A Van for Four

The next day the four of us set off for Machu Picchu – from the looks of it we were cut out for another long dive. Up and down passes, rain, mud dirt roads, mountain bikers braving the busy road – we were doing all this to avoid the main routes and expensive routes to Aguas Calientes; train in from Ollantaytambo or Cusco or the Inca trail. We were going in through the back door; driving to Hydroelectric and then catching a shorter train at 4:00 pm to Aguas Calientes. From Aguas Calientes we would then be able to take the quick bus ride up to the ruins of Machu Picchu the following day. Well like I said before, if you put Dolores on a deadline she throws a fit. Her chosen fit on this day was her fuel pump. The filter had been changed just days before, but upon inspection it was evident that the pump was clogged. Quick thinking George, hooked it up backwards pushed the junk out and when reinstalled she roared to life. This slight delay gave us enough time to eat lunch and be on our merry way.

 We pulled into our parking spot 15 minutes before the train was to depart - ran the 10 min walk to the station and were relived to see the train was still there. As we approached the conductor we were refused tickets. It was too close to the cut off time to departure and they didn’t have time to enter our info in their system. Without much time to debate, we decided that we’d walk the six miles in, we’d just have to move if we didn’t want to walk too much in the dark. Despite our speedy efforts we arrived at Aguas Calientes in the dark, found a place to call home for the night, had bad pizza and called it a day.



After a great breakfast at the Killar Inn we caught the bus up the hill at started to explore the ruins. We first hired a guide and he walked us through the ruins. After the tour we sat overlooking the Lost City, ate our lunch, watched the sunlight make the large polished rocks below us glow and laughed at the llamas. We hiked a section of the Inca trail and returned back to our spot overlooking the city. As we sat there and chatted about how the light changed the scene around us, spotted uncovered stairways windows and walls and it was then that the magic of the place really struck us. Taking in to account all the theories we'd heard about the city, we all concurred that it was a really special place.



We decided to do one more walk through before leaving and were pleasantly surprised to have the whole place pretty much to ourselves. You could hear the water running through the whole city and we amazed by how much more we saw as we meandered around just the four of us.

As the whistles blew signaling the close of the park we made our way to the exit. As we looked back one more time a huge rainbow crested the mountaintops surrounding the city. We stood there in awe of the view before us we couldn't help but be impressed with our luck. As we stepped on the bus it started to rain – perfect timing. That night, we cheered our Pisco Sours over the delicious dinner at Indio Feliz all remarked that is was the perfect ending to the perfect day.



The previous day's rain was persistent all through the night and through our train ride the next morning. When we arrived back at the van and started on the only road out of town, we came to a road closure. A rockslide was being cleared and while the dozer was working on the problem, the hillside continued to fall. A huge bolder half the size of our van, hit the dozer and pushed it about 20 feet. Everyone that was watching the work was on their feet screaming for the workers safety. He jumped out of the dozer and ran for his life. A short while later, after things calmed down, the road opened and we made our way out of the giant valley, just in time for another fuel filter failure. This time we all knew what our jobs were. Dad and George tackled the problem, Ashley made lunch and (after seeing how the Latin Americans handle dangerous breakdowns) I put sticks and rocks in the road to indicate we were broken down around a blind corner. Again, in no time at all we were on our way.



We went looking for a secluded camp spot high in the Andes that we'd seen from some fellow travelers on Instagram. What we found was not exactly what we'd imagined and someone told us the lake was private, but that there was another one ahead. As we climbed to almost 15,000 feet we decided we'd look elsewhere for a place to call home for the night but before we could go a personal market of handmade llama and alpaca wool popped up for us.

 After a fun negotiating session we gave the three little girls and the two women a ride back down the hill. One of the ladies spun her yarn during the whole drive all while chatting, caring for the girls and giving us directions. 

We made our way to Cusco and enjoyed our time in the city.

From there we decided to drive to Canon del Colca. At some point during the drive, I don't know if it was the snow, the windy steep roads, the dark or the 14,000 foot altitudes that made us all decide it was time to pull over for the night. In the morning we found ourselves on the Altiplano surrounded by freshly covered snowy peaks and vicunas.



After coffee we headed into town for breakfast, then to the hot springs to soak out the stress of our high altitude winter drive. Once we were all jelloy we made our way to the rim of the canyon rim where we would stay for the next few nights. On our way we spotted our first of a handful of Andean Condors. They were magnificently large and fabulous to watch glide around the sky. We played wiffle ball, went on hikes, watched sunrises and sunsets and enjoyed our company.



