airlai.com  ericlai.com

2006

This view greeted us on the morning of the third day of the trek.  We had our breakfast, packed up our bags, and said goodbye to the Chalhuay camp.

The trail took us alongside a stream, down to rolling hills

and a village with enthusiastic kids (one boy said "hola" to every single member of our group as we walked by -- "hola, hola, hola, hola...").

Just past the village, we arrived at this lookout point:

We continued down, taking a quick pit stop

to view this fascinating little hot spring:

Pio warned us that this particular hot spring was dangerous, claiming that its water causes a deleterious skin condition within two or three years of contact.  We pressed him for more details, but he responded vaguely (or was unable to describe them in English), so we just heeded his advice and steered clear.  We were scheduled to arrive in Santa Teresa that night, where a (safe) hot spring awaited us.  First, though, it was back to the trek at hand..

After about an hour of hiking, we stopped in a village for another break -- and some futbol between Pio, Jorge, the French dudes, and some locals.

We also got a sampling of the local fauna

and everyone got some rest.

After this point, the trail took us down to the riverside..

..past a waterfall..

..and, after about an hour and a half of trekking..

..to the town of Playa.

In Playa, we stopped for lunch, and we got ready for the "bus or truck" (Pio's words) that would take us to Santa Teresa.  The morning hike had been our last with the benefit of horses, which meant we'd be hauling our stuff along for the ride.  Nothing, however, could have prepared us for the ride itself:

With our bags, we all piled into the back of an old pickup truck, crowded together with an assortment of ride-needing locals.  There was nothing remotely resembling a seat belt in that truck bed; other than some "seats" (crates and sacks lining the sides of the truck), it was standing room only -- and the ride itself was very, VERY bumpy:
 

As the truck rattled away from Playa, the view turned spectacular, with the mountainside, one-lane road threw us hairpin turns overlooking the deep chasm of the valley below. 

Only once did we need to stop and reverse to let opposing traffic pass; only several times did I need to duck an oncoming branch. 

The ride was sometimes scary, often exhilirating, and always bumpy; it was possibly the least safe trip I've ever taken anywhere.

After an hour of this, we found ourselves rolling through the streets of Santa Teresa.  It was a small town, with locals sitting streetside by shops and other run-down looking buildings.  The truck dropped us off at a clearing on the edge of town -- our third and final campsite of the five-day trek.  After setting up our tents, our group had two options: sit around, or pay a small fee to visit the hot springs about thirty minutes outside of town.  With the vast majority of us having not showered in almost three days, the choice was easy (for me, at least -- the French dudes and a couple others decided to stay behind).  The eight of us who decided to go piled into the back of yet another truck -- after a lifetime without traveling in such fashion, I had suddenly managed to squeeze two truck rides into a single day.  The truck first went to pick up some locals; a group of kids on the street saw me standing in the truck bed and yelled "Jackie Chan!"  Little wonder that most adults in Latin America (at least ones I've met) seem unable to talk to Asian people without invoking some kind of racial stereotype.

The hot springs could not have come at a better time.  It was a starry evening, illuminated occasionally by distant lightning.  Business was good, too, as locals of all ages frolicked in the pools.  Our group spent a couple hours enjoying the hot water, before Jorge signaled to us that it was time to return to town.

Our third and final overcrowded truck ride of the day left us in front of a loud restaurant by our campsite.  Inside, Pio, the French guys, and company were seated at our first decent-length table of the trek.  Our chefs rolled out Peruvian rice, beets, beef, and other goodies; on the wall beside me, bad Latin music videos were projected, with the only thing outsizing the projection being the deafening amplitude of the volume.  Sitting across from Mariano and Mercedes, I could barely hear them; considering they speak as little English as I do Spanish, our conversation was a painstaking (but interesting) one. 

After dinner, we returned to our tents, which were within too-close earshot of the still-blaring horrible music from the restaurant.  Somehow, despite all this din, I slept easy.  Sometime in the middle of the night, I was vaguely aware of a passing storm, as the sound of tent-pelting raindrops echoed into in my dreams.

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