Hiking Peru

On a layover in Heathrow airport so it's time to finally write a post about my spring break trip with my parents....

Cusco was a small historic city with a main cathedral and plaza nestled among mountains plastered with houses that often had rebar still jutting from the top.  There were stray dogs everywhere.

My mom, my dad, and I spent one day climbing into the hills of Cusco via cobblestone alleyways so as to see more churches and views of the city, while eating street churros and drinking pisco sour, a classic Peruvian cocktail.

We spent one night in a youth hostel with a beautiful courtyard filled with people who partied all night. (Of course I was the only one in the family to sleep wondrously.)  The next day we took a van with our team of guides across the countryside into the mountains.

Eating tamales along the way

Traditional weather vanes found atop many houses in the mountains

From there we began our seven day hike that would culminate at Machu Picchu.  The mountains were so gorgeous, and we could often see rivers below us.  On any given day we would hike downhill for a while, cross a river, scale the mountain ahead, summit, and then hike a bit downhill to our campsite.  The daily elevation change that we could see before us was sometimes disheartening but being in the zone felt amazing.  For one of the more grueling hiking days, my mom did ride (and bond with) the mule, which was following us for that purpose.  She and our guide Marcos were constantly at odds; he would tell her we were almost there and then it would take us another four hours.  Often he would say today was a flat day, but he only ever used the word in the Incan sense.  Our highpoint was 4643 meters.  The landscapes reminded me of Kashmir, which followed by the Grand Canyon are the most beautiful natural places I’d ever been before.

We stayed at the most incredible campsites, arriving in the afternoon and leaving early the next morning.  Our guides made us delicious local Peruvian cuisine, vegetarian by request.  We had soup with every meal, as well as plenty of quinoa and local produce like tomatillos and passion fruit.

 

"Incan flat"

A couple days brought brief rainstorms, and we had to hike in “poncho plastic” as Marcos called the disposable rain ponchos, which trapped heat in a very stifling way.  Eager to keep us happy, he would always tell us to “please have a rest!”.

Choquequirao--
not sure my parents pronounced this correctly once despite trying all trip

I was blown away by how uniquely strong the indigenous culture still is in Peru.  Many of our guides didn’t even speak Spanish, only Quechua.  The Incan presence felt very much alive as we hiked through extremely small mountain villages right next to ruins like the amazing Choquequirao.

We did a final surreal descent through lush terraced fields into the mountain village where our mule driver lived.  After a final night in the tent, we caught a precarious van ride to Hydroelectric.

All the drivers blasted local Wayna music, which sounds vaguely like Beijing opera, rather shrill and whine-y, but I love it.

Partway along the road of switchbacks, there was a small recent avalanche making the road impassable.  This slowed us down more than the horde of cows of the road.  Luckily, there was another van stopped going the other direction, so all the passengers got out, climbed over the debris and switched vehicles.  Little did we know, we’d soon come to a much much larger avalanche.  We had to scramble along scree for several hundred yards to get across where we waited for another van to come along.  At this point, my period started since we’d stopped hiking for a minute, and I had to put in my menstrual cup while squatting on boulders around the corner from all the construction crews surveying the avalanche.

Machu Picchu under clouds, view from Huayna Picchu

By the time we reached Machu Picchu town (via a 5 hour walk rather than pay for the train), the number of tourists was suddenly overwhelming.  The ruins were a bit underwhelming when compared to the quite mountains from which we had just emerged.  We did an extra hike up Huayna Picchu mountain to get an aerial view.

(Photo of llamas)

The alpacas of Machu Picchu

Huayna Picchu Mountain

Huayna Picchu Mountain

Jiufen, Taroko Gorge, Hot Springs, Night Markets

We visited the town of Jiufen, which was supposedly the inspiration for the famous Miyazaki animated movie Spirited Away.  It is a mountainous town built for mining during the Japanese occupation.  We walked through the maze of old-fashioned, packed alleyways lined with small touristy shops.  We ended the day at a teashop with an amazing view.

The bath house from the movie Spirited Away

We went to night markets almost every evening, and I tried so much food.  In the so-so category, barley tea tastes like a drop of coffee diluted in cold water.  Fish balls and pig's blood I was roped into eating by an overeager Airbnb host.  Favorites were pineapple cake with taro ice cream and red bean, tapioca, rice pudding.

Taiwan-style thick toast (coconut-flavored)

Traditional Hakka food including pig's blood and bean curd

Sweet mung bean soup with rice noodles

Fried noodles & rice and veggies on Lanyu

Hot pot

Red bean, tapioca, rice pudding

Fish balls

Steamed buns

Iced mochi with flavored fillings

Fried quail eggs

Glutinous rice with peanut or black sesame filling

Shaved ice with pudding

Pineapple cake with taro ice cream

An entire shelf devoted to pink foods at the 7/11

There are “Sevens” or 7/11 convenience stores on every single street corner, selling Taiwanese packaged food (and the cashiers offer to warm things up in the microwave for you) and much more.  I ended up getting quite familiar with the Taipei City Mall as well, which is all underground and connected to Taipei Main Station.  Taipei Main Station is an underground metropolis, with multiple metro lines, train lines, and high-speed train lines.

Hiking the beautiful Taroko Gorge

Confucious temple in Tainan

This trip I finally got to visit hot springs!  We went to the public baths in Beitou, with a bunch of Chinese old people, where there are four pools with a hint of sulfur smell.  One is normal pool temperature, and the others range from scalding (45C) to really hot (38C), as the water gets further from the natural heating source.

Beitou

We spent our last night in Taiwan out dancing.  When we took a taxi home, the driver was watching a Red Sox game on his phone on the dashboard!  It was kind of surreal to chat in Chinese about American baseball at 3am in a speeding taxi right before flying back to the US ourselves.

