell, rico suave, living la vida loca, etc.). So, he kept commenting "muy guapo" whenever he meant to say that something was very good, which is "muy bien". People looked at him funny for that, and then they would smile because of the big smirk on his face. After lunch, we went shopping, where Zach found much to his chagrin that he is sized a little too large for Andean people. He couldn't find any pants that would fit him. If his bag doesn't show up, he'll be in a world of trouble. We might have to go swipe the clothes from other tourists, a la James Bond, Spaceballs, or any other movie where the protagonists lure unsuspecting clothed beings into their realm only to konk them over the head and steal their threads. Hey, that rhymed. I'm the rapper, he's the DJ. We finally escaped from the slimy taxi driver after checking into the Hotel Nirvana (also spelled Hotel Niervana). It would not be a stretch to say that this was far from a Niervana: the beds were damp, the room was humid and funky-smelly, the toilet handle had to be jiggled to stop flushing, the pool was not quite swim-worthy, and there didn't appear to be any other hotel guests. Be afeared. Be very afeared. Monday, August 24th Went to the airport again. But this time, we went to actually board a plane. I stood in the line for Lan Peru to get our boarding passes to Cusco, while Zach roamed the airport in search of his bag. Miraculously, it appeared - most likely not due to any efforts from the crack team of American Airlines customer service reps stationed in Lima. My theory is that they were just about to open the bag up and divvy the booty (especially the non-Andean-sized pants) when Zach walked in and ruined their plans. And they would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling kids. The Lan Peru line was an adventure unto itself. The line wrapped around itself many times, and well beyond the Tensa-Barriers that they had allocated to this line. With all the people cutting through this way and that way, the lines started blurring more into a mass of confusion, finger-pointing and accusations were flying in many different languages. My guess is that it was probably France's fault. Once we got through this line, we were honoured to stand in another line to pay our airport taxes, and then in another for the security checks to permit us entry into the boarding area warehouse. No real gates. Just a temporary building structure - you board a bus which will take you to your plane. Your takeaway from all of this is simple: Lima sucks. Any good guidebook will tell you the same. In fact, this may not be a bad criterion by which to judge guidebooks when you are looking for a good one. One hour or so later, we were landing in Cusco, a town built in a plateau in the middle of the Andes mountains at a pretty darn high altitude (3300m ~ 11,000 feet ~ 2 miles). You would think that it would be very easy for someone to come down with a case of altitude sickness at this height. You would be right. And that someone was me. It didn't take much exertion to be out of breath (like carrying your bag up a flight of steps to the hotel room) - it's a humbling experience. After a few hours of walking around the city exploring (and looking for trail shoes since I left mine in my car), I started coming down with a bit of a fever and a headache and had to crash at the hotel for a bit. Zach, being the dedicated athlete he is, decided to bite his thumb at my frailty and go for a jog out in the town. Big fat show off. We also got an orientation for our first big adventure of the trip: a 4 Day / 3 Night rafting expedition down the Apurimac River, which is known to be one of the 10 best rivers to raft in the world. Danger is my middle name. Tuesday, August 24th After a night of restless sleep, multiple bathroom trips, and lots of shivering, I broke my fever and felt great. This is a very good thing, because I think Zach would have made me go on the trip even if I were feeling like absolute crap. Of course, I probably would have thanked him if that were the situation. This morning, we embarked on a long van ride to the put in spot for the rafts: 1 hour of paved roads, and 4 hours of pothole-laden gravel road, including descending several thousand feet via switchback roads. But we learned many a thing on this short journey. For example: - Though the entrance to a marketplace may be flanked by bloody carcasses of meat with eyeballs seemingly staring right at you, there could be packaged food available beyond the entryway. Like Oreos. - Instead of putting placards out on the lawn with your chosen political candidates running for office, the Peruvians paint the ballot number of their candidate of choice on the outside of their walls: #3 and #7 are very popular. I think I'll probably vote for one of them. It was pretty darn compelling advertising. Finally, we arrived to the put-in location, and it quickly dawned on me that something was very very strange: we were the only ones in sight. No other rafting companies or tourists or anything. Just us. And us consisted of me, Zach, Colin (the other tourist), Juan (our rafting guide), Willie (the cargo raft guide), and Diego (the safety kayaker). 