Days 370-372: Cusco

The flight between Lima and Cusco was short but interesting.  It's just over an hour long, so you never really reach a high altitude as you fly into the Andes.  When you're coming in to land you're flying below the tops of many of the surrounding mountains.

We got a bus to hotel we were staying out and dropped things off and going out to explore a little.  Cusco is culturally very important as it was the capital of the Inca Empire, but its also a convenient place for hikers to acclimate to the elevation before moving on to more strenuous things.  It's around 3400m (11,150 ft) above sea level and considerably cooler than Lima.

The tourist influence is pretty evident in Cusco as the central plaza (Plaza de Armas) accommodates a KFC and a McDonalds, and the central area is full of little touristy shops selling Peruvian souvenirs and hiking equipment.  Despite these the city still has a very old-world feel and remnants of both Inca and Spanish periods are everywhere. We were there over Easter, which they celebrated in part by marching crosses and a Jesus replica from church to church around town.

Near the city center are the old Inca walls, including the strangely famous 12-sided stone.  Like the pyramids in Egypt the stonework is impressive for the tight precision of each stone fitting into the next, and without the aid of modern machinery to carve them.  The 12-sided stone is just the most noted because it shows off how each stone is so perfectly set.

A few other buildings of note are the Convent of St. Dominic which doubles as the Cusco Museum and the Church of la Compañía de Jesus which houses some colonial art.

To help everybody get used to the altitude we did a hike up into the hills at the fringe of the city, climbing past the old Inca ruins of Saksaywaman and finally up to Cristo Blanco, which is a smaller Christ the Redeemer that stands above the city.  I always like this sort of small climb outside of cities, and this one gave a really nice view of the city below and the surrounding landscape.  Also, this short venture let me see the first of many llamas and alpacas in Peru.

We also stopped by the cental market, Mercado Central de San Pedro, which was... an experience.  I'm always fascinated by all the bustling markets of the world, but indoors I found this one similar to many of the others, and outdoors, where most of the action was happening, things were too chaotic/crowded for me to really enjoy.

The only other location of note is Jack's Cafe, an Australian/Peruvian restaurant that was quickly established as everybody's favourite place to eat.  So maybe it didn't have the most traditional Peruvian menu, but everything we ate there was amazing.  (For the record, the Jack's Cafe burger is definitely in my top 5 of the world, maybe even top 3).
Now that we were used to the elevation and had gotten to know each other it was time to travel deeper into the Inca heartland...

Days 364-369: Lima to Cusco

Things in South America started off a bit rough. By the time my flight got into Lima it was already dark out, and none of the ATMs in the airport accepted my credit card to get cash out. Since I knew I was going to be arriving late I'd booked a hostel for the first night near the airport, so after being unable to figure out any way to get money I decided to just walk from the airport to the place and try to figure it out there. I'd been warned by multiple people that Lima is one of those cities that you really need to be careful of as a tourist as there is a lot of crime, and walking with all my things through an industrial part of Lima late at night felt a little sketchy, but I didn't have any trouble. The hostel itself was well camoflaged and I had to buzz it to get somebody to come let me in. Luckily they were quite accomodating about the money and said I could pay when I checked out.

In the morning the hostel staff suggested where I might find an ATM that worked at a department/grocery store nearby. Walking around there were a few things that stood out. Over half the traffic on the street is taxis. There's no organized system of taxis, and no meters on them. Most people don't have cars, so they either take a scooter or take a taxi. People just negotiate a price before starting in, and if you don't like the price you just wave down the next taxi and negotiate with them instead. Another couple of observations were that all the buildings looked like they were unfinished. Most were either 2 or 3 stories tall, but all had exposed bars and walls for another floor on the top, but none had a roof. In my hostel the top "floor" had a few hammocks and a spot for table tennis on this exposed top floor, but a lot of them seemed to just be used to hang laundry, or abandoned entirely.
 