From there we made the atypical decision to skip Lake Titicaca and go straight to Ariquepe where we realized that the cold Ashley had brought with her was having a go with George. He slept while we explored Monasterio de Santa Catalina, a colorful monastery/ciudad that has a crazy and fascinating history.



Ashley did a little souvenir shopping and suddenly the largest raindrops I've ever seen drenched the entire city in seconds.

 We enjoyed a nice dinner for my birthday courtesy of my dad and ran around in the rain looking for a place to watch the Super Bowl. The next morning as we left town we stopped to get gas and Ashley had an oh shit moment when she realized she had left her sunglasses at the store where she did her souvenir shopping the day before. We decided to turn around and at least ask if they had found them. I did say to her, “if they are still there, I'm moving to Peru.” After waiting for about 30 mins for the store to open I was pleasantly surprised about the new country where I’d reside. Ashley's sunglasses and the brochures she was carrying had been safely set aside and were promptly returned to her.



It was a good start to the day and a great way to end our time in Peru so we decided to go to Chile. After our most intensely searched border crossing which included removing the surfboards from the roof and sending them through an x-ray machine we fell asleep to the sound of the waves on the beach in Arica.

 We spent a few days in Arica checking out the festivals, the beach and the crazy mummies and then it was time for Ash and Dad to make their way north. That night over dinner we talked about our favorite and least favorite moments of the past two weeks. Favorites included; wiffle ball (it's pretty hard to play with just two people), Machu Picchu, Canyon del Colca and just being together. Least favorites; driving in the snow, nothing, a sketchy room in Arica and sleeping at high altitude. It was truly a special experience sharing this voyage with my Dad and my sister. They were troopers trucking around with us in the van and I was unbelievably homesick the moment we watched them drive away.



Get in the Van!

From Lima it was a race to Cusco. My sister and my Dad would be joining us for two weeks and they were arriving in Cusco in 6 days later. With a little cushion we were giving ourselves 5 days to drive 700ish miles.

You may be saying to yourself, really 5 days to drive 700 miles, that doesn’t seem really that far and 5 days seems like plenty of time. And I say to the voice in your head, have you ever driven a 33-year-old van in another country? Was that country Peru, and will you at some point in this journey be driving from sea level to 14,000 feet, and then making most of the drive at 14,000 feet? Well if you answer yes to both these questions, you weren’t for a second questioning allowing 5 days for this journey. Besides, the only time Dolores really threw huge fits was when we put her on a deadline.

We had planned on leaving Lima early in the morning to start this drive, but sometimes because of really good pisco sours, early in the morning turns to 2 in the afternoon. Lucky for us the roads were in super great shape and we made really great time. We pulled into Paracas National Park, a beautiful desert butted right up to a beautiful ocean, with plenty of time to find a camp spot. As soon as we started exploring the park, George realized it was like a playground for big kids. He drove the van entirely too fast, up steep hills, down steep hills, at one point he looked at me and said, “This is like snowmobiling – we can go anywhere!” To which I replied, and was barely audible over the noise of our silverware, pots and pans rattling behind us, “Yes, except you’re driving our house.”

We found what we were looking for right as the sun was setting. The next morning we drank our coffee with our feet dangling off the cliff edge and watched the ocean wake up. I did yoga and George went on a run. It was the kind of morning that we imagined we’d have everyday on this trip, but as it turns out these types of mornings are treasured as they don’t happen all that often.

We had found a road out of the southern part of the park and since we’d driven mostly south for about 12,000 miles we didn’t see any sense in changing suite at this stage in the game. Somewhere along the way, I’m still not sure if the road went away completely or if we just lost it. Either way we found ourselves about 3 hours into the desert with multiple tire tracks all going different directions, none of them matching up to our GPS and none looking like they were going the way we wanted to go. So we went with what felt good, and came to a steep rock face in the track that Dolores couldn’t negotiate, so we took a different track that lead to the right. We were about to follow it down the steep hill that it brought us to when it occurred to us we might want to see where it went. As we crested the hill on foot, we found it descended down a steep (too steep) hill that if we would have started down we would not have been able to make our way back up, and the going down part wouldn’t have gone smoothly either. About that time we saw a motorcycle that looked like he knew exactly where he was going, we took to his trail and yet again found ourselves at a hill that we thought we should explore on foot. Yet again, a hill too steep and too off camber for Dolores, but from this hill we could see the road on the other side of the valley. It was just a matter of how we got to the road without tumbling down a steep sandy mountain-side.

By this time we understood the game of making your own road so we headed back to the first track we encountered that had the steep rock face. George took Dolores off track and about a quarter mile around the steep rock face. From there we only had a mildly steep hill to make our way down and back to the road.

