Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Cali

In the morning I walked around Popayan more - I really loved this city - and among things I visited was a San Francisco monastery turned into a hotel. A very nice place and can be visited not by guests only. There are nice courtyards, a beautiful fountain, a park with a pool, benches to sit down on and relax during the hot hours of the day. Colombians are very warm and nice people (men especially, to blondes. It's hard to walk on the streets without raising attention, even if one is wearing a baggy worn-out pants and long sleaved shirts... The most popular woman seems to be Marylin Monroe, pictures of whom are everywhere. But Norma Jane wasn't originally a blone... Don't waste your energy on exposing more than hiding, chicas, go blonde! A little hydrogen peroxide does wonders! I am kidding, of course...). Hostal Amalia was a really great place to stay - a colonial house with all rooms having the door opening to a courtyard and a really great bathroom, with cold water but in that heat it was even nice. I got to the bus terminal in Cali in 2.5 hours and the tourist police spotted me and escorted me to a taxi which took me to a nice part of the city to Hostal Iguana - another of these great youth hostals with great atmosphere. From a german guy working there I got lots of usefull information so I think my itinerary for the next few days will be morning in Cali, in the safe part of the city, then trip to Armenia to visit the museum of coffee and then to Medellin and from there to Cartagena, then the national park close to Santa Marta to see the beautiful unspoiled beaches, and then from Cartagena by a sailboat to Panama. I am going to bypass Bogota as many people told me is not safe for a lone traveller. I will write from Armenia.

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Ipiales, Past and Popayan

I got through the border painlessly this time. I hooked up with a woman who was going to Colombia and travelled with her. There wer no busses going across the border. We had to take a bus to Tulcan and there take a collectivo taxi to the checkpoint. From there, after the passports were stamped, we got another taxi taking us to Ipiales on the Colombian side. From the bus terminal in Ipiales I went straight to Pasto, to get away from the border. Pasto was also not a very safe city but I spent the night there and in the morning took a bus to Popayan. Pasto is situated in a beautiful valley and looked like a wealthy city but most windows of office buildings, houses and apartment buildings had bars in them. The owners of the hotel told me to keep tight to my backpack when I was going to the bus station as robberies happen in broad daylight there. The way from Pasto to Popayan was very beautiful - mountains with deep ravines, little villages looking wealthier than any other ones I have seen. I was surprised to see this - I heard so many bad things about the situation in Colombia that I thought the countryside would be as poor as in other parts of the Andes. Popayan also looks really nice: the colonial buildings are nicely resotred and painted white, there's no garbage on the streets, there are many cafes and restaurants, galleries, bars. Women are more undressed than dressed here (it's very hot during the day and the evenings get pleasantly cool) but they are undressed very elegantly and walk in a cloud of expensive perfume. I feel out of tune here, in my brown baggy pants which I have been wearing non-stop for six months and which don't look as nice as when they were new.

Tomorrow I will visit some buildings of interest here and will go to Cali in the afternoon. Buenas noches y suenos colorados...

Sunday, July 24, 2005

Quayaquil, Banos, Quito, Otavalo, Ibarra

After I left that bug-infested hotel on the border I got on the bus for Quayaquil on the river which name I don't remember. Q is a big city and a port. It resembled a little Panama City in terms of architecture and the people - people are a mix of indigenous peoples, Africans and Europeans. I spent all Sunday there and enjoyed the very beautiful boardwalk going for a few km along the river - it's called Malacon. There are restaurants along the boardwalk, cafes, cinemas, museums, botanic gardens, and many places for kids to play. The playgrounds are the best I have ever seen. There are many sandboxes, athletic tracks, noiseless cars tracks. Someone who designed them really was thinking how to entertain kids intelligently. There's no noise of any silly machines or rollercoasters or such - the only noise is that of children playing. It was a Sunday so there were many of them interacting with each other. It was really great to watch them. I also went to the old colonial part of the city, read about the many pirate attacks on it in the past, and walked through the winding streets which resembled the narrow winding streets of Vallparaiso. The houses in Q are also painted in various bright colors.

