This past weekend was bitter sweet for us:

First, we said adieu to Rebecca on Friday afternoon as she had a flight returning her to the good ol' US of A.  We said our goodbyes, and I handed her a bag of my favorite Peruvian candies to give to my sister for her birthday.

Then, Duncan and Vai wanted to check out the Medicinal Music Festival happening in Pisac, so we took a bus down that way and arrived an hour later.  Pisac is another cool town in the Sacred Valley of the Incas with many ruins and a very new-age spirit.  We chilled with them for a while and then said our goodbyes as well.  Duncan and Vai will be heading to Huaraz for a month to climb mountains, and I may be joining them after Simon leaves on the 13th of August.

Saturday, we took a nice rest day, especially because Simon's terrible cough from Lima had returned.  We also made a very delicious quinoa salad with mangos, avocados, pomegranate seeds, and a lime/honey/mint sauce to drizzle on top.

Sunday, Alejandra and Borja left early in the morning to go to Lima to visit family or fly out or something.  Simon and I went to down town Urubamba, and he checked out a doctor's to get some antibiodics.  When we got back, Coqui had brought 3 llamas back to the hostel after one of their llama treks through the Puma Wanka Valley.  He also informed us on a sector of rock in a place called Pachar, about half way between Urubamba and Ollantaytambo.  This is a place that him and his French friend, Domonique, have been developing for quite some time, and happens to be the same place that Simon and I had explored a week before.  There are two main areas that have been bolted, one with 3 huge towers that we checked out yesterday.  We got on 2 routes, a 5.10b 35 meter tower route, and a 5.11b chimney route.  Both had been bolted from the bottom up, so there the clipping spots were really close to one another, but the climbing was great nonetheless.  There is also another plaque further up river that has 6 other routes bolted.  Basically, out mission for the week is to climb all of these established routes, and let Coqui know what difficulty we think they are.  There is a lot of rock in this area, so we also may have a chance to establish some lines and even help bolt.  We are very excited to have this brand new craig to climb at, where we might be making 2nd or 3rd ascents of these routes (and plenty of onsights).  Good time to be living in the valley.

In the meantime, we've just been relaxing at Llama Pack Backpacker.  There is a large group of about 10 British university kids who are hear doing volunteer work, as well as two girls from America.  We met a guy here named Jack who is from Austin, Texas, and will be teaching advanced English at a school here in Urubamba.  He is a cool dude, and has moved in to his own place but comes to hang out quite frequently.  Last night, we played the game of trying to herd Puma Wanka (a friendly but slightly ornery llama) out of the back yard without getting spit upon.  Finally, after about an hour, we were able to get him out with some ingenious use of a hammock.  We felt successful, but in reality we are awful llama herders.  These creatures really have a will of their own and are very intelligent as well.

Today we plan on doing the same, taking it easy and trying some new routes.

Thanks for checking in!  Chao!

Long time since the last post…

In the past week, a lot has occurred:

Last Friday, Simon’s friend Duncan and his girlfriend Vai came to Ollantaytambo to meet up with us and do some climbing.  Duncan is a guy from Colorado who has been climbing in South America for many years and met Simon last fall when they were in Chile, and his girlfriend is another climber from Valparaiso Chile.  We met them at a café on the square and brought them to the camping spot.  The next day, we brought them both to the big 70-meter slab we developed and they both hopped on the route that Simon cleaned. 

Saturday night was the last one that we spent at Elder’s campground.  After a slow start to the day, we got everything packed up and took the bus back to Urubamba.  Simon and I got a head start and stopped halfway to check out some nice looking rock across the river.  The going was slow because we had literally all of our bags with us, but we finally arrived at some cliff line along a farm road.  We set our gear down, had a quick lunch, and then decided to free climb some Class 4 scrambling up 25 meters of sloped rock steps.  From up there we were able to get a better look at some potential cracks/routes that we could take all the way up in the future.  Afterwards, we came back down and caught the bus the rest of the way.

We arrived back at Llama Pack and rang the bell.  Alejandra came to let us in and showed us a room we could stay in.  It felt great to have an actual bed to sleep in again.  We chilled at the hostel and waited for Rebecca, Duncan, and Vai to arrive, and in the meantime we met some of the other guests/volunteers that were staying there:  A couple of Americans, some Peruvians from Lima, and a British girl.  Later on we went to the market.  It was nice to have an adequate stove to cook on again.  Had a very relaxing night as well.