6 guys and 4 days of Class IV-V rapids. We were excited. Except that we were not known as Paraag, Zach and Colin for the duration of this trip. In the Peruvian Spanish accent of the guides, our names became Prague, Sack, and Colon (as in Cristobal Colon). After lunch (cheese and potato casserole - not so good), we spent a few hours assembling and loading up the rafts, going through rafting safety training, and of course, doing whatever it took to squeeze into our hineys into the wetsuits. I was incorrectly deemed to need a medium sized suit by the tour organizers - I'm actually cringing in pain as I write this. Fortunately, my knees broke through the knee pads and ripped the seams a bit to provide a little bit of relief. This also came with the price of very odd farmer tan shapes on my knees once the trip was done. But I'm getting ahead of myself. After a vigorous hour and a half of rafting (I'm being facetious), we pulled ashore and began to set up camp. We had rafted several Class II and III rapids - enough to whet an appetite, but I was hungry for more. Unfortunately for me, my appetite would have to wait until the next day. We soon found out that this rafting company is the only one to do this river in 4 days. The other companies do it as a 3 day trip. The rationale was that we would be able to take our time and not rush through the mornings to get out into the river, and we'd have plenty of time to get settled in the evenings in the new campsite before the sun went down. This was true. We indeed had plenty of time. The campsite was pretty cool. We had our sleeping tents, a dining tent, a bathroom bucket (complete with toilet seat), a propane stove and plenty of food. The guides cooked every night, and started us out with a steak this evening. Not too shabby at all. I think we all came in assuming that we'd be living on a steady diet of PB&Js for the trip. Just as we were about to get the greatest campfire ever witnessed by man up and going, God decided to rain on our plans and send us to our tents. We learned a valuable lesson that night: whence you doth be sleeping on a slight slope, don't situate your sleeping bags with your feet on the uphill end. It just doesn't work so well. You all are more than welcome to try it too and see what you think. And there was much rejoicing. Wednesday, August 25th We woke up in the morning and took our own sweet time eating, and tearing down the tents, and packing up, and loading up the rafts, and everything else. Somewhere around 9:30 or 10am, we finally set off. Today, the rapids got a little bigger. We got some IIIs and IVs finally. We also had a surprise guest: the sun. For the past several days, we were fiercely debating whether or not we were misled in grade school, and that perhaps the southern hemisphere didn't really see the sun ever. But fortunately, the sun came out and proved that we were taught correctly. This is good, since it would have been a shame to have to burn all those elementary school science books. That would not have been muy guapo. It didn't take long for the sun to hide behind the clouds again, and the threat of rain came back on. So, our guides decided to raft through lunch and make it to the campsite. No big deal - it was nice to get a full four hours of rafting in. We did have our first few portages today as well. A portage rapid is where the rapid is deemed to be too dangerous for us simpleton tourists, and we are forced to walk around the rapid whilst our guides soak in the glory of running the rapid. So what if the raft will barely fit between a big ass rock and a big ass cliff and has to be run sideways? So what if there are plenty of underwater caverns that you could potentially get sucked under and drown? So what if getting tossed from the boat is an absolute certainty? We paid for death defying rapids and signed our lives away already, dammit! Let's get it on! Well, okay maybe not. These guys had our safety firmly set as the utmost priority, and I suppose that was very comforting. But I still felt like a big wuss for having to sit on the rocks and watch. Call me an idiot (I'll help, "You big fat idiot!" - doesn't that feel better?). Two of our guides, Juan and Diego, are young guys who are good friends and roommates and usually go on these trips together. Nonstop throughout the trip, they were trading barbs in their slower-than-normal-conversation broken-English. Juan would yell out, "Hey fella... you betta watch-a yor back!" as he tries to steer us to run over Diego and his kayak. Just pure unadultered comedy, these two. After making it to the campsite, the clouds went away and the threat of rain disappeared. Oh well. We had the entire afternoon to bask in the nice weather and do anything we wanted to, in this very remote area of the mountains. Yes, it didn't take long until we were bored out of our minds. So we did what anybody would do - we invented Peterball. Peterball is a variation of Bocce Ball, using stones from the riverbank instead of wooden balls (since multiple painted and evenly-weighted wooden