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27 hours, one boat ride, one car ride, three flights, one train, one bus, and finally our own two feet later we are home safe. What an amazing experience that we are grateful for. 

Until the next adventure!

-Simon and Erika. 

Muyuna Amazon Lodge

First things first - greetings from Miami Airport!

On Friday morning we were picked up from our hotel at 9am and taken to Muyuna's Iquitos headquarters. We checked in and then our guide, Francisco  (Pancho), gave us a quick city tour of Iquitos, along with Danielle and Kendra who were joining us in Iquitos to head to Muyuna for 5 days. 

Then, we had a three hour trip from Iquitos and up the Amazon river to the Muyuna lodge. 

On the way, as we neared the lodge, we saw a swimming sloth, having a great Friday. I think I found my spirit animal. 

When we got to Muyuna we had a ready lunch, checked into our rooms, and had a bit of time to enjoy the finer things. 

At 3pm, we put on or sunscreen, bug spray, and rubber boots and followed Pancho into the jungle to look for creatures. Our search was quite successful as we saw a Pigmy Marmoset (the smallest monkey in the world), a majestic Blue and Yellow Macaw, a Weird Mannequin parrot, and some sizeable Bull Ants and spiders. We also swung on a 50m long Tarzan vine, and I completed the jungle experience by getting stung by a yellow wasp (though Pancho's special ointment relieved the pain almost instantly). 

We got back to the lodge after a little over two hours and rested and then had dinner. After dinner, we were off again - this time by boat - to see Caymans (small alligators) and more nocturnal animals. 

Over nearly two hours we saw Cockatoos, crabs, and a big Amazon Boa Constrictor in the trees. The highlight, though, was when Pancho caught a 1 year old Cayman and showed it off in our boat. The group took turns holding it before we put him back. Then as the Amazon rain finally started to come down, we headed back to the lodge for MUCH needed showers.

We fell asleep to the sound of a rainstorm outside our cabin - maybe the best sleep I've had in a year. 

Day 2 started early with breakfast. Our boat tour down the Amazon to look for sloths and monkeys was delayed a bit while the storm raged through the area, but at 8am we hopped in a motor boat and or guide, Pancho, led us to see some amazing animals. We saw sloths, common squirrel monkeys playing king of the Tree, a howler monkey, macaws, black ringed hawks, and many more really cool creatures. After almost four hours we headed back to camp for lunch and some down time. 

After lunch we had some down time to nap through another rain storm before we headed out in the boat again to catch pirhannas. First, Pancho stopped the boat and we saw an adult and then a baby Cayman Lizard, both of which looked just like dinosaurs. 

Then, we headed out to a couple of Amazonian lakes to fish. Pirhannas are definitely carnivores so we used meat as bait, and we ended up being pretty successful. The final tally was Adam 3 pirhannas and one sardine, Simon 2 pirhannas (first two fish ever caught), Erika 1 pirhanna, and Frank had several come off the hook as he reeled the into the boat. After a couple of hours, and exhausting all our bait (and sacrificing the sardine) we headed back to the lodge just before, predictably, another storm hit.

On our final morning, we were up early to take a boat out into the Amazon with Danielle and Kendra and our guide, Pancho. On the way out we saw an iguana (well, Pancho pointed in the direction of an iguana and we kind of saw it...) and a prehistoric looking bird called a Watson's bird. Then we had a picnic breakfast on the boat before continuing out. 

On the Amazon, we had a pod of grey dolphins swim up to our boat and show off a bit, and then we caught several glimpses of the rarer pink dolphins. 

After several hours we headed back to the lodge, washed up, finished packing, and had lunch before getting on our boat back to Iquitos.  We then had a three hour boat ride to Iquitos, then a transfer to the airport. From Iquitos we flew to Lima, had a pizza dinner, and then hopped on our flight to Miami after changing into our last sets of clean clothes. 

Now, we just landed in Miami and are ready to go through customs. Home soon.

Iquitos

Greetings from balmy Iquitos. 

This morning we rewarded ourselves after our hike with a 4:15am wake up call. We caught a shuttle to the Cusco airport at 4:45 to fly out to Lima. 

Our flight was delayed out of Cusco but we didn't entirely mind since we got to enjoy the luxury of sit down, flushing toilets. What a treat.

While we were on the flight to Lima, we realized we would have a tremendously tight connection to make our flight to Iquitos, and we were also bunched together in the very last row of the plane. The flight attendants saved our butts (see below) by moving us to empty seats in rows 1 and 4. 

