Battles of South America

Tsssshhhhhhh, I get a full dose of foam right into my ear, I hold my breath and try to spot the aggressor. The attack came from the group of the little boy with the green baseball cap, not really a big surprise as I had thrown a massive water bomb on him just a couple of minutes ago. I grab two new bombs from my bag and start agitating my foam can, one deep breath and I start running towards the group, just like a Japanese kamikaze, now every single kid is shooting foam at me, but I somehow manage to drop the freezing cold water bomb underneath the t-shirt of the cheeky bastard that attacked me in the first place! Me and Ruby and Steve, the Aussie couple I had met on the bus in Bolivia, had arrived at 5am in the morning. After a short nap, we had discovered that the Peruvians are not too strict about the Lent and that the foam battles still continue weeks after the end of the carnival. As soon as we had found out that ,there was one going on, we had put on some combat clothes and joined the fights. Needless to say, that we soon became the goal number 1, above all Steve, who is two meters tall, but never mind, street battles with Peruvian teenagers are so much fund, they could become my new hobby. After two hours, several liters of cold water and fully covered in paint and foam, we finally decide to sit down. As we relax a bit on a staircase, for   the first time we actually realize that we are in Cusco, the former capital of the Incas!

Cusco was for a long time the center of the Inca empire, after the invasion of Spain it has become one of the most important and beautiful colonial cities of South America. Nevertheless, there is another reason why there are so many tourists here: Cusco is the perfect starting point for a tour to Machu Picchu. The ancient city, deeply hidden in the jungle, had been lost and forgotten during the colonial period of the Spaniards and was only discovered by chance by the American historian Hiram Bingham in 1911. The journey to get there is spectacular, the bus drives over high mountain passes and roads, which could easily challenge Death Road. After 6h our journey continues by foot through a valley full of high and imposing rocks. As I look up I spot faces everywhere throughout the walls, the atmosphere is without any doubt mystical. After another 3h we finally arrive in Aguas Calientes, the small town at the bottom of Machu Picchu.

We start the ascent to the ruins just a few hours later, in the middle of the night. We walk constantly uphill for about two hours until we finally arrive. Machu Picchu is breathtaking, the city lies on a mountain plateau, several hundreds meters high, the ideal position to build a fortress. Just behind the valley that surrounds the Machu Picchu plateau, there are heaps of incredibly beautiful mountains, the nature that around Machu Picchu is at least as impressive as the city itself. A three-hour tour finally takes us through the ruins, it is hard to believe how this city was built without the help of modern technology, there was even access to running water. After the obligatory photo with the Huayna Picchu, that is probably the most common profile pic of all South American backpackers, we descend again. When we finally arrive at the bus, we are happy, but also completely exhausted. In the last 24h we had hiked more than 10 hours in the height and in the rain and we had hardly gotten any sleep the night before. However, we had seen one of the new world wonder, what a great day!

The one thing that impresses me most in Peru is nature, once again, the scenery looked completely different from what I had expected: while the north hosts the deepest Amazon jungle, a large part of Peru is not green at all. The south and the coast are characterized by a lot of sand dunes, and, as soon as one moves towards the interior of the country, the high and arid mountain ranges of the Andes dominate the countryside, all in all the different landscapes look so bizarre and extraterrestrial that every single episode of Star Wars could have been shot in Peru. After a few days in Cusco I make my way up to Lima, later Huacachina and finally to Huaraz, the mountain range in the north, which is so beautiful, that it is rumored that the mountain showed in the famous Paramount Pictures logo can be found here. With my Czech-German hiking group, spontaneously founded in Huaraz, we organize a few treks. One to the Laguna 69, a place with the most intense colours I have ever seen in nature, pictures will say more than 1000 words. Another one to the Pastouri Glacier, which sits at 5200 m, high enough to feel every step three times as much as on sea level, we have to fight a lot in order to get to the top. The hiking is beautiful,  so is my sweet company and the mountains that surround us, but after 2 wonderful months in the Andes, I am definitely ready to get down again, time some sea and jungle!

The final stop of my trip is Colombia. Since I had started my travels back in January I have only heard good things about the country, that just a few years back used to be one of the most dangerous places in South America. From what I have heard, there is no doubt that it will be one of the highlights of my trip. Nevertheless, as I go up, I also want to know what is the buzz about Ecuador, an easy  call as it is pretty much on my way to the north. After a 30h bus ride I arrive in Montañita, a surfers place with great beach vibes, pleasant temperatures and a good nightlife. Just one hour after my arrival, I happen to bump into Ruby and Steve again, the return to the beach could not be an better. After a few intense days on the seaside,  I move on to Quito, until now, the most beautiful colonial city I have seen in South America. The Ecuadorians are very proud to be the center of the world, apparently there is no place closer to the sun! Quito is a cozy and a pleasant city so that I don’t mind being stuck a little longer than expected when I find out that the Colombian border will be closed all weekend because of the elections.

On Sunday, there is a weird but positive mood in the air, it seems that everyone is leaving, Gustav, my Swedish travel buddy, and I are not the only ones to make our way to the border. Even after three months of traveling, I am still excited about the idea of entering a new country. The closure of the border made space for a lot of rumors about endless waiting queues and chaos around the border, so that we decide to cross the border at night. When we arrive around midnight, the situation is luckily more relaxed than expected, but nevertheless hundreds of people are standing around the immigration office. As we queue up, we are confronted with a problem, which is probably currently South America’s greatest misery: Venezuela. I’d come in contact with Venezuelans over and over again, but never as strong as here. Every second person holds a passport of the República de Venezuela in his hand, people sleep everywhere, on benches, on the grass or on the floor, wrapped up in blankets to not suffer too much from the chilly temperatrues at the border. Next to the lines of people, there are huge piles of suitcases, often everything the refugees could take with them as they had left their country. Chavez had driven the already unstable country further into the abyss with his socialist and anti-American politics, Marduro continues the Chavist approach and thereby ensures that the people of the country with the largest oil reserves in the world are starving and suffering, which is crazily absurd if one thinks of how some Arab countries managed to build up an almost infinite wealth with the black gold.

We use the waiting time to listen to a few stories: most refugees want to leave Venezuela only for a short time, however I can tell from their facial expressions that most of them don’t they really believe in what they are saying, it is more of an expression of hope. Anyone who owns a car in big cities can pretty much be sure of getting it stolen during an armed robbery, hyperinflation itself drives food prices to ridiculous heights and one Venezuelan even tells us how he had to barricade himself in a shop during street fights with the police in order not to be part of the rapidly growing list of murder victims in Caracas. I listen to as many stories as I can, every single one of them touches me deeply. I am sure that experiencing something like this would be great thing to for all those newly arisen right wing politicians in Europe! However, Venezuelans are also surprisingly funny people and so times flies by as we wait. After about 2h in the line, we finally get our stamp and as we walk across the border bridge, I can’t stop myself from putting a big smile on my face, I raise my head and read what is written on the big green sign: Benvenidos a la República de COLOMBIA!!