From Q I went to Banos. It's a small town in the Andes and it's famous for its many hot springs. From the windows of my room I could see a waterfall and one hot spring swimming pool underneath it. I went to the hot spring right after I got to Banos and then I walked and admired the artesanas and the vacational atmosphere of the town - it's a place to which many Quitenans go during weekend and holidays. In one of the stalls in the outside market I met Alfonso who is German but has been living in South America for a while in various places. He stayed in a Buddhist monastery in Nepal for three years many years ago and is skilled in many types of curative massages, reiki and shiatsu. I very much enjoyed the conversation with him and a friend of his, Alfredo, joined us. It turned out Alfredo was a guide guiding tours into the jungle so I decided to go with him for three days. We set out at 8 am the next morning. I took my two insect repellents (one for the skin, one for the clothing), sunblock, a few teeshirts, toiletries, and the rubber galoshes which Alfredo gave me. Alfredo got our food supply for the three days on the market and we took a bus to Puyo - a small town on the border with the jungle. From there we took a taxi which took us deeper into the jungle, to cabanas of Senora Teresita. Cabanas are wooden houses built on pillars. There are only beds with mattresses in them and mosquito nets. Alfredo cooked our lunch and afterwards we headed to the jungle. The vegetation in the tropical forest is so dense that we had to clear our way with a machette. We were walking and climbing the hilly terrain until we got to a waterfall. It was magnificient. Along the way Alfredo showed me many pecular plants and insects and showed me many medicinal plants and explained their properties. All the tropical plants I once had in flower pots where there but, of course, much bigger: all the types of ficuses, rhododendrons, philodendrons, many types of banana trees, mosses, ferns, palm trees.... Amazing variety of plants. Whenever we encountered something edible we ate it. I tasted different baby palm leaves, different nuts and fruit and also a type of rhubarb (rabarbar) very sour in taste. We got back to the cabanas tired and soaking wet with sweat - it was very hot and humid. We eate and talked to Senora Teresita and her family - we spent the evening in her kitchen. Except for the electricity in the kitchen there was no light so we used candles. I dropped on my bed thinking I would fall asleep instantenously but just at that time the jugle came to live. The sounds of frogs, creeckets and night birds was so powerful that it was like NYC by night! I couldn't sleep! I also heared all the insects flying and crawling around my bed. I remember when Erika was telling us about her vacation in Costa Rica and how all these bugs were everywhere in abundance. It takes a while to get used to all these gigantic cacroaches and ants... and to checking your shoes everytime you put them on so you don't crush a visitor with your feet. I was listening for a long time to all these animal sounds and finally fell asleep... When I woke up the jungle was quiet. The daytime animals don't make as much noise as the nighttime ones. The next day we went to visit the family of Virginia. It is a family of indigenous Quechua Indians who are related to the Peruvian Quechuas. They also live in the simple wooden huts but they don't have any electricity or any modern technology. They live in total peace... They are friends of Alfredo so Virginia came out to greet us soon as she saw us. Her kids and grankids came as well and we were talking and they were telling me about their way of life. Virginia's son showed me how they use the hollow wooden tubes and needles with the poison currare to hunt for edible mammals, also monkeys. He said they are totally self-sufficient: they gather and hunt for all the food and they know the medicinal plants to cure their illnesses. He said that they only need money when they are made to send their kids to school because then they need to buy clothing, notebooks and pens. They also use money to buy salt and matches. Nothing else. Around them there are 30 communites of about 20-30 peoples. They visit each other for fiestas and weddings. They live to be at least 100 years old! Many live to be 110! Isn't it amazing? And they are healthy people who can take care of themselves until they die. People who argue that progress means longer life expectancy should go to the Amazonas... I got two little pieces of pottery which Virginia makes to sell and get the money to buy the notebooks and pens... During our conversation I was also observing the kids playing in the river - they didn't have any toys except what they could find: sticks, leaves, lianas, and kitchen utensils, and seemed like the happiest kids I have seen. We warmly parted with Virginia's family and went back to the cabanas to get our things and then went throught the jungle to a different family which lives on the river Puyo. We got into a cayak carved out of one piece of dark wood and the man of the family took us down the river to a different camp with cabanas. The ride was really wild. The river has a very strong current and is going down in small waterfalls. It was like whiteriver rafting except it was in a wooden boat. The capitan was very skillful - there were many big boulders protruding from the water and he navigated the boat so we missed the boulders by centimeters. I got totally wet but was guarding my backpack - the only thing I didn't want to get wet was my camera. For the next trip I will have to get the waterproof case. We got to cabanas of Jorge who is also a Quechua Indian - he runs the campsite and is also a sculpturer so his beautiful wood carvings are everywhere in the camp - mostly of caymans. The camp is beautifully set on the river and many animals live there: there are three very friendly dogs, tucans and parrots, some kind of a peacock and a monkey. They are all totally free to go anywhere they want but I think they just like Jorge's cabanas. It was my first encounter with a monkey who played with me the way my cat used to play with me (she was tiny - the size of a squirrel). She was incredibly intelligent. It was like playing with a child - her hands and feet were so similar to these of a human being. I was tickling her feet and she would wrinkle her nose and bite me playfully. I spent a great deal of time with her and the dogs. The peacock followed me everywhere I went - he, too, seemed to be a very curious creature. I went with Alfredo to the jungle again, we went to the hill from which there was a beautiful view of two rivers meeting, I also went with Jorge to see his lakes with fish and he also took me to see the turtles in a bay nearby. It was heavenly. In the evening a group of tourists came, we all had dinner together and talked and then Alfredo and the other guide decided to take us to see the caymans at night since it was full moon. We were walking along the swamps, many creepy crawly creatures surrounding us and making the formidable noise. We crossed a few brigdes and on one of them a bat flew right by my ear and it frightened me and I fell down to the swamp. I had my high rubber boots on so I didn't get too wet and they got me out right away - the caymans didn't get easy supper this time. We didn't see any caymans at night but we saw one the next morning when we walked the same route again - he was suntanning on some logs in the middle of a small swamp. The next morning right after breakfast we went for a swim in the river and spent a long time by the river, observing the various types of butterflies, dragonflies, stones, plants and just suntanning and relaxing. The most formidable creatures there are tiny tiny sandflies - they are fierce and when they bite it itches terribly. I got a fiew bites... I like all creatures of the jungle except the sandflies. When I got back to Banos I went straight to the hot spring - it helps reduce the itching, among other things.