The part of town I was in was pretty run down, and other then the store I was walking to there were only a few barbershops and convenience stores that typically had the doorway barred so that you had to exchange goods and money through the bars without ever entering the shop. The store, when I got to it, was something like a Peruvian Walmart. The store itself had guards armed with rifles by the exits, but it was a pretty modern looking department store. I did find ATMs, one of which did give me money, so I headed back to the hostel to pay what I owed them. I'd booked another hostel in the nicer Miraflores District of Lima, and the guy at my hostel was nice enough to come out with me and haggle with a taxi to bring me there so that I didn't get ripped off. The taxi was running on fumes when I got in, and about halfway to my destination the taxi driver asked me to pay him so that he could get gas put in. This was strange enough that I got a bit suspicious, but I gave him the money and he got his gas and I got to my hostel safely. I guess they just do things a little differently in Lima.

After checking in I set about exploring Miraflores. It's a pretty nice area by the coast and has a lot more commercial buildings than where I'd been the previous night. It's anchored by a nice park full of feral cats, but also a hub for different events going on. While I was in Lima I came across a lot of music and dances going on, a few cultural events and some art and craft markets. One of the streets jutting off from the park is a popular shopping street for tourists that has numerous art, crafts, clothing, and souvenirs. If you head out towards the coast from the park you get to the coast, where there's a huge new shopping mall that's built right into the cliffside so that it's almost invisible until you're right above it. Some wings of it weren't even open yet (or were closed for renovation), but the shopping mall combined with the fancy hotels surrounding it were the most affluent part of Lima that I saw.

I'm not going to break everything down day by day, but here are some of the things I got up to in the few days I was in Lima.  I walked over to the Barranco District after a suggestion from one of the hostel staff. Wikipedia describes it as "the most romantic and bohemian" part of Lima, and it had a lot of nice old architecture.  I didn't really know where to go there, so I mostly just wandered, as is my style.

My ventures deeper into the city included a trip to the Larco Museum and visiting the historic city center. The Larco Museum is a private museum of pre-Columbian Peruvian art.  This is a culture/period that I really didn't know much about, so after all the European and Asian art and history it was interesting to get a taste of something completely different.

Like much of the nicer parts of the city the historic center is very European with narrow streets and ornate buildings.

During the taxi / bus rides around the city I spied some colourful looking art around an arena near the coast, so one of my days became a quest of following the coast north looking for this place without really knowing how far it was.  Almost the entire coast is just one park after another, so it's really quite a pleasant walk.  I did eventually find my goal, and I'll do a street art post on Lima next, but here are a few of the things I came across.  Discovering numerous parakeets just chilling in the park trees was especially nice, as you really realize just how tropical things are.

One of the major reasons for wanting to come to Peru was to do a specific hike, and said hike can only be booked in advance and through a group, so I had signed up for another tour for the rest of my time in Peru. I met up with them on my last night in Lima and we went out for a final Lima sea-food dinner before getting ready to fly into the mountains in the morning.

Day 357: Walking the Strip

With a full day to spend I decided to head over to the Strip to check out all the things that make Las Vegas famous. I decided to walk there from my hostel, which turned out to be further than expected, but not by enough to be much of a hassle. Through the course of the day I just wandered around heading from one casino to the next, gambling a very small amount (I don't exactly have a lot of money left in my budget to waste by this point) but mostly just checking out the excess and faux luxury Vegas is famous for. The one thing I probably would have rather enjoyed about Las Vegas - the shows, was eventually discared as a possibility because of the cost, although I still suspect it would have been worth it to indulge in at least one.


My basic take on Las Vegas is that it's interesting to see has an emblem of American culture, but that I'd really struggle to spend more than a few days there, especially alone. Despite all the crazy buildings and fantastic shows, it's really a place of experiences, and I feel you really need to be sharing things as part of a group to really get much enjoyment out of it.