Monday we woke up early to make breakfast.  We told Coqui and Alejandra that we would help out and volunteer in exchange for our stay at the hostel.  By 9:30 in the morning, all five of us plus the two Americans hiked 3 hours up the Puma Wanka valley together to reach a tree nursery.  The hike was a bit strenuous and all up hill, but the work we had to do only really involved a couple of people and a lot of waiting around.  While the American girls were watering the tree sprouts, Simon and I went up a bit further to search for boulders by suggestion of Coqui.  We found two really nice stones in this farmer’s field, brushed them off, and established a few boulder problems.  The fact that people are living way up in this valley in small stone huts still boggles my mind.  Apparently, once you cross over the pass of that valley, you enter back down into cloud forest, which is pretty cool to think about.

Once we had watered all the trees, we all hiked back down to the Llama Pack and Rebecca cooked up some mean butter chicken.  We also picked up food for our two day stay up at the refuge in the soon to be Llama Land Park.  We woke up Tuesday morning, had banana pancakes, and then Coqui drove us up to where we would be staying.  On the way up, we let the llamas out of their pen and led them up to the hill to graze.  Llamas are very interesting creatures, and each with its own unique personality.  Most llamitas are shy and don’t like to be touched, but Puma Wanka, a red fuzzy llama, was very friendly and came up to us right away to greet us and be pet.  Puma Wanka believes that he is the alpha male, but that title actually belongs to Guapo, the large, white, and not particularly friendly llama.  There are a couple others in that herd, including one very shaggy looking one whose name I didn’t catch.  Llamas are also quite large, some growing up to 2 meters tall (taller than me).

We got to the refuge, which is a building that has walls and a roof but is not completely excavated, out.  We learned our job was to be rolling rocks down the hill onto a large flat plain that will later become a llama corral.  The job itself was hard work, but we soon learned our tasks were far greater than just rolling rocks.  We ran out of water before the first day was up, but were told that there was a spring we could access from further down.  Duncan and I went to get water as the sun was going down, and nearly got lost walking back in complete darkness aside from our headlamps.  The water itself seemed a little tainted by all the livestock roaming the hills, so we figured that we would have to boil it before it was safe to drink.  This entailed making a fire with primarily cow patties as fuel.  That would be the first time I boiled cow feces out of water using cow feces. 

It wasn’t all hard though, in fact it was very tranquil.  We sat around, ate food, watched to clouds, boiled water, moved a few rocks, and had a chill time in general.  The second day was a bit difficult deciding whether or not we should return to get actual clean water.  In the end, all but Rebecca stayed it through, seeing as she was leaving the country soon and had to take care of some things beforehand.  Early Thursday morning, Duncan and Vai got an alpine start to go hike up the hill more and get a glimpse of the surrounding mountains.  Simon headed down at around 8, and me a bit a later.

We relaxed a lot today, and also got some pizza to celebrate Beck’s last day.  Can’t believe another whole month has nearly come and gone.  Amazing times here in the Sacred Valley of the Inca’s and we all feel very blessed to be able to live here.  We’re going to miss her when she leaves tomorrow!

Had an exciting weekend:

First, we finished up work on the farm on Friday.  They brought in 4 bulls and two plows to tear up the old corn feilds to replant  them.  I know have a newfound respect for those animals and the work they do, not to mention the people that train those beasts.

Saturaday, we went up the valley to explore the rock a bit.  We saw some awesome cliff, so we crossed the river and hiked along it.  Then we came across a narow pass that we had to Indiana Jones our way over.  Suddenly, we came underneathe a giant 60m rock overlooking a farm.  We tried for a dirty ascent of the middle of the face, but I got to sketched out by the runout and so we decided to bail and rappel down.

The following day, Simon returned to the rock by himself to rappel down from the top and clean it off.  He  spent several hours knocking down loose rocks, tearing out cacti, and trying out the movement.  On his way back up, he realised his rope had almost been sawed apart about 15 meters from the top.  Luckily, there was still some sheathe left and the core was nearly intact, but it was a close call nonetheless.