When I was little I read all these adventure books and my favorite were the books of Arkady Fiedler, a polish journalist and writer who wrote many books on the Amazonia. So now finally I got the chance to experience what he experienced and it was wonderful. I would definitely like to go back but not too far into the jungle so as not to disturb the groups of people who live their lives the way their ancestors lived it and don't want any contact with the outside world - I totally understand them. The Guarani who live deep in the jungle don't want visitors. I support them in keeping the pale faces out of their territory. I think progress is the biggest bullshit sold to humanity. For the people who bought it or where forced to it there's no other way to live than to struggle with it and find their way in it, but for the ones who haven't experienced it it is much much better to stay out of it and enjoy the long and healthy life close to nature.

From Banos I went to Quito - the capital. I just spent a day there walking in the old center and riding the clean and new trolley buses. I read in the guide book that it is rather a dangerous place so I decided to spent the night in a smaller town of Otovalo. Otovalo is very nice. Otovalenio Indians made the city beautiful. There's a very good feel there, many plants and fountains everywhere and also a huge market with folk art. Women wear white emroidered blouses and black skirts, jewerly made of gold glass beads, and their hair in ponytail. Men wear their long hair in one braid, they wear white cotton pants and white hats. They all look very elegant. Kids as well.

Today I am in Ibarra, another nice town. It looks very much like Antigua in Guatemala - the same type of architecture. There are, of course, many churches and many parks - like in all towns influenced by Spanish culture. I decided to go through Colombia to Panama so I am going to go today - I am very near the border with Colombia. Keep your fingers crossed.

Monday, July 18, 2005

Banos

I got to Banos today, a small town high in the beautiful mountains overgrown with tropical vegetation, and the internet here is $3 per hour so I will write my impressions when I get to Quito - in a few days. It's so beautiful here that I think I will stay for a few days. I decided to come to the mountains because it's the last part of the Andes and since I saw the very far south I decided to see the very far north as well. I will respond to all individual e-mails soon. Buenas noches everyone, many hugs. I enjoy my trip but I miss you all...

