The travel buddy, Allen.

He taught me the first Spanish words.
He travelled with me for 2 entire weeks.
He dealt with my constant fear of darkness at night.

Allen, a scout boy spending his time in united states for the summer and then decided to take a dip in Peru before heading to Canada and eventually heading home, Taiwan. We met then quickly became travel buddies as we are doing the same stuff and get along quite nicely (mostly because he is a very chill out guy).

"Jenny, you need to get more clothes and especially, a better pair of shoes."

"Jenny, here, take my 4gb memory disk. You can return it in the future."

"Geezes, you are going to Amazon and you don't have a torch? Take mine."

"I'm thinking whether to accompany you to Bolivia, see if I can get through the border with my Taiwanese visa."

We talk about everything and anything day and night, about family, work, relationships and future directions. We talk about our loved ones, our family and their personalities. We talk about photography. We also discuss the local culture and fellow travellers we meet. He tells me his knowledge on travelling gears. I sponsor face moisturising mask and sunscreen to him. He is extremely organized with his backpack. He records everyone he meets on the journey and their background. He owns a expensive camera and carries it everywhere with him. He is a IT programmer but after seeing the IT world and spending the summer in the states, he redrafts life goals to get in the marketing field.

For the first 2 weeks of the trip, I am very, very grateful for having Allen as a travel buddy.  He helped me get through culture shocks and eventually comfortable enough to travel by myself on this unfamiliar continent. It's these encounters that makes travelling memorable and create great lasting friendship. It's hard to imagine travelling with a stranger for so long but hey, its possible.

Thanks, friend.

fooling around in San Pedro Cusco market.

Going to Machu Picchu

Sometimes, it's all about the timing and the decisions you make at that time. I met Allen at the Cusco hostel reception on the first day and then decided in an hour that I will tag along with him to Machu Picchu the next day.

To do this spontaneous massive change in plan I had to

• Shop for warmer jackets, leggings and socks
• Cancel my hostel stay for the next 2 nights
• Work out whether I could get the train tickets at a reasonable price for the next day out (in line with Allen's already bought train ticket) 
• Make sure the Machu Picchu trail entry is still available for purchase (approximately 1000 people/day is the limit, luckily it was low season in September)

Luckily, everything went smoothly, I manage to get a reasonable 117USD return train ticket to and from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Caliente. We completed all of this in one evening then headed out the next morning.

There are many different ways to get to Machu Picchu

• Train (departing from Ollantaytambo, a town 2 hours away in the sacred valley)
• Hiking with a local company either on the the infamous Inca trail or on another local popular trail which I forget the name of (3 days, 4 days or even 5 days)
• Do your own hiking (we met a French guy who made it there himself)
• There's a secret way of taking taxi or collectivo to a small town's power station then hike to Aquas Caliente (this is mostly used by the locals)

Anyway, here's what Allen and I did

1. Get a 2 hour bus to Ollantaytambo (the buses were on strike so we tagged along a Spanish speaking tourist and eventually got a taxi to take us there)
2. The taxi dropped us at Ollantaytambo square and we had to walk 15 minutes to the train station
3. Train takes us to Aguas Calientes, the village situated below Machu Picchu
4. Stay a night at Aguas Calientes
5. Wake up at 4am in the morining to walk 30min to park bridge entrance which opens at 5am (flat road)
6. Hike up the vertical trail for 1.5hours (depends on your skills, some people do it in 30minutes) This is really really difficult for someone like me who just started backpacking and isn't exactly sportive.

And this is one of the easiest and chill out way of getting to Machu Picchu.

Machu Picchu, obviously, is awesome. Standing at the edge, waiting for the mist to clear up then all of the sudden, the sun comes out shinning warmly on this highly prized ancient ruin. At this moment, the pain of climbing 2.5 hours in the morning disappears completely. Of course, I have to mention the very fun weather we were given that day. First the sprinkle of rain and fog, then the hot sun blazing down then the finale of gradual sprinkle, normal rain then crazy rainstorm. We went to a cliff where you can see the entire city, hid under a tree with strangers, chatting and eating cocoa leaves then made a dangerous descend to get a bus back to town. It's all a bit strange at this stage of the backpacking trip, but I love every moment of interacting with strangers and observing the life of another part of the world. 