Why I would move to Taiwan in the future

They recycle, and the garbage trucks play music like ice-cream trucks.  Taiwanese people wait until they hear the music and then run outside to toss their trash into the truck as it slowly drives through their neighborhood.  It also fosters a sense of community, because neighbors bang on each other’s doors as the truck comes by.

Hiking Elephant Mountain at sunse

They have a woman president.

The subways in all the cities are unreal:
a) there’s eerie music that sounds like Mario Galaxy whenever a train is approaching,
b) there’s no eating or drinking at all on the subway,
c) people actually queue up while waiting for the subway,
d) I once saw a teenage boy spill water on the ground in a subway station and then get on his hands and knees to wipe the floor clean.

The people are so hospitable, just like the Chinese.

They read books "backwards" with the spine on the right.

There are so many tiny pet dogs that people take everywhere in backpacks or baby carriages.

They wear seatbelts (imagine my shock after a summer of no seatbelts at all, when my first taxi driver in Taiwan had to tell me to buckle up or he’d get fined).

Tainan University

The whole country is an island.

Like in China, it would be totally acceptable for me to carry around an umbrella to protect from the sun.

Also like in China, the fashion style is really anything goes.  The most typical Chinese outfit is definitely a T-shirt underneath spaghetti-strap top with attached gaucho pants and platform sandals.

I saw a blood drive happening in one of the plazas, and I took it as an auspicious sign.

The night markets are amazing: pastries, barbecue, desserts, noodles, fortune tellers, clothes, jewelry, electronics, and knickknacks for sale, masseuses, and one white guy selling chocolate chip cookies behind a sign that says “Joy’s Homemade Treats.”

Living right above edge of Shilin Night Market (the biggest in Taipei)

Everyone rides mopeds.

The whole country has free wifi (like London).

Hardly anyone smokes compared to China (but a fair amount smoke compared to the US).

The food is unparalleled, but I do have an obsession with all Asian food.

There’s tons of vegetarian/vegan restaurants.

They’re more or less accepting of gay people.

I’ll be able to easily travel to all the fabulous countries of Southeast and East Asia.

On the steps in front of Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall

Return to Taiwan

For Spring Break, I spent the last two weeks in Taiwan with my boyfriend and a team of three other Yalies.  He and I got a grant from the Yale International Relations Association to lead a trip to investigate public health and environmental issues.  I had been eager to go back to Taiwan, and the grant allowed me to go to new places like Lanyu (Orchid) Island, Tainan, and Taitung.

Flying fish were painted everywhere

The first Tuesday, we took the ferry to Lanyu Island, which is almost entirely populated by Tao/Yami people.  From the deck, we saw a lot of dolphins and flying fish!  I had just studied flying fish in my bio lab so it was really exciting to see.  We thought they were birds at first, but after about 30 seconds of flying above the water they would renter a wave.  Little did we know that on Lanyu they are considered gods, and the entire culture is structured around fishing them.  The fishing season has just begun with a festival that started in one village and passed from village to village around the island as each took its turn celebrating the beginning of fishing.  For the first month, only a specific type of canoe (called tatala) that seats 10 people is allowed in the waters.  The tatala is different from other indigenous groups’ hallowed-out canoes in that it is made of 27 assembled pieces of wood.  The second month 1- and 2-person canoes are allowed to join the others in fishing, and the third month motorboats are allowed too.  Every man on the island fishes, even in modern times.  Each household has at least one fish skin hanging near the entrance.





We originally came to learn more about the dispute between the Taiwanese government and the local people about a nuclear waste facility that was built on the island.  The locals say they were lied to about what the government was building, and that it has since affected the fish population and caused increasing cancer rates among residents.

The island felt a lot like Hawaii to me, and it turns out they are on nearly the same latitude.  Everyone there says hello to each other when they pass on motorbikes or in cars, and that’s included us.  We’ve done several long, beautiful, painful hikes and bike rides on the one road that circles the island and on the one mountain pass that bisects the island.  We watched the sunset from the “grassy grasslands” on the southern tip.

We got a private tour of the little museum from the director of the Lanyu Foundation, and saw the traditional houses.  The houses have three parts: one underground to protect from typhoons, one above ground to host guests from other tribes—or for the men to sleep in when it’s fishing season because they aren’t allowed to sleep near or be distracted by the women, and another above ground and very open for communal living during the summer months.

England & Canada

My family spent a week together in London at the end of 2017.  We rang in the New Year with the crowds in Trafalgar Square, where we could see and hear Big Ben.  That was right after dinner and dessert in Chinatown in Soho, which was my favorite area of the city.

Tower Bridge outside Tower of London where we saw the Crown Jewels

In the maze outside Hampton Court Palace (residence of Henry VIII)

V&A Museum (of decorative arts and design)

Enjoying the Japanese food of London

Tate Modern

Rosetta Stone in the British Museum

Roman baths in Bath

After riding the London Eye

Stonehenge (VERY windy)

After London, I spent a week skiing with other Yalies at Mont Tremblant in the fabulous francophone Canadian province of Quebec.  I'd been to Quebec, Montreal, and Mont Tremblant before with my family--and I ate at the same crepe place again this time.  One the way back, I entered the United States by car for the first time ever.  It was as easy as going through a toll booth, but free.

Video + Photo from Last Summer

I made a video of last summer by taking one-second snippets from everyday and mashing them together -- of course it ends prematurely when my phone broke.

If you want to compare to my video from the summer before, which also ended with a broken phone:

Finally, one of my photos won a Yale travel photography contest!  Here is a calendar for download that features my photo:

https://cipe.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/2018_CIPE_Calendar.pdf