Saturday, July 16, 2005

Chiclayo and Piura

From Truillo I went to Huanchaco which is a nice beach town famous for little tortora reed boats (the size of a kayak) called caballito - little horse. Men ride on the waves with them and give rides. They resemble the ones used on Lake Titicaca but are smaller and narrower. I spent two days there sunbathing on the beach and making friends with the locals. From there I went to Chiclayo, a nice town with nice city center and a huge market with food, fabrics, plastics, paper products, metal products, the usual little kitchens with food, etc, etc. Part of the market is dedicated to natural medicine and witchcraft - there are all kinds of herbs and potions and many natural docs see patients and advise how to regain health and strength. I met Alexis - one of the doctors - and spent some time with him admiring his herbs and also learning about the history of the pre-Inca cultures. I went with him to a neighboring off-the-beaten-track town to see the market there and for lunch to which he invited me. I, in turn, invited him to a cafe, the only one in town which had capuccino, and he liked it very much - he said he will remember the day as the day he tried capuccino for the first time. I will keep in touch with him regarding the herbs - maybe when I learn more about them we can do an exchange program of herbs from different parts of the world. From Chiclayo I made a day trip to Lambayeque - there are two museums there connected to Chimu, Moche and Lambayeque cultures. One of them, Museo de las Tumbas Reales de Sipan (shaped like a piramid), was as nicely designed as the museum of pre-Columbian art in Cusco. The artefacts were all found in Sipan - ruins located not far away from Lambayeque - in Moche tombs of various what seems to be like important personas. There's lot's of interesting jewelry and pottery there. Also, there are replicas of the tombs as they were excavated so they show the hightly respected men rest in their graves together with their wives, guards, servants, lamas and dogs.

From Chiclayo I went to Tumbes where I planned to stay for a day but didn't actually and went directly over the border to Equador. I had a very unpleasant encounter with taxi drivers in Tumbes who wanted to rob me. When I got of the bus a taxi driver asked me if I needed a taxi to the border and I said that I wanted to spent the night in Tumbes and see the mangrove national park. He told me there were strikes on the Ecuadorian side of the border and the border would be closed at midnight. Since there were earlier problems in Bolivia and people got stock in La Paz for weeks and then I saw the strikes in Chilean border I believed him. What I then understood was: let's got to the police and ask them about the situation. So I agreed. We, and his friend, got into the car. After a few minutes we got to the highway and left the city behind. I asked them where we were going and the driver said that I wanted to go the border, yes? And I said no, I didn't make up my mind yet since we didn't ask the police. He was convincing me that I had to go now, right this moment, before the border is closed. Since we were already on the road I asked him how much he wanted for his service to which he replied "later you will give us a tip" and I said NO! I have to know right now. And he said 80 soles. I asked him "soles?" "Yes, soles." It was a steep price but I thought, OK, if he risks being stuck on the border I can pay for his risk - I paid a steep price at the Peruvian-Chilean border before. At the Peruvian immigration office I asked the immigration officer about problems on the border and he asked "what problems?" At that point I should have just stayed there and wait until the morning for the bus but I was stupid and thought, OK, I got fooled, I will pay the taxi drivers what I agreed to and just forget about the whole story as soon as they let me out on the other side. From the immigration office we drove about 2 km to some kind of a check point and then we were what seems like "the other side" but it looked like some kind of ghost town market - it was completely dark and I could just see the empty market stalls. Then the driver told me we were on the Equatorian side and this was the end of the trip and I owed him what he paid at the checkpoint which was 40 dollars and the 80 dollars I agreed to pay him. I said he said soles, he said "o really, sorry lady I made a mistake, I meant US dollars." I got so mad... I told him to drive me back to the immigration office and the police would tell us what the fair price for the ride was. I sensed they were not the type of villains who would kill me for 120 bucks - they were the petty thieves who would intimidate tourists if they let them. I said I only had $20 because they didn't give me the chance to go to the bank at Tumbes (I had $150 more in my pocket but a lie was justified in the circumstances). I gave him the $20 bill and he started to argue that it was not enough, etc. etc. I wanted to take it back saying he would not get anything if he argued and it ripped a little. He was holding onto it and I was holding onto it and I told him if he was not satisfied I would rip this bill into tiny fucking little pieces and he would get nothing, zero dollares. Steam was coming out my nose. They let me go. I got really furious that I was so stupid and didn't ask anyone around at the bus station what the situation at the border really was. Whenever I am tired and my senses are not as sharp as normally I get into some troubles. In the end I got stranded in this ghost town and spent the night in a very shabby bug-infested hotel close to the market. The Ecuadorian immigration was about 4 km further down the town, I learned in the morning. I am never going to take another taxi unless it's a radio taxi. 90% of taxis I took tried to rip me off, the worst being the taxis in Buenos Aires and this incident. The moral of this story is such: if you ever travel to Peru don't go through the Tumbes-Huaquillas border - I later read about it and it is a very dangerous border - people get robbed there by thieves, taxi drivers and immigration officers. I walked through all borders previously but this one, if one has to go through it, should be crossed by bus full of people and in daylight.

