Sunday, June 09, 2019

Day 2 - To Paracas

some darker days they are coming
we all know it, it's endlessly
and from the storm we try to hide,
but it's a lost cause
they say it's our destiny
Le Sud - Lola Marsh

Day 2 was the start of our trip to explore Peru. Somehow last year I found out about Peru Hop and decided to use that for this trip. There are many ways you can do your trip in Peru. The thing people want to see the most in Peru is arguably Machu Picchu. To go all the way to Peru just to see that felt like a waste of effort. It would be better if we can see more of Peru and Peru Hop kinda helps in that. It's a bus service that has stops in cities or towns that they think are cool. You can go from Lima to Cusco or vice versa. It's also connected to Bolivia Hop if you're interested. Between Lima and Cusco, there are 5 towns or cities that they stop in. You can stay in the towns or cities for the recommended duration or you can just extend on your own if you need more time and then take the bus to move on when you're ready. It's quite flexible that you can change your schedule like 12 hours before the bus departs - of course the OCD me had our itinerary all fixed. The bus departs everyday from each town at specific timing. They have different packages on their website, like for example if you want to get to Cusco fast, it will take you 3 days. We chose the package that would get us to Puno, the last town before Cusco. If you don't want to use Peru Hop, you can fly to the places where you want to go or book individual bus tickets from other bus company, but I think Peru Hop just makes things simpler even though I had my concerns about it, particularly because there's one leg where it's an overnight bus, but really after researching I think it's the best option for us. Things didn't run all perfectly with Peru Hop, we never really arrived on time, but I think overall it serves its purpose - we arrived in each of our destination.

The pick up time that day was 06:45. We were picked up by a van to meet the big bus. Somehow I thought the bus wouldn't be so full, but it kinda was. Each bus has a guide whom you can go to for help. I think it's not an easy job to be in their position so I did try to not trouble them if not necessary. This first leg would take us from Lima to Paracas. First stop was a breakfast stop, but since we already had breakfast we didn't order anything. Here we suddenly noticed that there's a group of what looked to be Singaporeans and it could very well be the ones we met the day before. Gioia didn't just go and say hi and that's why we had a discussion that it would have been so different if they had been Indonesians because I would have straightaway gone up to them. I don't know if I'm explaining this well, it's just I think in general, unless you're a very snobbish Indonesian, when you meet other Indonesian oversea like on a trip like this, you would be happy excited and you straightaway would be like friends and start to look out for each other. I know it sounds idealistic, but truly unless you're a snobbish Indonesian, I think it's inherent for an Indonesian to be familial with each other? Maybe we're not like that inside Indonesia, but when we're outside we have to look out for each other, no? I think Singaporeans don't really feel that way? I don't know. To be fair it's perhaps not the Singaporeans alone, maybe people from other countries feel the same way as them. I told Gioia that I already felt a bit bad for not going up to them to say hi because though they're Singaporeans, my Indonesian thinking kinda apply to them since I live in Singapore and she said I was overthinking it. Maybe she's right and at the same time I really could not be sure that my attempt to make a connection would be appreciated. In this trip Gioia had a foreigner told her that Singaporeans aren't that nice and I told her that it's quite right. Now the Singaporeans reading this will get offended :D but really I think sometime Singaporeans look down at people. I've been here for a long time now that I get used to it and it doesn't bother me much anymore. Anyways in the end, one of the lady in the group came to say hi to us and she was the lady from the day before. She said we looked familiar :D I'm glad that she's friendly and very nice and we were able to chat with the group at different times during the trip.

After the breakfast stop, we had a stop at Tambo Colorado. It was interesting that we were the only group there visiting. There's a small building that has some things on display like the model of the compound. I saw just one staff and he was selling cold drinks for that hot day. I wonder if the staff gets bored with no one visiting. I don't know if ticket is required, it's just free with Peru Hop. We had the guide explaining stuff which of course I don't remember much. I heard the word, Apu, for the first time from him, which is like the spirit of a mountain and a very important thing for the Inca. The compound is by the mountain and they were quite beautiful.

Below here you can see the wall surrounding the open space area of the compound and the mountain in the background.

The building structure itself is quite typical of what you would see in Peru I guess. There are bricks, passageway, and windows such as this below. These windows are not for ventilation, if I'm not mistaken they're like for decorations, of course I can be so wrong :D For pictures from Tambo Colorado, you can go here.

After that it's off to Paracas. Since we're staying only for one night here, I decided to just book cheaper accommodation. I booked 2 private rooms in a hostel. Though it's a private room with its own toilet, the room wasn't great and the spoiled me had my mood brought down. You know what yesterday I realized I'm so easily emotionally defeated. It's embarrassing to admit that but it's so. Anyway Paracas is a small town by the beach. We didn't do much that day, just walked around the beach. It's not the prettiest beach. We had a late lunch / early dinner then Gioia decided to walk around waiting for the sunset and after the sun went down, we called it a day.

:) eKa @ 1:32:00 PM •