balls are not naturally occurring in the majority of campsites along the Apurimac River). And Peter means rock in Latin or something like that, and hence the etymology of the game name, Peterball. Please pay attention, there will be a quiz at the end of this e-mail. This is good stuff. By the way, I'll have you know that I am the undisputed Peterball king - undefeated and unstoppable. Don't dare and challenge my greatitude, or you shall fail. Hail me. We did get our campfire of the century up and going this evening. But there were no smores. Very very sad. Colin did share with us a true horror story about some unfortunate extended legal battles that he and his wife had been through with a psychotic illegally-subletting landlady. Damn lawyers. The stars were out in full effect and we got to see the Southern Cross, and Orion, and some convoluted scorpion that really just resembled a random smattering of stars. The moon was out in full effect too, so we couldn't see the stars so brilliantly, however we also had no need for flashlights. You take the good, you take the bad, you take it all, and there you have the facts of life. I am compelled to provide a bit of side commentary here (as if you would expect anything less from me). Melissa - you are a very lucky woman, and I think we should all be so fortunate to have the relationship that you and Zach have. Without fail, every time we saw spectacular scenery, you could see it in Zach's eyes that he would have enjoyed it 10 times more with you by his side. It brought a tear to my eye. Thursday, August 26th I just realized that I haven't ranted and raved about the scenery - que lastima! As you will see with the photos, it was all surreal. It was amazing to round a corner in the river and have the steepest and tallest mountain you'd ever seen appear in front of you. They all looked like they must have been fake, because it was too spectacular to be real. Couple this with our solitude - not another person in sight - and it was too much to try and soak in. I spent many hours in the mornings and afternoons just staring with mouth agape. And I was left wondering if the mountains of Fiordland in New Zealand when I kayaked in Milford Sound a few years back were comparable - I honestly don't know. We did manage to spot some wildlife as well, but not too much - a deer, a fox, some wild parakeets, an otter, and some ducks. Parakeets in the wild - just doesn't sound right, does it? I guess I just never envisioned parakeets being able to live in anything other than a cage! When we finally got on the river this morning, it didn't take long for the sun to come out. And this time, it stayed out in all it's glory for the bulk of the day. So, if we weren't getting wet, we were getting hot. Fortunately, the Apurimac River doesn't have many long stretches without rapids. The guides were raving about this and told us that they've been kayaking and rafting around the world and still love the Apurimac back home the most. After a few invigorating Class IV rapids, we stopped for lunch in a nice little side beach encampment, where the sun continued to beat directly down on us. After lunch, all of us were scrambling to find shade, but there was little to be found. I managed to contort my body and lie down along a rock in a sliver of shade that it was providing, though I had to move slightly every five minutes to maintain the cover. Finally, after the guides decided they were ready to go, we launched off again. And Juan was very nice to us and took us to a cliffjumping spot. It didn't look very high when we approached it, but this could be because the mountain extended much much much further up behind it, dwarfing the leap we were about to make. Regardless, it seemed pretty darn high from the ledge. I got it on film, so you can judge for yourself. At some point today (or it may have been yesterday - all of the days kidna blurred together after a while), Zach asked Juan what a particular rapid was named. They have names for all of the rapids, and most of the names had interesting stories behind them. Well, this particular rapid had no name and no interesting story behind it. Inspired by one of the catchphrases of my friend Saravanan, we asked to name this one "B#&$% Betta Have My Money", and tried our best to explain as best we could what that meant. I'm not very confident that they will keep this name for this rapid though. After a two portages and a several more Class II and IV rapids, we got to our last campsite. After setting up the tent, Zach and I decided to go on a small hike. We found lots of rocks, and some unidentified creature holes, and many garbage trees. I call them garbage trees because it seemed that every branch had a bit of a plastic bag stuck to it or some other refuse. The trees had pricklies on them that grabbed anything that went by, so our guess was that when the water level rises in the rainy season, any garbage left behind by the stupid humans in the campsites was washed away and caught by these trees. Very sad to see. Friday, August 27th Ahh... we were taking down our tent and packing up our clothes in the dry