Straightfoward Instructions For Travelers: Machu Picchu

Hey guys, quick disclaimer, the information below is correct to the best of my knowledge as of March 21, 2014. If something changes, it won't be this blog. So check yo sh*t before traveling.

Hellllooooo...some time ago I created a blog post explaining, with certainty, how a traveler can hike the W in the Chilean Patagonia. Continuing in that theme, I wanted to post here directions for getting to Machu Picchu via planes, trains, and automobiles well, buses, and NOT the Inca Trail, which I would highly recommend though I have yet to participate in said endeavor.

Well, without further delay...

• Fly into Cuzco. Depending on where you are flying from you might have to fly through somewhere else, maybe Lima
• Take the train to Aguas Calientes. Make sure to ask for a seat with the river view, it’s worth it
• If you can/get there early enough, go straight to the park, otherwise stay a night
• To actually get to Machu Picchu from Agaus Calientes, you can take a bus OR walk it. 
• If you walk it, you take the stairs. They are not continuous. Of course the road that has been built for automobiles to take you to Machu Picchu is just a series of switchbacks. The walking route takes you straight up and across these switchbacks. So you take a set of steps and you reach the road again where it levels off. You take another set of steps, lather, rinse, repeat. I'd say it probably takes 1.5-2 hours to walk it, but I've never done it. I could be totally wrong. And, dude, it's walking. Up hill and up steps. Yeesh. AND BE CAREFUL. There are buses coming up and down the road all the time. So stay on the sides of the road, you nitwit.
• OR you can take the bus. Not sure how expensive it is, but it's not expensive. If you are coming in one day and going the next, buy tickets at the bus station the day before (I'm pretty sure this is possible). You can take the bus at 6 AM but the office selling the tickets opens at the same time, so if you don't want to waste your time if the buses are full OR you miss the first bus, buy the tickets the night before. Also, you should be able to walk to the bus station. Aguas Calientes is not a big town.
• To enter Machu Picchu, YOU MUST BUY TICKETS BEFOREHAND. You cannot buy them at the entrance. And you can buy them here, at the official site. I am pretty sure you can't buy tickets anywhere else but at this site. So if you find another site, cuidate. And the Peruvian government only sells a certain number of tickets for each day. They don't want the ruins getting, well, ruined. Too much traffic is bad for it, of course.
• There are 3 different tickets you can buy:
• One ticket is solely for Machu Picchu
• One ticket is for Machu Picchu + Huaynapicchu (for the English speakers, it kind of sounds like "Wayne uh Picchu". <-- DO THIS ONE. Huaynapicchu means "young mountain" or "young persons' mountain". It takes maybe 45-60 minutes to hike but, with a clear day, it gives you a spectacular view from above of Machu Picchu. And even without a clear day, the clouds still provide a fantastic view.
• Finally there is a ticket for Machu Picchu + Machu Mountain. I hear this is less traveled than Huaynapicchu but still great. It's your call.
• When you're there, just in regular ole Machu Picchu, walk to the Sun Gate. It takes like, an hour maybe? Maybe 1.5 hours? Who cares, just freaking do it. It's so worth it. It's where the Inca Trail actually ends and brings you into Machu Picchu but you can walk from the other side. The view is spectacular.
• You can do an entire visit in one day, but, of course, stay longer if you want. Then just do the reverse of the above trip to get you back to Cuzco.

And just for a little photo-y goodness...

The Linux Half-Life

 

So, let me get this out of this way up front: I know I have titled this post "The Linux Half-Life" but the logo above is for Ubuntu, a flavor a Linux, and one of the most popular among those. See that? I've already demonstrated I understand the difference between the two. Why did I choose the Ubuntu logo? Well, for one reason, see below, but also, I was afraid if I just put up a picture of Tux, the mascot of Linux which is a penguin, I was afraid everyone would just be like "Aw, cute penguin!" and move on. Also, I like Ubuntu. I've used it, installed, I probably even ran it off a USB key and/or maybe used it compile the Linux kernel. Who knows, I can't remember it all. It certainly is the flavor of Linux I've used more than any other, and certainly the kind I like the most. What's it called? "Linux for beginners" or "Linux for humans"? Might as well be "Linux for dummies" but I don't mean that in a bad way.