Yesterday I came to Guayaquil in Ecuador and more about it soon.

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Trujillo and vicinity

Trujillo is a pleasant city with a nice Plaza Mayor and former mansions which are now owned by banks and in which art exhibitions take place. I also visited the various archeological sites around Truillo.

I spent the entire day walking around what remains of Chan Chan - ruins of adobe city built by the Chimu kings. Chimu was a kingdom which stretched 1,000 from north of Lima to Guayaquil and which was conquered by Incas around 1471. Only some of the big city can be visible today - it was destroyed by floods and earthquakes. Citadadela of Tschudi was nicely restored. Within the citadela are various palaces which were lodging of kings during their lifetime and after their death were turned in mausoleums: the king was buried together with his sacrifieced wives, servants, guards and animals and with household object and jewelry. And a new palace was built for a new king... I also visited the Moche piramids (Moche was a culture which occupied the territory before the Chimu) - on the walls there are well preserved carvings of warriors holding in one hand a knife and in the other a human head. The piramids where places where animals and humans were sacrificed to the various dieties.

It seems that all these highly civilized cultures which built impressive buildings, temples and cities, invented complicated systems of recording the past and ideas, complex systems of communication between the places in which they resided, and created paintings, pottery and jewelry of sophisticated designs, were very bloody, cruel and merciless cultures. And that goes to any highly civilized culture, also the Romans and all others which followed in their footsteps. Usually the ones who actually built these impressive buildings were slaves or people forced to work on them. Usually the system is such that there is a ruling class, which consists of the government and priests as almost always religion and politics are intertwined, the middle class and the poor. The money for erecting the impressive buildings comes from the natural resources but most of all from the work and taxes imposed on the poor by the rulers who control them by instilling fear of dieties and force of army and police. I am reading a book I found in a book exchange in Huaraz entitled "Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee" about the extermination of North American Indians by whites and I think the best culture doesn't leave any trace during it's existence: no buildings to admire by the tourists centuries later. Let me explain. Indians of North America didn't own land. They roamed the land in search of grains and animals and they only took and killed what they needed to survive. There was no hierarhy. There was a Chief responsible for the lives of members of its tribe but he was a chief as long as he had the support of his people and all main decisions were discussed with the tribe anyways. There were disagreements between the tribes, fights and even wars but not to the point that one nation would exterminate the other. They lived in accord with nature and the seasons. They fought the whites so fiercely to maintain their way of life because they loved it. They didn't want to adopt the white man's way of life because they could see how full of deceipt, dishonesty, tratchery and corruption it was. They were happy people and they knew that they were happy; they understood that their happiness came from living according to the laws of nature and the freedom coming from it. Who could then, in those "higly civilzed nations" say they were happy? Who can, in nowadays civilized nations, say he or she is happy? People do ALL kinds of things to find happiness and ask the "eternal" question "how to live" and "what's it all about." The pharmaceutical companies do just great selling prozac and all other anti-depressants and anti-anxiety drugs curing all kinds of phobias, anxieties and the many different "syndromes." The only truly happy people living on this earth are still the ones who don't possess anything and live in accord with nature, in the Amazonian jungle which, however, shrinks rapidly and which will be gone soon... In Buenos Aires I met Helena who is Spanish and who studied anthropology in Cuzco for four years and she says that yes, the indians of Amazonia are truly happy people but they are going to be extinct in not too distant a future because the white man needs to expand the terrority he possesses and uses every way possible to get the land and its resources - the story of extermination continues. It is so sad... It is so sad that the North American Indians got exterminated and degradated and that their culture diseappered... The book is really heartbreaking. So it seems to me that those who don't built anything and roam around in the nomadic style of life are the best. They don't have to ask the question how to live because they found the best way to live. I don't know much about Celts but I think that the peoples of what is Eastern Europe now were such happy peoples before the Christianity was brought to them and which turned fearless warriors hunting game into farmers fearful of hell and turned women who were warriors equal to men into housebound slaves.