bag for the last time this morning. More importantly, squeezing myself and all my parts into the wetsuit for the last time. Felt kinda good and felt kinda bad. We had pancakes this morning, but there was no syrup - only some strange caramel like spread. So I ate it plain with butter. It was good. But not as good as the few strips of thick bacon we had yesterday morning. That was ummm... ummm... good. We had a Class V rapid this morning - it was incredible. How do you describe a rapid? Okay - the raft went this way, and then it went that way, and then we went down this drop, and around the side of that rock. See? It just doesn't do it any justice. So you'll have to trust me on this one - it was damn good. We wanted to portage ourselves upstream and run it again, but Juan just laughed us off. Next up was a swimmer's rapid - we were permitted to hop off the raft and lie back on our lifejackets feet-forward through this next rapid. Now, I've done swimmer's rapids before, and usually they're pretty dinky. And given that these guys weren't about to allow us to do any rapids where there was danger involved (as evidenced by one, maybe two, questionnable portages, in my mind at least), let's just say that I wasn't expecting much. I expected wrong. These were some vicious rapids that they unleashed on us - I probably swallowed a few litres of water. And the water was freezing! A strange dichotomy of temperatures: on the one hand, the sun was beating down on us in a rather hot fashion, and on the other hand, the water was a real weenie-skrinker. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. But when we were asked if we wanted to do the next set of swimmer's rapids, we unanimously don't-ed. The end was drawing nigh, and we pulled up on a shore and started carrying everything up a hill. One by one, we took up the dry bags, the coolers, the paddles and oars, and the rafts of course. Just as we were finishing, another group of rafts passes by, completey shattering our illusion that we were the only ones on the river. It was kind of heartbreaking and eerie in a strange sense. And the worst part? The majority of the tourists on these rafts that passed us were women, some of them fairly attractive women. Colin and Zach didn't mind so much, but I think Juan and Diego were a bit envious of the other guides. The trip back to Cusco was quick and uneventful. But we did get to witness some locals carry a live hog wrapped up in burlap and attempt to get it into a local bus. My guess is that they were taking it to market to sell or something. Also, we got a very beautiful view of the adventure that lies ahead - the van driver pulled over so that we could stop and gaze at Salkantay Mountain. But at long last, we got back to the hotel, and immediately fought over who would get the first shower. Let's just say that after 4 days, there was some massive body funk abound. Okie doke. I'm all out of stories for the first week. I'll leave our second adventure in Peru for my next update. As I'm sure you're figured out, this trip is already over, so I'm writing this on memory. We were camping too much to have enough time for me to write these along the way and get this to you in a more real-time fashion. But you'll survive. I have faith. -Paraag Tidbits: 1. During my Brazil trip travelogues, I fathomed that Spongebob Squarepants must be billed as SpongeRoberto SquarePantalones in Spanish-speaking countries. I was unfortunately wrong. The little fella goes by Bob Esponja. Though personally, I like my loose translation much much better. It would be much more muy guapo. 2. As with most 3rd world countries, Peru also requires you to throw your toilet paper into the wastebasket rather than the toilet. This is strictly enforced by the TP Police. It takes about 4-5 to really get used to this. And, as I've found, it takes about 4-5 days to un-learn this habit as well once you return home. Steve - you may want to make sure that you use your own bathroom for a bit until this unwanted habit completely goes away. 3. It's official and has been confirmed. Zach is indeed the only person who voted for GWB to ever travel a 3rd world country. As with every tour group in a 3rd world country I've been on, as soon as the tour guides found out we were Americans they asked us who we voted for. For some strange reason, they find it very curious that someone who lost the popular vote could win the election in what is touted as the democracy of democracies (Yes, Zach - I know that the US is not really a democracy, but most people do not know that). When Zach answered Bush to their question, they were shocked - they had never met someone with that response. Somehow, I don't think they asked the "who did you vote for" question so much after the Clinton-Dole election in 1996. I could be wrong though. 4. If you want more info about our rafting trip, you can visit www.apumayo.com. We were extremely happy with these guys - they were extremely particular about making sure that we didn't leave any garbage or refuse (even human) behind. And quite often, they picked up garbage that other tour groups had left behind.