Typically, hostels in South America offer one or multiple computers for their guests to use. You know, to do whatever, but let's hope it's not to watch porn. "There are people around!" "It's a free country!" "Whatever." The computers are generally POS's, but not always. They're keyboards, mice, towers (the actually computer itself, it's sometimes referred to as a tower, as I am doing so here), and monitors usually don't match. The monitor will be black and the tower will be white, or vice versa, or match, or whatever. It is quite apparent these arrangements have been cobbled together at the least expense. Which makes sense. It's a hostel. Hostels, by their nature, are cheap. That's the point. You're supposed to have a bed, a shower, maybe a breakfast, and possibly some directions around town. That's it. You're not entitled to a computer. It's a privelege, not a right.*

What I found peculiar, the reason for this post as it were, was the number of computers running Linux, specifically Ubuntu. Well, fair enough, I think maybe there was only two computers at the same hostel that maybe (I didn't check) were running Linux that wasn't Ubuntu. I didn't know that any "normal" people knew anything about Linux or Ubuntu, so to find it on computers at hostels in South America was surprising. But at the same turn, it wasn't. These computers were budget computers. Ubuntu, on the other hand, is free. Download, install, hope that Intel, AMD, and whomever else has made the proper drivers (more common with older hardware) for your hardware. And then never upgrade if it works, lest you risk breaking something and then force yourself to downgrade or wade through the aftermath and fix the error in your current Linux version. Your call.

Yes, I did find computers running Windows, such as XP or 7 (don't think I ran across anything other than these 2), and absolutely no Macs. Too expensive or a theft target, I'm sure. I did one time find a Linux distro (nerd-speak for distribution. A distribution, by the way, is the same thing as what I've called here a "flavor", or particular version of Linux) that had changed the desktop appearance to look like Windows. Ha! Wasn't fooling anyone, the PC was a POS. In one hostel where I find very nice computers, I saw a particularly creative solution for making sure people didn't use them too long (in place of badgering people with "Are you gonna be done soon?" in various languages): the hostel mounted the monitors to the wall and put the keyboard so high you could only stand. And of course they didn't put any chairs there. So you'd get tired of standing there pretty quickly. Get in, check your e-mail, Facebook, upload photos, etc, and get out of there. That was the idea.

Well, that's pretty much it. Linux is way more popular, i.e., it exists at all in South America, which was surprising and more or less clever. People trying to save money and Ubuntu doesn't offer a bad desktop experience. Good job, SA.

*By the way, I hate this phrase. It's overused in American politics. Shut up, already.

P.S. And just for fun, here's a couple images of Tux.

 

Locks With Longhorns

When I was making plans to come to South America, from last April (April 2013 for those of you reading this 2027, long after I'm dead) until, well, up until the day I left, and then when I was making further plans in Buenos Aires (and I guess other places?), I never thought I'd hike in Patagonia.* Before this trip, to me Patagonia was a place with like little streams and flowers (I saw like a 2 second clip on The Discovery Channel about it once or something and THAT was the clip: some flowers around a stream. REVEALING.) and, you know, stuff to look at. Okay, I didn't really know what Patagonia was. Or what was there. Or where it was, except south in South America (still guessing). I just thought it was supposed to be some pretty place to go look at and people wanna go to and blah blah blah. I didn't know what you did there.

But I have since learned.

People talked about in hostels in Buenos Aires** and the more I learned, the more I was like "Hey, that wasn't just some bullshit from TDC. It's a thing." As I met and spoke with more travelers, Patagonia was a recurring theme, er, well topic. Theme doesn't make sense here.*** My interest was increasing all the time.

