Day 353,  14219 miles (January 31, 2009)

Today was a very good day.  We were fortunate to interact with some very interesting people, including several groups of local people.  We talked with them a bit about their lives and practiced our Spanish.  Today’s adventure actually began last night when we checked into the Hotel Lumonsa in Ayaviri. The hotel is right off the main plaza. It was a great value, with nice people, in a very convenient location.  Our room cost 20 soles total for 3 people ($6.50).  Additionally, the hotel has secure parking adjacent for 3 soles, and there were warm electric showers in the morning.  After we checked in, TB and I went up to the roof of the Hotel Lumonsa to check out the gorgeous sunset over the town. The colors were really spectacular and they made the town church next to us appear even more impressive. Below are two of the pictures.

The next morning while having coffee in the hotel common area, we met an American named Dan and a Peruvian named Heidi.  Dan is in his 50s and has been bicycling from Alaska to Tierra Del Fuego over the last 18 months.  He has a 13 year old dog that rides behind his bicycle in a touring cart.  He’s put over 15,000 miles on his bike the last 18 months, and has seen and experienced just about everything.  He says that overall his experience has been extremely positive.  Dan was a good inspiration for us.  He showed that if you set your mind to anything – you can probably make it happen.

Heidi is the Manager at the Hotel Lumonsa. She worked in a hotel in Virginia in the US for 2 years before her work VISA expired and she returned to Peru.  She is using her experience in the hotel industry as manager at the newly renovated and opened Hotel Lumonsa  in Ayaviri.  Heidi spoke English perfectly, and she asked for our suggestions since the hotel is newly opened after it took over a previous hotel building that had been vacant for several years.  We had a few suggestions such as advertising that the hotel had Wi-fi and an English speaking staff member on the front door.  We also thought they could advertise their secure parking lot (a bonus over many hostels), and that they can organize guided tours to nearby Tinajani Canyon.  We also suggested the hotel come up with an initially simple webpage for anyone searching online for lodging in Ayaviri.  After telling her about our website, Heidi later asked how much we would charge to build a website for the hotel.   Ana and I previously thought about website building as a way to generate revenue on our trip, or at least exchange work for free lodging.  However, our website skills aren’t quite where we would feel comfortable getting paid to produce a site for someone – yet.  We’re hoping maybe we’ll be able to explore this option in the future.  Right now we also have the time constraints of winter approaching in Tierra Del Fuego, as well as TB traveling with us so we really need to keep moving southward.   Anyway, it is interesting how work opportunities keep popping up if you’re willing to keep your eyes open.

After breakfast, we retrieved Mango from the parking garage next to the hotel which also doubles as a beer-bottle depository.  Here in Peru, a lot of the glass beer bottles are reused.  Each glass bottle is subsequently cheaper than a plastic or aluminum throw-away bottle at the store.  Mango was surrounded by about 1000 crates of beer bottles waiting to return to the bottling plant.  Heidi had some free time so she rode with us outside of town to nearby Tinajani Canyon.  This canyon wasn’t in any of our guidebooks, so we’re really thankful Heidi told us about it.  The canyon sits at over 3920 meters elevation (roughly 12,850 feet), and reminded TB of Bryce Canyon in Utah.  Tinajani was really beautiful, and we drove around for about an hour stopping to take pictures.  At one point, TB and I waded across a small river when we decided Mango probably wasn’t up for the crossing.  If we’d known the day before how beautiful this canyon was, we probably would have camped here.  We thanked Heidi for coming along with us, dropped her back off in town, and then headed down the highway towards Puno.  If anyone is looking for a good value hotel in Ayaviri that’s right on the plaza, we highly recommend the Hotel Lumonsa.  Not only will you have a nice place to stay, you may get some good free advice on visiting the canyon as well!

For our photo gallery containing more pictures of Tinajani Canyon, click here: Photo Gallery of Tinajani Canyon

About 20 minutes after dropping Heidi off in Ayaviri, we picked up a hitchhiking man and woman who were tending to their cows on the side of the road.  They were looking for a ride into Juliaca which was on our way.  They had some big bags full of cheese and looked like they needed a lift – we were happy to help out.  For the next hour TB and Ana practiced their Spanish while I mainly listened while driving and dodging potholes.  The woman was dressed in traditional clothing: all wool skirt, hat, and sweater to protect her from the outside elements and cold.  Her husband sat next to TB and talked most of the way.  He was very proud to tell us about the towns we passed through.  There is a small town on the way called something like Kalnufia which everyone here jokes about being the “California of Peru.”  People here are never shy to talk about money, and the man and women told us that it costs them 50 soles per month to rent the piece of land from the government that their 5 cows graze on.  We also learned that someone in his family also just had a baby yesterday like Dan – TB’s son and Ana’s brother.  The man and his wife were really nice.  We all had a good time talking and exchanging some information about each others’ lives.  I contemplated asking them if we could take their picture, but since many indigenous people here do not like to be photographed, I decided against it.  Everyone was enjoying themselves and I didn’t want to spoil the moment.  When we arrived in Juliaca, the couple told us we could take a left at the first traffic circle to bypass the town.  We thanked them since some fellow travelers from Cusco told us they’d gotten lost traversing the city a few days ago.  Those two travelers were also pulled over by the notoriously corrupt police of Juliaca.  We were glad to know of the bypass around town.