Days 317-319: Auckland

I had an early morning flight out of Sydney, so I got to New Zealand with still quite a bit of time left in the day. My hostel wasn't as central as a lot of them have been, but despite being by far the largest city in New Zealand it's still pretty small by international standards, and walking around is pretty convenient. There really wasn't all that much I wanted to do in Auckland. It's just another city, and I'll be in it again to flight out anyway, so I spent my days there focused more on planning out other upcoming things. I bought a bus pass with Naked Bus, which is one of the discount coach bus lines in New Zealand. New Zealand has really nice intercity bus systems, and the bus pass I got gives me 17 rides from anywhere to anywhere in New Zealand (excluding crossing between islands as part of a trip) for about $180 CDN. I very much doubt I'll be able to use all 17 trips, but I'll definitely be using enough to make the pass worthwhile. I also bought a cheap New Zealand pay-as-you-go cell phone since it makes the bus stuff much, much easier, and it will help with some of the national park bookings I need to do.

I did manage to see a fair bit of Auckland just walking around when the weather was nice. It's art gallery, while not as large and impressive as the ones in Melbourne and Sydney still had a nice collection. The museum was pretty far away from the city center, and while I vaguely tried to find it once it apparently cost quite a bit to get in, and I wasn't interested enough to really pursue it when I couldn't find it easily. Auckland also has one of those sky tower things vaguely like the CN Tower that pretty much every country seems to have now.

Day 279: Medan

I had an early flight from Kuala Lumpur over to Northern Sumatra early this morning. The flight left around 7:30am, and it the bus ride to get to the airport is an hour, so I had to leave quite early to get to there with enough time to feel comfortable. I was flying out of the LCCT, which is the low-cost budget airline terminal, and you can definitely see where the low cost part comes in. Things were pretty disorganized and checking-in/dropping off bags was a massive free-for-all of people pushing towards the front without much of a queuing system. Luckily I came with time to spare and managed to get through everything without any of the frantic scrambling I try very hard to avoid.

Medan itself isn't much of a tourist destination, but it's the biggest city in the center of quite a few interesting things in North Sumatra part of Indonesia. It's one of those rare cities where the airport is actually near the city center, and I just avoided the swarm of taxis and tuk-tuks and just walked from the airport to my hostel and fortunately he extra weight of the stuff I bought in KL was barely noticeable. It was still early when I got to the hostel and my room wasn't ready, so I left my bags and went off on a lengthy walk without a map or any knowledge of the city at all.

Medan is a bit rough around the edges. It reminds me a bit of some of the more sane cities in India. It's hard to go a few minutes on foot without somebody trying to get you into their tuk-tuk or on the back of their motorbike, as if the only reason you were walking around has to be that nobody else has bothered to offer you a ride yet. I was obviously something of a rarity. All the old men sitting in front of shops would call out and wave to me, and lots of people came up to talk to me. Even though it does get a bit tiring when you can't just have a little peace, I much prefer the ones who just come up and want to talk out of curiousity to the ones always trying to offer you things. At least here people are pretty accepting when you just say no or shake your head, and don't hound after you. The streets all look virtually identical, full of squat little random shops and apartments. I can't think of a single building I saw with more than 3 floors, or a single recognizable brand name other than one McDonalds I came across.

My McDonalds anecdote deserves special mention. After walking around all morning after an early morning flight I was pretty hot and exhausted, so I went into the McDonalds with the intention of buying an ice cream. At the counter they told me there was no ice cream, so I left. I instead bought a cold drink from a shop outside and just sat on the patio in the shade relaxing. About 10 minutes later, a group of 4 Muslim girls who had been in the McDonalds came out with a bag of food. They, having seen but not heard my exchange at the counter thought that I hadn't had enough money, and when they saw me sitting outside had bought a meal for me. I was pretty embarassed, because obviously I do have money - probably a good deal more than they do, and I tried to explain the situation, but they insisted I keep the meal (I suppose there wasn't much else they could do with the food). I should have offered to pay them for it, but I didn't think of it at the time, and in a way I feel it might have cheapened their gesture. Instead, the only gesture I can offer is to mention this story and hopefully help out somebody in genuine need of a meal later in my travels. In the "western world" there's unfortunately a lot of negative feelings towards Muslims these days, but the fact that these girls were so willing to do something like that for a random stranger deserves special consideration.