But then came the tipping point (cue dramatic music. And/or lawsuit from Malcolm Gladwell). Really, the flood gates were opened. Other metaphors. I met a group of three American students, studying abroad***** in Santiago, Chile, visiting Buenos Aires. And, I'm not sure when I met them, i.e., I'm not sure if they'd gone to Patagonia by this time, but I stayed in touch with them.

One of these students was (well, is, she's still alive, but for the sake of the past tense (is this the imperfect?) just let me say "was" here) a girl named Paige Rylander. Female, from Texas, like 20 years old******, with a great smile and who is shy for about 10 seconds and then displays a wit as sharp as a...sharp, pointy thing. She is kind and generous with a radiant personality. Everyone (ok, not everyone, smartass) is instantly or shortly thereafter attracted (platonic sense) to her. And she seems to be about as from Texas as I seem to be from Alabama.

I stayed in touch with Paige after our chance/fateful encounter in Buenos Aires. It was mostly via fighting with snarky comments over Facebook, but, still counts. We hadn't spoken for some time (who knows how long) but basically out of nowhere she messaged me and said the next time we spoke (and that I should remind her to tell me), she'd tell me all about how to get to this fabled "Patagonia" and go hiking, step by step, from Santiago to Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales (I swear you have to have a reservation with Bus Sur from the airport in Punta Arenas now) and then to Torres del Paine, including the talk at Erratic Rock/Base Camp. And she came through in fine style. Paige held to her word and laid it out in such a straightforward manner even I could follow it. No "when you come a fork in the road, take it" nonsense.

For posterity's sake, I have formalized and addendumized (yup, it's a word) her Facebook message and encased it in a blog post on, ahem, my blog (winks at camera) as a shrine, a commemoration for all the word to see of Paige's contribution to humanity: How To Hike The W - Straightforward Instructions For Travelers.

But, it didn't stop there. It would be unfair (to whom, I am unsure) to stop the story there. To say this would be only Paige's only contribution to humanity (not that we've seen others AHEM get on it) but also to say that this was her only contribution to my life. Paige has been a really great part of my trip in South America, albeit most of it has been virtually (not like that, you assholes) via Facebook messages. When we are talking about serious things, she always has kind words and advice. When we are not being serious, which is literally all of the time, she is unleashing her pent-up frustrations on me in the form of clever insults and backhanded insults (no, that's not a typo. Backhanded insults. Figure it out.). I do seem to be the target of her barbs, but it's just as well, it means I have someone to send some back to as well. Everyone needs a sparring partner, and Paige readily agreed even though I insisted I already had too many.

Oh, I guess, I should also mention that I visited her and the other girls in Santiago in the first week of December of 2013 and she showed me around and took me to bars and parties and I had an ABSOLUTE BLAST. So thank you, again, for that, O Texan One. For this and all the reasons above, I give you, until someone comes up with something better, the nickname "Locks with Longhorns". It's a Texas reference, ya see, combined with her combative personality.

Everyone raise your glasses. To Paige.

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*Spoiler alert: GUESS WHAT I DID?!

**Gee, Brennan, some internet research might have served you well here as Patagonia is one of the most-visited places on earth, but hey, Google sure is struggling these days CUZ IT HAS NO INFORMATION. Right? Whatever. Go read The Collective Memory Of Travelers by one Brennan A. Wheeler.

***Sis, you remember that time in the car, we were on the way to school, and Mom was helping Tommy with something, and she goes "Casey, what's a thematic map?" and you deadpanned, "Um, a map with a theme." BAZINGA! I'm sure you weren't trying to be ornery**** but god that was funny.

****I don't know what this word means

*****Juvenile abroad/"a broad" joke

******She was AT LEAST 18, I swear/hope. Also, how old are you, Paige? It doesn't matter. You were in college at the time of this happening. People get the idea.