After driving on the road for about 30 miles we reached a spot where the wind had created a huge sand dune across the road. There was a small crew of road workers making progress at making it passable, but we still needed to go off road to get around it. As George floored it into the sand up the small hill it was only a matter of time before we were stuck, thankfully this had happened before and we knew exactly what to do. Ha.

George jumped out, aired the tires down, grabbed our shovel and dug out in front of our wheels. As he dug the few of the guys from the crew came over to help out. On three, three tough Peruvian men and I pushed the van free. I’d like to think that without me this wouldn’t have been possible. Back on the safety of the road, George gave himself enough room to hit the off-road patch with plenty of speed and with a huge roar Dolores railed through the sand and on to the other side of the dune.
After that it was onward to the Nazca Lines and then a climb to 14,000 feet where we would sleep a cold the night with Vycunas wandering all around.

We pulled into Cusco with a day to spare and used that time to wash all the windows and make sure Dolores was extra tidy, after all she would have to be to be a home for four for two weeks. Stoke was high for Dad and Ash to #getinthevan!

We picked Ash and Dad up at the airport in Cusco and hit the road right away headed for the Salinas del Maras. We were excited to explore as much of Peru as possible with them. As we pulled around the corner and the hillsides terraces with salt pools came into view I mentioned we’d be staying here for the night. Ashley, my beloved sister said, “Wait, we’re staying here tonight?” Yes, yes we are and I’m rather excited about it.

Let's do this 2015!

Canon del Pato or Canon of the Duck, is a crazy road that was built by hand through a rough, rocky and steep canyon. It’s composed of something like 49 hand made tunnels and was our route to the much-anticipated Cordillera Blanca (the highest mountain range outside of the Himalayas).

It was a great way to start the New Year - one lane narrow road on a cliff side. You’re honking your horn the whole way to make sure oncoming traffic knows that you’re around the next blind turn. Every once in a while we would catch a glimpse of the river churning below, a reminder if things went wrong, they were going to go very wrong. After about tunnel 27 it started to rain which made for sloppy conditions inside the tunnels, then thankfully the road turned to asphalt as it began to climb again. Although it made for a white-knuckle drive, at least for me, we made it through unscathed. We pulled into the Huscarn National Park in the rain, excited for clear weather in the morning and a chance to glance at the peaks towering around us.

The morning was clear and beautiful, and just the tops of the snow covered mountains could be seen from our parking spot in the valley. We packed up and headed for a recommend route to Laguna Paron. The drive was amazing and all that we imagined Peru to be – colorful patchwork hillsides, friendly people with bright clothing, pigs, goats, chickens, horses, waterfalls, giant granite walls, cold rushing creeks, beautiful glacier lakes and all with the amazing backdrop of giant towering snow-covered peaks. We were so excited and took to exploring the area on foot.

From Laguna Paron we headed to the more explored Laguna 69 – a well-traveled path for good reason. The roughly six mile rainy assent climbs to about 14K feet lands you at stunning blue lagoon surrounded by glaciers, stunning peaks, active moraine fields - complete with a waterfall cascading from the 22,205 foot Mount Huascaran into the cool blue waters. As many of the descending hikers declared to us on their way down – it’s worth the hike, rain and all. On our way down the sun came out and the clouds cleared and showed us the humbling size of the mountains surround us. Now, looking back at the photos we laugh because it almost looks fake.

We’d heard about a rock forest on the way to Lima and thought it’d be worth checking out. As we climbed the rocky road we wondered if our directions were correct. Could there really be something at the top of this bad little road? Yes, and man was it worth the drive. The road ended at a little lodge that overlooked a stone forest, we were so excited when we arrived we didn’t notice the muddy hill that we droved down. Before we knew it we were stuck, not just kind of stuck, but really stuck. As soon as we realized we were stuck, it of course, started to rain and rain hard. As small rivers flowed around our tires the kids from the lodge came out to help us push. After a while a nearby Shepard thought he’d help us out by sharing that the rain would stop and it would be dry in the morning. The rain did stop and the rainbow and sunset that followed were unreal. The sky was aglow and all the small puddles were reflecting the fire in the sky. That night we slept on an extreme hill. I kept waking up and clinging to George because in my sleep I thought I was falling out of bed feet first.

The next morning it was indeed dryer, but we were still stuck. Chains on, rock paths built, we pushed Dolores’ clutch to near death and after about 2 hours made it out of our muddy mess. Thank goodness, we had to be in Lima the next day.

That night at our campsite just north of Lima more flies than I have ever seen in my life invaded the van. We slept with the sheets over our head and had to drive with the windows open the next morning. When we stopped to get gas I looked like a crazy person, opening all of the doors and windows and flinging a towel around inside the van to get them all out. #vanlife