Adventures in Peru

It rains most of the night and we're grateful for the openness of the rooms so we can hear all the jungle sounds. And the rain has made everything fresh and green and glistening. After breakfast we pull on our Wellies (knee-length rubber boots that will become your best friend in the jungle) and set out for the canopy tower. Ivan seems to know the name of every single tree, plant, bird, flower, and insect. And he can find things that you'd never see on your own. We're trying to write it all down in our journals but it's so much. We realize at this moment that we can either focus on making a list or on enjoying the experience. It takes about a nanosecond to decide. Who cares if we can tell someone the difference between a kapok tree and an ironwood tree, they're both amazing! Our journals go in our backpacks and we give the jungle our full attention. The canopy tower is about 32 meters high (approximately 100 feet) and from here we get an incredible view of the jungle. Ivan has taken the scope up and we see a pair of blue dacnises, these gorgeous little cerulean-blue birds. As we're ooh'ing and aah'ing over the dacnis, a pair of macaws flies in, then another and another. Then come king vultures, black vultures, a reddish-hermit hummingbird, a golden-collared toucanet, yellow-backed tanagers, olive oropendolas, blue morpho butterflies, and more macaws. Back at the lodge we pack and have lunch. While waiting for the canoe to take us further upriver to TRC (Tambopata Research Center), Ivan gives us each a temporary tattoo. A blue morpho for one, a scarlet macaw for the other. Seems like the perfect way to mark the occasion. We board the canoes after lunch and Fernando, a guide, and two other tourists have joined us for this leg of the journey. It's a long canoe ride to TRC, but between the addictive plantain chips, Ivan's commentary, and Fernando's stories, the time flies. Of course it doesn't hurt that everywhere you look you see something amazing. Others nap, but not us, we're too afraid of missing something. We arrive at TRC at dark and are again pleasantly surprised at how nice it is. We take a much-needed shower and then join the others for dinner. Ivan tells us we should go to bed early since he'll be knocking on our door at 4:30 a.m. As he says, if you want to see the birds, you have to get up when they do.

Ivan knocks on the door at 4:30 a.m. as promised. We stumble around in the dark, trying to find what we need with just our headlamps for light. Note to self: next trip to the jungle, lay out clothes during the daylight hours to avoid tearing apart your entire suitcase in the dark. We take a quick canoe ride to a little island to see one of the world's largest clay licks. Again, Ivan tries to manage expectations by telling us that they haven't seen too many birds in the previous days. But we're not worried. The spirit of the jaguar is bringing us luck. The guides give us little camp stools and we sit to wait. Only 5-10 birds at first, but slowly, more and more come. They bob and weave, ebb and flow. The smaller red-cheeked and blue-headed parrots, the medium red-and-green macaws, and, what we lovingly come to call Big Blue (the spectacular blue-and-gold macaws). We're all overwhelmed at the spectacle in front of us. Regardless of what we thought the clay lick would be, it exceeds every expectation. I find myself offering up a silent prayer of gratitude. And just when I think I may start crying from sheer happiness, I see Antonio watching me, eyebrows raised, eyes rolling back in his head, and I laugh out loud. The birds have their fill of clay and head off to do whatever they do. We're reluctant to leave, but our guides start moving us in that direction. As a consolation prize for having to leave this magical place, the jungle offers up squirrel monkeys, a white caiman, a few more oropendolas, and some red-bellied macaws. Walking back to TRC, we hear the most incredibly haunting sound. It's like a spooky wind, or what you'd hear from the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz (oooooo eeeee oooooo). Ivan tells us that it's red howler monkeys and we immediately head off the path and into the jungle to find them. Ivan, who could literally find a needle in a haystack, finds the monkeys and lines them up in the scope. It's our first, but thankfully not last, glimpse of these little guys. In the days to come, the sound of the red howler monkeys will become one of our favorite memories and the single best alarm clock you could ask for. The rain, light only minutes before, is now coming down hard. We leave the monkeys in peace and head back to breakfast. It's only 8:30 a.m. and we feel like we've already had the most incredible day ever. After breakfast, where we successfully defend our pancakes against the chicos (two scarlet macaws who were born and live at TRC), we realize this rain isn't going anywhere. It is the RAINforest after all! We ask Ivan for another tattoo, this time a paw print on our wrists in honor of our first jaguar. And then he offers up rainy day options. We decide, much to the chagrin of the other guests, that we will help Marco, the chef, cook lunch. We don our Lucy and Ethel hairnets and Marco puts us to work shredding chicken, sauteing peppers, peeling hard-boiled eggs, and chopping vegetables. Once the Aji de Gallina is prepared, he graciously allows us to roll the cart out to the dining room and stands there patiently as we shamelessly take credit for lunch. Another exaggerated eye roll from Antonio, and lunch is served. A full tummy, the soft sound of the rain, and a hammock conspire to create the most wonderful afternoon nap I think I've ever had. The rain stops late afternoon and we slip out for another night walk. Because of the rain, the trails are beyond muddy. More like flowing rivers of mud. We sink up to our shins (thank goodness for those Wellies) and Ivan is enjoying a little too much how often we get stuck. But like everything else on this trip, we laugh at what would have made us angry or frustrated at home. Besides, if it weren't for the rain, there wouldn't be all these trees and monkeys and birds to see. And seeing that chicken tarantula with her babies makes the muddy trek worthwhile.