Straightfoward Instructions For Travelers: How To Hike The W In The Chilean Patagonia

Hello everyone,

I wanted to share directly, albeit in a slightly edited manner, the instructions that were given to me by one Paige Rylander (ahem, Paige, shoutout, holler) for hiking the W. I find that for the uninitiated, there is never enough information on traveling, hiking, how to get things done, even if there is in fact an absolute overabundance of information on a topic. People just don't really know but it helps when something comes from somebody they trust. And so Paige continued the cycle of being a good person and helping out other fellow travelers and gave me these awesome words below, which I now pass on to you, dear reader, in the hopes of continuing the cycle of generosity and people enjoying Patagonia. This was cobbled together from Facebook messages as I recall but the message has remained true even though this is a transcription. Paige was very thorough (giggidy). The main thing I did was format and correct numerous typos, while adding typos of my own.

"Here's whats up:

1. Fly to Punta Arenas (advice: if you plan to camp, buy camping food in whatever city you're in before hand.  I recommend canned tuna, pita bread, and a lot of spaghetti noodles and packets of tomato sauce)
2. There's a bus from the Punta Arenas airport (no one will tell you that it exists but it does and it's called Bus Sur) if you wait long enough in front of the airport it will come and it is cheap to Puerto Natales
3. In Puerto Natales there are millions of hostels, I don't really care which one you pick, but at 3:00 PM go to Erratic Rock Base Camp* (Erratic Rock is a hostel, Base Camp is the bar they own next store) for a talk on how to complete the hike without dying. Make sure you go to this because you should follow the girl's instructions exactly**. And you should rent whatever gear you need there.***
4. Hike the W from west to East and enjoy the most amazing landscape ever. And then tell me how it went.  You'll meet awesome people, too.

I think you would get a good feel for patagonia in about 10-11 days. You do the treck. Stick around in Puerto Natales and see a glacier, take a horseback ride, or something.  Head back to Punta Arenas and see the penguins/some more glaciers. Enjoy the city ect. Then fly out."

From Brennan: Now get ya buns down there and go hike!

*Comment from Brennan, not Paige: say this name fast and see what you get. Just try it. You'll laugh.

**Paige was like "exactly EXACTLY" and I be like "How exactly?" and she like "EXACTLY bold CAPS italics" and I be like "Exactly exactly?" and she be like "Exactly MOTHERFUCKER, I will KILL YOU!" and I be like "Damn, Paige, I'm just playin, don't playerhate, hate tha GAME!" Ok the end.

***You can rent pretty much everything you need there except pants. Their sign with all the items they rent and the price per day says they have pants but they don't. Or maybe they were out of rented pants that day. I don't know. But you can always ask. And I found poles cheaper by $1000 Chilean pesos (about $2 USD) a day.

The Collective Memory Of Travelers

I recently read "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell. Yes, yes, it did come out, like, four hundred years ago. Shut up. But I read it. Amongst many other various topics, he talks about these kinds of shared memories. In one case he mentions "transactive memory" but I'm not sure if that's the term here. Basically, I'm talking about shared memory across multiple persons. No, no, not like ESP. It's more like, well, I know my friends Spencer and Dillon are more car buffs than I am. So, I don't learn a ton of information on my cars because, in addition to not being that interested, I really on them for knowledge and recommendations on cars. Spencer's pretty much driven ever car ever made since he's rented 401,638* cars over his lifetime. I'm not sure why he was surprised he got pulled over for doing under 95 in that Model T on 285. So, you see, I am sharing memory with Spencer and Dillon. I don't know all about cars, but I know they know all about cars and I know them so I go to them when I need information. People do this all the time. I mean, really, our contact list on Facebook, on our phones, Google accounts, etc, are all shared memory. I don't know Spencer's phone number by heart, but I know where to get it.