We almost made it through town unscathed.  However, after rejoining the main highway from the bypass, we were stopped at a police checkpoint on the south outskirts of town.  As we were previously warned, this policeman didn’t even bother to chit-chat, he just asked for all of our documents and then proceeded to point out what was wrong with them.  Ana and I were ready for this however, so we just assertively told him that our documents were correct.  We’d been let into Peru at the border, had been traveling through Peru for 2 months, other policeman had accepted our documents, and we knew they were all in order.  He smiled and told us we could proceed on our way.

The last stop for the day was the Funery Towers at Sillustani.  The towers are located on a hill overlooking Lake Umayo which is well worth the 14 km detour off the main highway.  The paved road leads to a parking lot, where for 6 soles per person we climbed a small hill to view several towers overlooking the lake in a very tranquil, peaceful setting.  The tallest funery tower, or ”chullpa” is over 12 meters high.  They were built hundreds of years ago to bury the pre-inca nobility that ruled in this area.  Many of the towers are falling apart, but enough still remains that you get an accurate perspective on these unique structures.  The high altiplano setting and lakes look like they could just as easily existed in Ireland or in a Moorish-type setting.  We met a guard there who showed us around and pointed out a serpent and lizard in two of the funery towers.  Of course he asked for a small donation in exchange for his help and services.

We camped for free in the parking lot of the Sillustani Funerary Towers.  After the buses left and we were the only vehicle left, several of the souvenir vendors and their kids came over to talk and look at our VW.  We all had a good time talking. Everyone was friendly but they still kept trying to sell us their handicrafts.   TB really liked to joke around with them.  He’s been studying Spanish and can say and understand quite a bit.  TB evens knows a little Quechua which he learned 9 years ago when he was here in Peru with his wife, Marilena. TB told the ladies that he didn’t need their blanket to keep him warm at night, just a good woman.   They all had a good laugh.  After the laughter stopped though, the ladies kept pressing and told TB he should still buy a blanket to take home to his wife.  The salesmanship never stopped.  Speaking of wives and families, one of the vendors was a 23 year old girl with an 8 year old daughter.  This seemed pretty typical – life and responsibility happen at a very early age here.

The very small village of Sillustani is located right outside the parking lot gate.  It can’t be bigger than about 100 people.  The souvenir vendors invited us to play volleyball with them later that evening.  After cooking some food in Mango, we went to watch.  The players had stretched a volleyball net across the only road in town, from one light pole to another, and were playing on asphalt.  They were having what appeared to be a tournament so we primarily hung out on the sidelines and talked with the other 5 spectators.  The spectators were all very nice, but they kept asking us for gifts for their babies or to buy a coca-cola for their other children.  After about half an hour of this, we politely excused ourselves and headed back to Mango.  In Mango that night, the temperature on our thermometer dropped to a crisp 44°.  We slept great – the isolated silence was only occasionally punctuated by the town dogs barking back and forth at each other.

For our photo gallery containing more pictures of Sillustani, click here: Sillustani Funerary Towers

Directions to Tinajani Canyon

GPS waypoint off the Cusco-Puno road where you turn for Tinajani Canyon:  S 14° 54.184’ W 070° 35.138 elevation 12,864 ft.  There is a sign there directing you to turn right and go 10 km to the canyon.   The turnoff is about 0.5 miles past the traffic circle on the south side of the town of Ayaviri.  If you’re traveling south, you’ll turn right at the traffic circle for Puno and Tinajani Canyon.  You would turn left and cross the orange bridge if you want to enter the town of Ayaviri from the south side.

GPS waypoint for a good camping spot in Tinajani Canyon: S 15° 00.231’ W 070° 34.646 elevation 12,900 ft.  It is about 12 km on a good dirt road from the above turnoff at the Cusco-Puno road, and just across the first small bridge you come to.  After the bridge, turn right and drive about 100 feet to the camping spot at the rivers’ edge.  If you have a vehicle that can drive through the river (about 6 inches of water depth when we were there), there are even better and more secluded camping spots on the other side.   We were told that if you cross the river at this point and follow the road, the road leads into the actual Tinajani canyon.  It was nice here at the water’s edge so we stayed put and enjoyed the canyon scenery from this point.

Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website