When we landed in Lima, our Iquitos flight was already boarding so we hustled to the gate, prepared to kiss our checked bags goodbye for the time being. Unfortunately the Lima airport defies logic, so even domestic transfers required us to leave the secured area, go through baggage claim, and then go back through security to get to the gate - which was located about 50 meters from where our Cusco plane landed. Still, after a lot of running we made it on to our flight with minutes to spare. We were one of two lanes at the small Iquitos International Airport (you read that right - International) and we deplaned and walked across the Tarmac to get to the baggage claim area. When we got to Iquitos, we learned that our bags also, miraculously, made the connection as well.

We were met by a representative from the Nativa Apartments hotel where we are staying and driven to the hotel, through some truly frightening traffic, adventurous driving, and a maze of rickshaw/motorcycle hybrids called Motokars. 

After checking into our rooms we had a makeshift picnic lunch in Adam and Frank's room, and then relaxed with a mediocre at best movie (sorry, Adam). 

Then we ventured out into Iquitos. It's the biggest city in the world that cannot be reached by land - train or car. We wandered though Iquitos's Plaza de Armas, ran into a parade for the pharmacy school, and saw the sights of the city. 

We even saw the famous iron-wrought building made by Gustave Eiffel - yes, that Gustave Eiffel. 

Iquitos is one of the strangest places I've ever been to. It's a city that boomed in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and mug of it that we saw looks like it hasn't changed since the 1950s. With the scenery, climate, and atmosphere, it's hard to believe we are in the same country still! 

That said, we had a fun walk around the city and caught our first glimpse of the Amazon. 

After the first half of our walk, we made it to our dinner spot at the Amazon Bidtro, but found out the chef was out until six. We walked around a bit more and found Simon a pair of replacement sunglasses before returning to the bistro. 

There, Adam and I finally enjoyed a Cusquena beer. A really massive Cusquena beer. 

At the restaurant, Erika and Adam slowly rediscovered their Spanish while Simon continued to entertain the Peruvian waiter and waitress community with his failed attempts. 

By the end of the night, the gringos had rubbed off on the place to them point that they put on Pawn Stars on history channel in Spanish for us - perhaps to educate us, but who knows. 

We are off to the Amazon jungle tomorrow and won't have Internet there but we'll check back in on Sunday night. 

Peace!

Hiking the Inca Trail

We are safely back from our trip and are now packed for our quick turnaround to Iquitos, but I have time to sneak in a quick blog post. But be on the lookout for another one later on with more pictures from Adam's better camera. 

We woke up bright and early at 5am Sunday morning to meet our guide, Jose Luis, and load up in our van. On the way to our starting point at Kilometer 82, we stopped at the Llama Path Porter House to meet our amazing porters. I'll have more to say about Llama Path in a bit, but we were really honored to be welcomed into their home and see the efforts the organization takes to treat their porters with respect and dignity. 

After the porters joined us, we drove two hours to Ollataytambo for a brief breakfast and then on another hour to our starting point at kilometer 82, where we stepped onto the Inca Trail for the first time. 

We hiked for several hours until we took a short break where Adam made a few friends. 

Frank called it the cat in the hat. Seems right. 

After the break, we continued on until reaching the first Inca site - Wayallabamba - where our guide Jose Luis introduced us to the history of the Inca people and the story about how their culture and trail was "discovered" in the early 1900s.

 

Then we continued on to a remarkable lunch prepared by our cook, Anacleto (Boliche). I seriously have no idea how we are so well on this trip - Boliche is a magician with food. My Fitbit says we burned at least 4,000 calories each day... but Boliche insured we ate most of them back. 

After lunch, Jose set us loose to see how we paced ourselves and we cranked out the last few miles quickly - to all of our surprises we even beat the porters to camp at Ayapata - 10823 feet above sea level. 

We had a tremendous dinner that night and also introduced ourselves to our porter family formally. Simon tried his best at Spanish for the first time and got laughed at for the first but not the last time by the porters. (Simon had never spoken Spanish before so thank you Spanish soccer for the useful vocabulary). We finished out the night when I busted out my astronomy binoculars (thanks, Erika!!) and we did some amazing stargazing on a crystal clear night. What a view of the southern night sky. Day 1: 14km, or 8.75 mi. 

The next morning we woke up to have some Coca tea and a great breakfast to power is through the hardest day of the hike. On Day 2 we would climb up to or highest point - 13,779 feet in elevation - at Dead Woman's Pass, then descend, and then climb another pass again before descending to camp.

First, we began the hike by going through a dense cloud forest at over 10,000 feet.

 

Then we continued the long, long, and strep ascent up to Dead Woman's Pass, and made it up with a pace that genuinely impressed Jose. We weren't trying to push it too quickly but it turned out that, to everyone's surprise, I was a pretty good pace setter.

The views from the top justified our hustle as clouds rolled in and the pass became covered. Also, waiting for us at the top was our porter, Darwin, with some cheese sandwiches and tea. I've never had a tastier sandwich bite. 