I mention all this to say this: the collective memory, the collective knowledge, or travelers about traveling, and really kind of the world in general is ASTOUNDING. Let me try to describe it, but I'm sure I'll fail miserably. What do you do when you try to plan a trip? How do you a pick a destination? You throw a dart at a map? You heard about a place from a friend? Read about it in a book? Then what? Why you plan it, of course. How? You Google it? Lonely Planet? TripAdvisor? Wikipedia? Travel Agency? Then what? Book flights, hotels, hostels? Ok, so you get there. You research some more. Talk to a local tourism office. The hotel front desk. The friendly hostel staff. So you've some idea of what to see. And you go out and see it, or at least some of it, and ultimately you are the judge of what is good or bad. Maybe on your list you've got some museums but the first few things you say sucked and you're like "I don't want to walk my ass through some boring museums** after that nonsense. Let's find some lunch, booze, and a futbol match."*** So, now what? Lonely Planet and the rest have let you down. Talk to travelers. Talk to them. Seriously. Where have they been? When a second person mentions a place without you mentioning it first, it's like getting the second source in journalism: IT'S GO TIME.

When you talk to people who have traveled, who are traveling, who have been traveling, you learn SO MUCH. You learn about places you've never heard of and you learn more about places you have heard of. You learn more about places you've been to. You really find the right way to do things. Guidebooks don't have all the information, and even if they seem to, it could have changed. When the traveler says "Go here, take this bus, no one will tell you the bus exists, but it does", LISTEN TO HER****.

These people have been there. They know about it. They know some of the best and most unique ways to experience places. It's not intuitive and they have learned by experience. Learn from them.

When I was hiking the W in Torres del Paine National Park in the Chilean Patagonia, on December 9th one of the girls I was hiking with mentioned "Navimag". It immediately registered with me, though. I, today, December 21st, the day I am writing this article for the first time, I found the e-mail I sent myself the day I first heard the word Navimag, I word hadn't heard since. I sent that e-mail on September 23, 2013. I heard it from Ryan Springer, an American from Pittsburgh traveling in Buenos Aires at the time. We were at Hostel Estoril, on the 6th floor, on Avenida de Mayo in the middle of Buenos Aires, one block from the National Congress building. The e-mail was titled "Navimag" and the body was empty. I sent it as a reminder to myself to Google it. It's a cruise you can take, well, it's the company I suppose, from Puerto Natales to...somewhere. Or maybe multiple places. Puerto Mont and Chiloe are my guesses. Ryan had also told me about going to see the Gray Glacier. I didn't know at the time, but he was describing the first leg of the W.

Do you see? Do you see that?? The things he's talking about, one of them I was currently doing when I heard about the second thing, independently, from another traveler whom I was trekking the W with. I heard about it and said, "That's two sources. Two independent sources. It MUST be good."

I suppose the most important thing that happens when you listen to these people is trust, trustworthiness, and confidence. When you get to a know a traveler, a person really in this case, and you get to trust them, you end up trusting their recommendations. You're going to trust what they say over what the guidebook says.

One more thing: how do we capitalize on this? You can't. Or, at least, I don't know. I don't know how you market trust like that. I'm sure someone in marketing has, so get on that.

*Approximately

**Not all museums suck. Just most. The Louvre and the Smithsonian are exceptions.

***This has never been my experience, I swear.

****Sneak preview of my post on one Paige Rylander

La Cultura Chilena de Fiesta

Briefly addressing the title: not sure if it's right, but what I meant to say was "The Chilean party culture". Moving along...

I spent all of six nights in Santiago, Chile, in December 2013. I hope I return. I really, really do. I want to. It was fun. And I really like this city of 6 million people, with it's world-class metro*, easy-going atmosphere, and dangerously potent drinks. But it took me only six nights innately understand, or at least get a taste of, real Chilean party culture.

At some point on that 6th night, I drunkenly sent myself and then discovered the next day an e-mail titled "Chilean culture". The body of the e-mail read "Damn the torpedoes full speed ahead". I knew this was uttered by somebody in a war and has been one of my favorite quotes of all time, not just among my favorite war quotes. A quick Google search tells me it was uttered by none other than David Farragut**, admiral in the United States navy during the American Civil War. He did during the Battle of Mobile Bay on August 5, 1864. The Union won the day. It is unclear the impact the quote had on the battle but it is clear how memorable the quote is. To me, without further explanation, even knowing no context, it perfectly captures and explains Chilean party culture. You go on, you go ahead and do what you're going to do, balls to the wall***, perfectly brazen, and you enjoy the hell out of yourself. Chile and I were friends before this night, but I believe you don't really know anyone until you've gotten blasted with them. Chile and I are bros now.