Yesterday, after finishing up work, we returned to the rock a third time to free the line that Simon had cleaned.  He led the first 30 meter pitch to a reunion point, then I led the second to the top.  It was some fun, classic 5.10 slab climbing with a few big flakes as well.  My pitch was a bit run out, but I was able to pull through and make it to the top before it got completely dark.  Fun stuff, we'll have some pictures and vids up whenever we can find some solid internet connection.

Today, Simon and I took the day off work and decided to hike the mountian that has the Incan ruins upon it.  It was a fun, scrambly ascent that took us about 3 hours round trip.  I just had a nice lunch at La Esquina restaurant and plan and relaxing now.

Both Simon and I decided that we really like this community of Ollantaytambo and would like to remain here for the remainder of his stay in Peru (August 13th).  We will most likely go back to Urubamba for a week as well to chill with Coqui and his llamitas, and perhaps bolt some routes with him.  One nice thing about underdevelopéd sites is that there is plenty of exploring/route creating to be done!

Chao folks!

Well I said I wasn't going to update until the end of the week, but last night was very worthy of recognition...

Like I said before, the camping spot we are staying at has a sweat lodge, or Temaskal, and a couple of days ago we inquired about using it.  Elder told us that if we amassed enough interest.  He surprised us by having one set up yesterday, after we got off from work.  We lit the fire by 4 P.M., and got in the Lodge at 6 (it was already dark by then).  It was a very nice ceremony: the lodge was garnished with eucalyptus leaves, there was a large group of about 12 people, we did chants, songs, and also gave our prayers to Pachamama (mother earth).  It was interesting doing a ceremony in total Spanish.  After a couple hours of cleansing our minds, bodies, and spirits, we got out and were promptly hosed down with cold water.  It felt amazing.  I slept like a baby last night.

This morning, we awoke at 7:30 and went down to the farm.  They had us pick tomatillos for an hour, and then we had a nice breakfast of french toast and coffee.  Unfortunately, Rebecca's stomach wasn't feeling too hot, so we encouraged her to go back to the camping spot to rest in hammock. Julian proceeded to lead SImon and I through a grueling session of clearing out two corn feild plots.  First he gave us some coca leaves and then he set a fast pace of clearing grass and dried brush.  Once we cleared the feilds, we grabbed tarps to move all our debris to the edge of the terrace.  We ended up learning that Julian has 67 years of age, 7 children, 2 grandchildren, and to top it all off he works twice as hard as Simon and I combined.  We ate a cold lunch accompanied with some excellent lime-aid.  Wew returned to the farm and finished clearing the feilds, then Julian gave us some arbitrary grass pulling to occupy us for the last 30 minutes.  All in all it was a hard days work with plenty of sun, but at the same time it was very gratifying.

Now, we are just chilling around the Pueblo.  We have all the ingredients for barbecue chicken sandwiches, minus the BBQ (so they're chicken sandwhiches).  I am currently decked out in my winter wear, but was wearing my summer shorts earlier today on the farm.  So it goes in the mountains.  

Ok, enough for now.  Chao! 

Well I have very limited Internet access, so I'll have to make this post short and sweet...

We ended up spending several nights at the Llama Pack hostel in Urubamba due to it's chill atmosphere.  We got to know Coqui, his wife, child, llamas, and the Czech guy Misha all pretty well.  We also met some chill English guys who were staying at the hostel and travelling together, Luke and George.

During our days in Urubamba we would hike up the valley a bit until we reached some cliff that Coqui had actually bolted 2 super sweet routes that were rated 7a+ and 8b on the European scale, or for those of you on the Yosemite Decimal System: 5.12a and 5.13d.  The first time, we hopped on a crack that was to the left of the two bolted routes and made a nice 15m ascent with Simon leading.  The second day we tried the 7a+ called Chongo Mondongo, meaning crazy monkey.  It was a sweet route, but we were not quite ready for the difficulty.  Nevertheless, we both gave it ago and decided it was worth returning to for a redpoint ascent.  Coqui also has all the bolting equipment and told us that if we found a line he would let us set it up.  Super chill guy.

Urubamba was nice, and we plan on returning, but first our expirience in Ollantaytambo some 20 minutes down the road.