I finally made it back to the hostel around noon and checked in. There's no AC and no windows, which means the one outlet in the room has to be for the fan when I'm in the room, which makes charging / using my tablet a bit of a problem. My plans in Indonesia are somewhat off the beaten trail, so it's very possible I'll have trouble keeping in touch for the next 10 days. If I stop posting things, don't worry - odds are I won't be dead.

Days 275-276: Merry Christmas from KL!

First of all, Happy Holidays to everybody! "Christmas" is different things for different people, and I hope that even those who aren't into the religion bits, or into the consumerism bits at least manage to take a bit of a break to enjoy friends and family.

My bus ride from Tanah Rata to Kuala Lumpur was faster than I thought, only taking about 4 hours. My hostel was within walking distance, but it was a solid walk (although not as gruelling as the one in Panang). The hostel I'm staying in was picked for its proximity to KL Central Station, which wasn't a factor coming in, but will be a factor when I leave since my flight to Indonesia is very early and the only night buses to the airport are from KL Central (see, I actually plan some of these things out, sometimes!) In addition to a good location for me, the hostel is also very cool. It's run by a group of young people who are all into the arts in some manner, and into the youth culture and activism. All the walls and floors have murals or other artwork on them, and they use the common space to put on different art/music/dance/theater shows. After getting to the hostel and checking in I basically just retraced my steps back to where I got off the bus, checking out all of the interesting things I'd seen on my walk down that I wasn't able to stop and explore because of all my bags.

The first of these stops was at a canal / reservoir I had to cross. Both sides of the canal were covered with lovely street art murals, and I've since learned that it is really the focal point of street art in the city. I walked the length of the painted sections of the canal admiring the art before climbing back to stree level and continuing on.

I also visited the Central Market, which is a building full of shops focused on Malaysian art and culture. A few parts were neat, but I found a lot of it to be just more gift shop like places selling the same cheap stuff you find everywhere else, only more concentrated. I also visited the nearby Petaling Street, which is the central hub of KL Chinatown. It's a long pedestrian market street similar in feel to the markets in Hong Kong and Taipei.

After a good sleep today was my day to really explore Kuala Lumpur. I wasn't sure how much Christmas would alter the. The signs of it were certainly present, but not like you'd fine in North America (for one thing, everything was open). The big shopping malls all had Christmas displays out, and I came across a group singing carols in one mall, but the malls didn't seem unusually crowded. The people working at food stalls and in convience stores all wished me a merry Christmas, but that could just because I'm western.

I found a very cool shopping mall called parkamaya that had a definite Japanese flavour to it (it's the one with the purple trees above). It had cosplaying mall girls handing out flyers and all the walls were posted with anime/manga figures. One of the shops had legitimate anime for sale at ridiculously low prices that I just couldn't pass up. In the end I spend about $35 CDN for what would have cost me over $400 to buy at home. It's going to be a bit of a pain to carry it around for the next 4 months, especially since I can't watch any of it on my tablet, but I didn't go as crazy as I could have, so I'm sure I'll manage. After that I swung by the famous Petronas Towers. After visiting most of the famous cities of the world a few more towers aren't all that impressive, but there was a park nearby that was a nice place to take a rest and enjoy the day. I suspect the weather at home doesn't allow for quite the same sort of outdoor recreation.

The collection of unique towers in Kuala Lumpur makes it pretty easy to keep track of where you are when travelling on foot, although the roads tend to wind and cross over each other a lot. On my way back towards the hostel area I angled by the even taller KL Tower.

Back at the hostel I was treated with some of the other guests to a Christmas dinner prepared by one of the hostel co-owners and her girlfriend. We had spaghetti, chicken, potatoes, salad and corn, along with a mix of desserts. Not quite the traditional Christmas dinners of Canada, but the food was good and the gesture very much appreciated!