Cordillera Blanca

The moutains are incredibly beautiful. During the tour along the valley I saw the many amazing peaks covered with snow - hence the name - many of them over 6,000 meters high with passes for trekking at between 4,000 and 5,000 meters. I visited the city of Yungay. It was destoroyed by an earthquake and mudslide in 1970, everything fell except the fasade of the church. It is now a Campo Santo - a big cementary. Some graves are in places in which bodies were found. 20,000 people died in that earthquake... But it is a park/cementary. There are flowers and bushes everywhere and it's a very peaceful place. Visitors walk around and think of the ones who have parished there. The new town was built on a hillside north of the old town. I also visited a few other small towns in the vicinity, all overlooking the massive mountains. I admired the mountains from afar - I didn't feel well enough to do any trekking. People told me that trekking in these mountains is very demanding and one has to be in the top form to do it. I saw a few trekkers in Huaraz with twisted ankles and broken legs. There was one recovering, his leg in a plaster cast, in my hostal.

From Huaraz I went back to Casma for a day to recover from the altitude and then went to Trujillo, about which in the next entry.

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Barranca, Casma and Huaraz

Well, my long paper on politics and indigenous culture will still have to wait - no time to write it yet.

I left Lima on Saturday. First I went to Barranca, a small city along the Pan American highway. There, taking a few different collectivos, I went to see the ruins of Mochica, a pre-Inca culture, fortress or what's left of it. It's nicely situated on the hill, overlooking the ocean. I was the only person there. There was a small ranger station and a few dogs who live there and also three very little puppies. The ruins look as if they were made of adobe bricks but really they are stones just resembling adobe. They date back to about 2,500 years BC. Later that day I tried to get to Casma but it was Sunday and it turned out the buses were running either very early or very late. I met a girl Yanina who saw me waiting at the small bus station outside of Barranca and she invited me to visit her home and meet her family: parents and eight siblings. I heard of northerners hospitality - it's truly amazing. We spent time talking and I decided to catch a ride because the bus would drop me off in the middle of the night, it turned out. So Yanina walked me back to the Pan American highway and immediately I got on a truck going to Truillo. The driver Hector was a very nice person as well and we talked all the way. I got to Casma and met yet more very nice and hospitable people. I walked around the small and peaceful town, an oasis in the middle of the desert. It was much warmer there than in Lima - it was a very pleasant evening walk. I asked one of the motortaxi drivers to pick me up the next morning at 9:00 am to see the Sechin ruins. I don't have the guidebook with me and I don't remember if this was part of the Mochica culture - I will check it and let you know. It is believed that it was a temple where people where sacrified. All the walls of the temple have carvings of different parts of the body, mostly heads, hands, legs, spines, eyes and stomachs and intestines. Among them are carved warriors with matchettes or swords, some of them are dancing. Only carvings of men are on the walls but the archeologists found mummias of women also. According to their findings they died an "unvoluntary and violent death." Maybe, however, this was not a temple but a hospital? I wonder if that is possible. There really is no exact evidence of anything with things this old. Everything is just a theory... After visit to the ruins I invited the taxi driver, who also acted as my guide, to lunch and he took me to the "best ceviche place in town". It really was one of the best ceviches I had. I then borded the bus, which was a really chicken bus as chicken were present, to Huaraz. What was supposed to be a five hour drive turned into an eight hour drive because we first got a flat tire and then the bus broke twice along the way. But each time it was repaired and the views as we were snailing our way up to Cordillera Blanca were spectacular. Today I went to a hot spring in the mountains, about 15 km away from Huaraz, and went into the best sauna I have ever seen - a nautral cave with steam coming out of the walls. It was really hot. When the attendant told me only 15 minutes I asked him if I could stay longer than that but after 15 minutes I came out roasted. I could really feel the microelements I was inhaling. I think the best ideas come to my mind after an extensive exercise such as boxing and in the sauna. I wonder if it has to do with the fact that the toxins are expelled from the body and the mind and body is really really clear. Tomorrow I am going to visit all the different little villages in the valley and then I decided that I will go back to the coast and continue my way along it. I won't do any more trekking in the mountains. Huaraz is again over 3,000 meters above the sea level and I just can't take it again. I think I am done with the mountains. When I come again to Peru, and I am sure I will one day because it's just so beautiful, I will visit the north in detail and maybe conquer a peak or two but right now I long for long sandy beaches and tropical weather.