I am sure part of the reason I partied so much in Santiago was because I was there for only a week. I had to make the most of it. YOLO, right? It seems like every time I went out, people went HARD. I mean hard. Real hard. Hard hard. Like, it's 4 AM and you're still drinking pisco like it's water hard. Yeah. Basically, that's all I really have to say here. Lots of cultures have fun with it but in my limited experience in partying in Chile, they almost take it seriously. It's like "we're gonna get blasted END OF STORY." Now, of course, not everyone does this. But from what I saw, plenty of people do. And it was glorious.

Rock on, Chile.

*That is no exaggeration. If there's better metro anywhere in the world, I challenge you to find it.

**In the 2009 movie "Star Trek", one of the ships is named the Farragut. Any idea if it is after this man? If so, it's ironic as it's one of the ones destroyed by that massive Klingon ship that did not speak for the empire.

***TO DA WALL!

Sacrificing The Couch

I really, really, really hope you read the title of this post and got the image in your head of someone standing behind a couch, with a white face, white like lightning, so white it is unnatural, as if they've just been frightened, with short, dark, tussled hair, wearing a long-sleeved blue t-shirt, holding their hands above their hands, knife tightly clasped in between, a crazed, maniacal look on their face, ready and willing to sacrifice said couch. The room is dark, quite. He's waiting, just waiting. Waiting for the lightning strike and inevitable thunderclap following to time the strike of the perfect blow.

But maybe that was just me. I really need to work on my prose. And my everything.

But no, this is not the type of sacrifice to which I am referring. I mean giving it up, forgoing it.

Life is, well, up to you. I know, I know, there are times when it's not. If you have a child and also happen to be responsible, no, you can't pick up and run off to Argentina like I did. But, I think, in general, you can. I have met lots of people who think they can't, but they can. They have the means. They can. And I believe the numerous travelers I have met along my way, and those who came before me and those who will invariably come after me prove, it is possible. It is possible to make your own choices and live your own life.

You can stay at home. I'd imagine there are people who could live in the town where they were born and/or raised and stay there all their lives. People used to do that, I think?

You can do whatever you want.
The couch is comfortable.
But you only have one life.

This post is not about saying you only have one life, get out there and life! Etc etc shamey inspirational bullshit. In fact, the world more or less needs some people to stay home and do their jobs. We can't have everyone traveling. Someone's got to work the fields, harvest the food, and ship it to the cities so we can all eat.

I more or less want to point out that when you do choose to travel, in a way, you're choosing the more difficult path. You could say this is true of anything difficult. And you could also argue traveling is like running away and never wanting to grow up.* But I argue it's easy to sit on the couch, and it's counterintuitive to travel. Don't people want the easy thing? Not necessarily the path of least resistence, but why consciously make yourself uncomfortable? SO YOU CAN SEE THE WORLD. You have to give up the couch in order to see the world. You have to make yourself uncomfortable. You have to hike for four days up and down hills and mountains and sleep three nights on the ground on a mat in a sleeping bag in a tent so you can experience said beautiful hills and mountains.

I could be at home, in Atlanta, going to bars, enjoying great food, beer, my friends, hookah, making more money, etc. But I am in Punta Arenas, Chile, using a desktop computer that is an LG CD-ROM (maybe DVD-ROM at this point?) and the rest mystery, a Maxell mouse, and a Philips monitor, with very good electricity and internet writing this post. And I'll have the memory of this, not Atlanta. I will, regrettably, miss good trips and times with some amazing friends. But I'm making new friends and seeing new parts of the world. I do feel the twinge of pain when I think of the things I'll miss out on with my friends. And that's the sacrifice I'm talking about.

-B

*Don't get me started on growing up, suffice to say it, it's overrated.