Today is the day! We're on our way to Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu for gosh sakes! After breakfast we take the train from Ollyantaytambo to Aquas Calientes. The train ride itself is beautiful. No matter where you look, something takes your breath away. Santiago wisely suggests that we refuel with lunch before heading up the mountain to Machu Picchu. This will also let some of the crowds thin out so that our first view of what we've come all this way to see will be more of Machu Picchu than the crowds of tourists. We find an outdoor cafe and sit down to what turns out to be one of the best meals of the entire trip. The cafe is blasting 80s music and the three of us sing along. How in the heck does this Peruvian guy know every single song that came out in the 80s, who sang it, and what country they're from? This is when we realize that Santiago's a bit more obsessed with Paul McCartney and the Beatles than we originally thought. His entire body seems to light up when he tells us that in a few days he's flying to Lima to see Paul McCartney in concert. We board the bus and start the switchbacks up the mountain to Machu Picchu. It's actually an incredibly gorgeous drive up but if you have height issues, don't sit at the window. We queue up to enter and then as any good tourist would do, stand in another line to get a Machu Picchu stamp in our passport. We could write 20 pages of commentary describing what it is like to see this magical place, but it would never even begin to do it justice. You'd have to be a poet to string together the right words. Between the two of us, we've seen some amazing ruins. Collectively we've walked the Great Wall of China, been to the Pyramids, explored the Parthenon, strolled around Stonehenge, and even spent a day at Palmyra in Syria. So while the ruins of Machu Picchu are impressively well preserved and very interesting in terms of the theories of why it was built and then abandoned, what makes it so special is the setting. Machu Picchu is perched at the top of a mountain in a cloud forest. There is nowhere you look that you don't drop your jaw in amazement. It's why we've come home and driven everyone we know (and even a few we don't) crazy with our insistence they immediately book a trip here. If Machu Picchu isn't on your bucket list, add it immediately. And if you need one of us to go back with you, let us know. Santiago does a great job of telling us what the different buildings are, how they were used, and even has us stand close to the hitching post rock to see if we can feel the energy coming off (we don't). But for us, this day turns out to be not so much about documenting the historical details of the ruins, but about the experience of being here. After climbing up to the Guard Tower and looking back down at Machu Picchu spread before you, with Huana Picchu in the background, you realize you're standing smack in the middle of one of the most iconic National Geographic images of the last 100 years, and it's a bit overwhelming. I'm not quite sure what Santiago makes of the fact that I suddenly burst into tears. We can't seem to bring ourselves to leave this amazing place so the gods help us out with a brief rain shower to hurry us on our way back down the mountain. On the bus down, Santiago attempts to teach us some Quechua, the language of the Incas. We're ashamed to say that all we can remember of Quechua is that Machu Picchu means Old Mountain. Waiting at the bottom of the mountain is the MaPei hotel, definitely the nicest place we've stayed so far. Dinner is amazing! The food is great, and there's a small band playing music. This wonderfully boisterous group at another table gets up and begins to dance. We decide it would be rude not to join them!

Today is the longest and saddest day of the trip. Cusco to Lima to Miami to Dallas to Seattle for one of us, Cusco to Lima to Miami to Chicago to Little Rock for the other. To add insult to injury, we have eight hours to kill in the Lima airport but pass the time looking back at our journals and reliving this adventure. We also indulge in a pedicure at the airport and sitting there, we look up at a TV and see on the news that Paul McCartney has taken the stage in Lima. We smile, imagining how happy Santiago must be at that concert.