Then we descended a bit to Pacamayu camp - at 11,700 feet - for lunch: another ridiculously good meal prepared by Boliche and his team of porters. After a quick meal, we climbed back up to the second pass at 13,123 feet, visiting a beautiful Inca site on the way. Simon ran ahead of the group on a "solo mission," but we were all soon reunited. 

At the top of the second pass, we even got eaten by a cloud, and Adam enjoyed that experience more than most. You can ask him why. 

Finally, we hiked down to our camp but first we stopped off at the first cleansing center Incan site on the trail - the first spiritual part of the trail to Machu Picchu - after we, like all other visitors in the part, had paid our penance by climbing the twin passes. 

Finally, we made it "down" to our campsite at Chaquicocha and spent the night with some more new friends. It was really, really cold but this site afforded us tremendous views of the Milky Way. Day 2: 16km or 10mi. 

We woke up yesterday - Day 3 - to a spectacular view of the Andes mountains. 

Then, we began the hike down to Machu Picchu in earnest after a great breakfast. Our itinerary had been tweaked a little before the trip so we actually were going to get to Machu Picchu by the end of our third day. 

We hiked to the third pass at 12,073 feet before beginning the long, long descent down to the third cleansing center Inva site on the way to Machu Picchu.

 

Just before lunch, we arrived at the Winay Huayna site, the massive and remarakable area where the Inca people experimented with growing all kinds of crops at different altitudes. 

The view from the site was one of the most magnificent I have ever seen. 

Then, Boliche outdid himself with a ridiculous lunch, complete with some sculptures, before we began the trek to the Sun Gate at Machu Picchu. 

 

After a long walk, and surviving "The Ladt Gringo Killer" ascent, we reached the Sun Gate in the late afternoon. The site (and smell) of us after 3 days on the Ike prompted an unprovoked "How long have you been on then trail?" question form some nice day hikers just visiting Machu Picchu, but we assume they meant well. We spent some time at the Sun Gate and enjoyed our first views of Machu Picchu. 

Finally, we hiked for another hour to Machu Picchu as the sun set and got a peak at the wonder before returning today. 

Then we went down into Aguas Calientes town for our last dinner with our amazing Porter team. They truly made our experience possible and they are super humans. We owe them, or chef Boliche, and our guide Jose Luis a great deal of gratitude. Day 3: 15 km, 9.4mi. Machu Picchu reached. 

Finally, we woke up EARLY this morning at 3am to get in line to climb up from

Aguas Calientes to Machu Picchu. We were on of the first groups released and climbed to the wonder under almost complete darkness using our headlamps and the steady blazing pace set by Jose. The man had a method behind his madness, though, as we reached Machu Picchu in time to see a breathtaking sunrise there. 

Then, we had a tremendous three hour tour of the site led by Jose Luis, at which point I stopped taking bad cell phone photos and began shooting better video. But here, here's a photo from inside Machu Picchu. 

Machu Picchu is breathtaking. Every site, every stone, and every fact you learn about the brilliant and prescient Inca people. After the tour ended, we rushed to climb Huaynu Picchu in time to make our bus back to the train station so that we could make our track back to Ollantaytambo so that we could catch or van back to Cusco. Phew. A lot was riding on the timing of this last climb but of course, after having timed the ascent perfectly if I do say so myself (ask Erika and Adam for photos - I was too busy trying not to wet myself from the heights), we of course took a wrong turn at the peak and instead of descending the way we came we accidentally (fools) circumnavigated the entire mountain in 100 minutes, frantically trying to reach Frank and make it back to the busses. We turned a 2km up and down into a 6km up, down, lost, found. Erika, Adam, and I emerged from Huayna Picchu a bit dehydrated and exhausted but no worse for the wear. And on the plus side, I fixed my fear of heights (thanks random 30 foot wooden ladder and adrenaline). 

We still caught our bus, caught our train, saw a truly bizarre show on the train, sat through unfathomable traffic in Ollantaytambo, and finally made it back to Cusco. Then we all took the greatest showed of or life and celebrated with a fun dinner that quickly turned into "eat quicker so we can go to sleep." Day 4: 14km, 8.75mi. 

This hike was a remarkable, once in a lifetime experience that we are grateful for, and it has brought us more closer together than ever. We learned a heck of a lot about ourselves and found we each have the capacity to dig deep and pull energy from sources we didn't know we had access to. Our legs our shot. We are all gassed. We may not hear our wake up call tomorrow. But we are all so happy and lucky to be here. 

Tomorrow morning we are off to Iquitos and the Amazon. We will try to check in from there. And if you're still reading, wow. Thanks for your patience. I'm really sleepy and don't know if this makes any sense. But if the words stunk, at least I hope you liked the pictures!

Oh, and Go Blues!!

-Simon