Peru – Stroh Family Back On The Road In The High Andes |

Brad Brandy Brooke Brayden Stroh in Machu Picchu

It’s been a while since our trek around the world. A lot has changed in the world, with our lives and even our Stroh Family blog (including getting all of the images stripped from posts!)

One thing hasn’t changed: we still love to be together exploring and touring new countries! The last two+ weeks we spent navigating a country new to all of us: Peru. Hopefully you’re still following along and please comment and chime in!

Peru is a beautiful country with many contrasts and complexities. The natural environment spans a coast-line as beautiful (and surf-able!) as the California coastline along the beaches that rise right into bluffs and reminded me of Malibu. The Andes mountains rise vertically just to the east, elevating across high plateaus that reminded us of Tibet. Snow capped mountains at over 20k feet are a zipper line that separates the Amazon jungle further east from the coast-line. The Andes also mark the edge of the territory that the great Incan civilizations spanned from Argentina and Chile in the south all the way up through modern day Peru, Ecuador and even into Columbia and Venezuela.

A little bit of history:

Peru, like many colonized “countries” or regions we’ve explored across the continents has a complex and, at times, seemingly incongruent cultures. A native people (pre-Incan) who go back 15,000 years populated the beautiful regions that included ocean coastlines, tropical jungle lands surrounding the Amazon river basin, high plateaus and the snow capped mountain tops of the Andes. It really is a beautiful country.

The most prominent civilization was marked by the reign of the Incan tribes who ruled over much of South America, from the northern tip of the continent to the south as far as what is now known as Chile and Argentina. The Incans were farmers, herders and remarkable landscape architects. Their terracing, used to grow and store crops, marks seemingly every valley and mountain range we visited. The 14 Incan emperors were expansive, brilliant in conquering and managing an empire, and loved to build temples and stone structures. Macchu Picchu is the most famous, but there are remnants of Incan sites everywhere in Peru.

Then came the Spaniards. Coming south from their initial foray into pillaging native gold, copper and silver from the Mexico region, a small expedition of Spaniards led by Francisco Pizzaro found the Incans an easy target for conquest. It seems so frequent that colonization brought tragedy, which in this case was in the form of taking the abundant gold and silver of the native population and delivering small pox and disease everywhere the Spaniards went. The Incans, ruled by an emperor, sound like they were in constant in-fighting (typically between brothers or family members) and the Spaniards found wealth beyond their wildest dreams. If only the Incans could have been organized and led it seems like it would have been easy to repel the Spaniard conquest… but if history is a guide there seemed an inevitability to the European colonization. Fast forward, Peru has food, architecture, culture and history that combines many aspects of the country’s native people married with Spanish (and even Moorish, with so much similarity to what we saw in Andalusia in the South of Spain) and European influence. Oh yeah, it also have corrupt politicians. Their former President is one of many, many former elected officials who were jailed due to corruption and the current President has an eight percent approval rating. Basically, it’s another country with a messed up ruling system. We can’t comment based on our own political “complexities.” Ok, this is already getting long, so I’ll go abridged and just hit some highlights. Suffice to say, we absolutely loved Peru and were able to travel from Lima to Ollantaytambo to Macchu Picchu, back through the Sacred Valley, to Puno, Lake Titicaca and the edge of Bolivia, to Cusco, through the Colca Valley, Arequipa and then on a long flight back home. Makes me tired just thinking about eight hour van rides, stomach bugs, treks, interesting toilet paper, quinoa, potatoes, Guinea Pigs… and new friends and memories.

The drive in from Cusco to the Sacred Valley is windy, fun and opens to a spectacular expanse. The Sacred Valley was revered by the Incans who saw the Ollantaytambo river valley floor and the Milky Way paralleling the river in the night sky.

Machu Picchu

Ok, it’s incredible. Really. There isn’t a perfect analogy, but I thought it was as breath-taking and as inspiring as the Potala Palace, Angkor Wat, Tiger’s Nest, Iguazu Falls, the Alhambra or ice-bergs of Antarctica. It simply takes your breath away. The scale, the surrounding mountains that circle the stone terraces, the expansive sky. It’s hard to put into words. The one “conundrum” is for how ancient and timeless the stone structures feel, it’s surprisingly recent. Like the Italian renaissance was happening at the same time as when the Incan emperor was constructing Machu Picchu.

We did a seven hour hike, after disembarking from the Peru rail train (named the Hiram Bingham, who is a complex character and Yale trouble-maker). Brayden had Giardia and an adventure awaiting him on the surprisingly beautiful hike to the Sun Gate; he made it and did little complaining. I’d like to say we are in great shape and it was an easy stroll, but maybe it was altitude or me being 225 but I thought it was hard as hell. Brooke smiled and talked and bounded ahead the whole 22k steps (some vertical) while I huffed and puffed. We made it. Brayden lost like 10 lbs and I thought it was funny until the next day when I had the same affliction and we climbed up Huanya Picchu. There was possibly much more whining and complaining from dad. No further comments required.

Stepping up and out of the Sun Gate to see the majestic beauty of Machu Picchu is on of the best memories I have. I was relieved to have reached the top of the hike and I couldn’t believe the scenery. Mountain spikes rose like a stone arena all around; white clouds drifted in the bright blue sky. The terraces looked like the finest landscape architecture I have ever seen. Huayna Picchu (btw, “Picchu” means mountain) stuck up like a framing back-drop. Unfortunately, I asked if that mountain across the way was climbable. Marciel (best guide on the planet, we miss you already) proclaimed yes. I gulped. We climbed it. Hard.

What and why was Machu Picchu constructed? Emperor’s summer palace? Place to worship the sun? Place to study the stars? A university for the Incan elite? All seem plausible. No one really knows. The mystery seems to add the mystique. We were blown away.

Sol Y Luna – Pretty Amazing Kids and Orphanage

We were blessed to spend a day with 15 amazing kids, ranging in age from five to 20. They came from some sad situations, but found a loving environment at Sol Y Luna and we couldn’t have had more fun learning from them, teaching a little bit, painting and mostly feeling love all around. Brayden made a new friend, Franco was funny as heck, Brooke got to paint (“give me your gold” seemed like the wrong way to ask them for the right paint color to finish her co-creation for the world cup trophy) and Brandy held every kid she could squeeze. Excited to help support the cause we learned more than we imbued.

Some fun highlights

Here’s a pit-stop on the drive from Puno/Lake Titicaca to the Colca Valley, crossing over a 16k foot pass. It’s breath-taking (literarily).

This alpaca decided we weren’t friends and spit green smelly stuff all over me. I learned my lesson.

We drove from Colca Valley to Arequipa (the second largest city in Peru). It was a beautiful town square with one of the most amazing convents that feels like it’s own walled city. The convent walls were painted bright red, blue and it was so beautiful. One of the old sisters (who self-flagellated to take the pain from her followers) was nominated by Pope John Paul for sainthood and is soon to be named a saint. She apparently healed someone’s stomach cancer with her miracle.