We made it to Ollantaytambo on Sunday, and it a beautiful little village that historically used to protect the entrance of the Sacred Valley from invasions.  There are many ruins, cobblestone streets, and Inca terraces that are still be farmed to this day.  I had made an arrangement to WWOOF, or volunteer at an organic farm here in Ollantaytambo.  We found the farm down by the railway station that takes people to Agua Calientes, the last city before Machu Picchu.  The farm is actually coupled with the El Albergue hotel, and works to bring in some of the produce for the kitchen.  We met and spoke with Louisa, the WWOOF coordinator who is actually and old counselour from Camp Palawopec!  Crazy how small the world seems sometimes.

After talking about our work schedule, we took our gear to a camping place and set up our tent.  The camping spòt is run by this Peruvian named Elder, and it is a really chill place that even has a sweat lodge!  We plan on doing a ceremony come the next full moon.  After getting our stuff together, we went to the market to buy food to cook dinner.

The next morning, we woke up at 8 and went down to the farm/hotel/restaurant to eat our breakfast.  It was really deliscious, consisting of eggs, bread, marmelade, coffee, and pancakes, and was the best breakfast we´ve eaten since we´ve been here in Peru.  After eating we went up to the farm to look around and learn about the types of crops grown there, and what we´d be doing.  The farm grows all sorts of traditional plants, such as corn, quinoa, and other grains, as well as some other fruits and veggies.  They also raise chickens, turkeys, rabbits, guinea pìgs, sheep, and pigs.  The whole goal of the farm is to be organic and sustainable, and to provide all the food for the restaurant.  There is a bit of an issue, considering some plants like tomatoes and eggplant aren´t traditionally grown in this area, but it is a work in progress.  The actual work so far has consisted solely of weeding (maybe they don´t trust us with the other jobs) but it is a chill time.  We work 5 hours a day on a 1000 year old terrace, surrounded by mountains and stunning views of glaciers and ruins.  The farmers we work along side are all very kind and helpful people, especially the maestro, Julian.  There is also a small school built on the farm that teaches loca children about healthy living, english, and other important things.  We get fed two deliscious meals a day at the nice hotel.  In general, it is a nice time and a good, wholesome expirience.

We´ve also been exploring the town a bit on our downtime.  We´ve hiked up the ruins built on the mountains, and to a nice, clear resevior/swimming pool.  We plan on working at the farm for two weeks, and will take the weekends to climb and explore the mountains more.

Thanks for checking in, I hope to be back before the week ends.  In the meantime, I´m going to wash the dirt out from under my nails, and perhaps give my clothes a nice cleaning.  until then, chao!

P.S. excuse any typos of mine, I am typing on a spanish keyboard with spanish spellcheck as well, hence any overlooked mispelled words.

After several days of fun in Cusco, the three of us have begun to make our way down the Urubamba river, along the Inca Trail towards Machu Picchu.  All in all, it was a fun time.  On Wednesday, Becks and I checked out the Catedral del Cusco and tried playing the game "Cuanto Jesuses Aqui" inspired by my father.  We got up to about the mid-20's before we lost count.  It was a beautiful and ornate cathedral, but they did not allow for photography for whatever reason.  We also discovered a creepy chamber in the basement which seemed to be some sort of dungeon.  We discovered the gyros district in Cusco and were able to get our fill on that deliciousness, for a good price too!  Later on, I checked out the handicraft martket by myself and picked up some llame-embroidered alpaca wool gear.  After leaving the market I walked around for a bit and encountered two musicians with a guitar and a bongo. I talked with them a bit and they invited me to play with them.  Then I grabbed Simon and Rebecca and we all had a nice jam session.

We all very much liked Cusco, but it was a bit too expensive for us.  You could easily blow $500 dollars here on food, lodging, activities, and drinks during a single day.  We like the international scene, but the abundance of tourists means everyone is trying to sell you something.  The weather during the day got up to the 70's during the day but down to 30's at night, which I suppose is how mountain weather goes.

Yesterday, we checked out at one from the Wild Rover, but had to wait around til three because Becks accidentally left her climbing shoes at the 7a School.  We got some bad Chifa food, and then took a taxi over there and arrived promptly at three for the school's opening.  Unfortunately, we had to wait another 15 minutes for the person to come and open the door.  Typical climber.  Afterwards, we grabbed up all our stuff and went to the bus stop to catch a ride to the ruins of Ollantaytambo.  We waited til the bus was filled, which took no time, and then were on our way.  The last person to jump on the bus happened to be a guy from the Czech Republic named Misha.  We got on to talking with him and learned that he was going to stay at a hostel in Urubamba, along the way we were going.  He told us the hostel's name was the Llama Pack Backpacker and it was owned by a really cool guy who is a rock climber/adventurist, and also raises monster llamas (ones almost as big as horses)!  We decided as a group that we would make a pit stop in Urubamba and go meet this guy.

The ride down to the valley was beautiful, and went very smoothly.  Misha wa   s happy to tell us that we were on the "Autobahn of the Andes".  As it turns out, this Czech guy has been traveling the world for a while and had spent the past five years of his life in the Himalayas in Nepal.  Apparently the roads there were exponentially worse, so we were able to count ourselves as lucky.

We made it down to the hostel in Urubamba, and once inside the gate we were immediately confronted by a llama, who we later learned his name was Guapo.  The hostel itself was very nice, complete with a lounge full of climbing books & mags, a kitchen, nice rooms, shower, garden to chill in, and a wonderful view of the surrounding mountains.  We met the the owner of the hostel, Coqui, who was a very cool individual.  He was psyched that we were there to climb and said that maybe he could accompany us sometime, or perhaps we could accompany him to meet his giant llama pack.  We will definitely have to do that while we are here.  We told him that we were gratefully to have a place to stay but didn't want to pay the full price for the room, so he told us we could set up our tent in the yard right by Guapo's pen.

After we got settled in, Misha suggested that we could go grab some firewood and chorizos and have ourselves a nice little campfire.  We walked down the road a few blocks until we came across a giant pile of wood in someone's yard.  No, we weren't sure if we were supposed to take those eucalyptus logs, but a local had told Misha that no one would mind so we figured it was alright.  We hauled our load back to the hostel, but not before picking up some sausages and bread at a local store.

We had a nice campfire, roasted dogs, and talked about traveling and life with Misha.  We also got an awesome view of the stars, and were told it only gets better up on the summit.  He's an interesting guy who has been traveling for the past 15 years of his life, and has been all over the world.  He also studied Buddhist teachings for a while in Nepal, and shared some of his insights.  We all agreed that being a traveller is much better than being a tourist, and that the life in the mountains is the most pure.

Went to bed early last night, woke up at 9, had breakfast, and are preparing for a little hike up into the local mountains.

¡Chao!

Picking up where I left off, Simon and I had a nice rest in our hostel before going out to get a bite to eat.  We had some cheap food at the San Pedro market then went to a lavandaria to get our dirty clothes washed.  We returned to the hostel to chill and meet people.  A good majority of the travelers here are Irish, the Wild Rover being a sort of Irish pub/hostel.  We also met many others from around the world: Portugal, Brazil, France, England, Germany, Israel, and others.  We went out to the clubs again, and also reconnected with our newly acquainted Columbian friends.

It was a fun night but our hermana Rebecca was flying into Cusco at 7 AM this morning, and we stayed up far to late to meet this deadline.  I awoke at 7:30 AM, having missed my alarm as well as several calls from Rebecca.  Luckily, I was able to get through to her and gave her the name and address of the hostel we were staying at.  I went outside and met her about 30 minutes later as she was getting dropped off by her cab.  She was a bit angry, but I made up for it by treating her to a gourmet breakfast.  We walked around the town a bit and then returned to the hostel to rest some more.

We reawakened at 1 PM, and went out for falafels.  After filling our stomachs, we got a cab to the 7a climbing school.  We arrived at a large stadium by cab, and entered to find a neat bouldering wall in the basement.  We climbed around for a bit and talked to the Argentinean woman who was running the desk about local climbing spots.  After about an hour, we felt completely exhausted, probably due to the altitude and the fact that none of us had done very much climbing recently.  We chilled for a bit and then went back to the Wild Rover to get some dinner and relax a bit more before we go out tonight and show Becks around town.  So psyched to our main amiga here!

We plan on staying here in Cusco for a day or two until we head to Ollantaytambo for some real big wall climbing.  Also, Rebecca brought her GoPro and another camera so we will have many new photos and videos coming soon!

Good night from Cusco, Peru, and until next time, Chao!