Machu Picchu at 6:30 am, before the massive bus taking tourist crowd arrives

San Pedro Market, Cusco

San Pedro Market, backpacker's heaven.
Cusco is a very touristy town, all the restaurants around the plaza is geared towards stripping every penny off the tourists. (well, I'm exaggerating) The point is, where do locals go? SAN PEDRO MARKET (and surrounding area)

San Pedro is THE place to do all your grocery shopping, meals and desserts. Allen (a travel buddy I met in the hostel and will talk more about afterwards) and I went there numerous times to get cheap meals and fruit salads. There are seared fish, grilled beef, chicken soup, yogourt salad with fruits, peruvian sushi etc etc etc. It's by far, the best place to experience traditional Peruvian cuisine at a very reasonable price. My favourite is a big plate of rice, fried potato, fresh salad and a fried egg with spicy sauces at a stunning 5 pesos, which is about $2. If you aren't full by the massive meals, get a massive cup of salad would be around 5 pesos or a classic Peruvian coffee.

Here's a few tip to get around the market,

1. You can bargain everything except the warm food sector. A little Spanish will be an advantage.
2. Take care of your belongings because it gets crowded and thus pickpocketing is not uncommon.
3. Observe, observe! Watch how the locals do it and copy them! It's SO fun!

If you feel ultra adventurous, trek out the market and head opposite direction of the city centre plaza, you'll find open market streets (day and night). You can also purchase grocery and street food here but the hygienics level is probably a notch down. There's also local Peruvian dessert shops, bakeries, ridiculously cheap hamburger shops and the best churros in town. This is where the Peruvian culture hits. 

the lunch crowd in the food sector

meat & cheese section

SPICES, in massive amounts!

Feeling blessed

On the third day of the trip,  I started feeling extremely blessed.

Blessed to have my family behind my back and supporting what I want to do

Blessed to have friends giving their horror face of "omg, please be very very VERY careful"

Blessed to have met travelling strangers to interact with

You need to be mentally strong to travel alone. There will be times you feel alone, for sure and no doubt. And thus, any warmth and love from family, friends and fellow travellers feels ultra precious.

Louise and William are the guys I started talking to in Lima's hostel. They are from San Paolo, Brazil. One is a junior architect and the other works in finance. William has better English and has a crazy manager who doesn't appreciate his hard work and thus he took a 2 week off to travel with his long time best buddy. They used their Brazilian Spanish and asked where to eat dinner then left the hostel, they came back after a minute and said, 

"Jenny, where's Jenny, ahhh, there you are! want to join us for dinner?" 

"Hey, you're leaving tomorrow right? take a taxi with us! its cheaper and safer, you're a girl, we don't mind being there a little early."  

"We'll walk with you to the shop, its safer." (even though the shop is right at the corner)

We split up in Lima airport and are all going to Cusco. We lost contact but had a strange yet super excited reunion on top of macchu picchu while hiding under a resting tent, waiting for the pouring rain to stop. 

Hugs and more hugs while talking about How I met your mother and Big bang theory (and waiting for the rain to stop)

They are funny and loving people. I will not forget them and their kindness to a lonely backpacker. 

The Australian boy, Gabe

We met at the airport going from Lima to Cusco in Peru.
Him and his female friend sat across me in the waiting benches, waiting for the gate to open and of course obviously, because we are in South America, it's "south american punctuality". I was on the fourth day of my travels and asked them to confirm that I am at the right gate going to Cusco.

"Hey, this is the gate for flight at 10:30 to Cusco right?"

"Yeah, we are on the same flight."

"Cool, where you guys from?"

"Australia, my friend is travelling with me for a month and then I am off by myself to Bolivia then Argentina."

"Really! I am on the same route as you!"

"Well, let me leave you my email, we could meet up again (write down his email on my "fuck you and your blog" journal, and I also ripped a paper out and wrote mine)"


We didn't meet up until La Paz in Bolivia, a month later.

On one of the busy intersection of La Paz's busiest tourist district,

"Gabe!"

"Jenny!"

Gabriel is from possibly the most boring town in Australia, Canberra. Finishing school recently, he decided to travel to South America to record sounds. Sound of the street, the alleyway, the wood workers, the party shouts, the bus driving by and the singing of the Amazon birds. He's an Australian DJ doing gigs for festivals and such. He is tall, slightly chubby and always carries his recorder. He spends extra money on private rooms rather than eating a good healthy meal. He sleeps for 3 days straight and parties for one big night then continue 3 days of sleeping. He stays quiet for a long duration and can not be disturbed by crap music. He gets angry at crap music, aka any mainstream music you hear on radio.

Because we are all a little scared

I'm back in Vancouver, safe and sound after 3 months of backpacking throughout South America. So, loosely based on the hand written journal titled "fuck you and your blog", I will share the journey.

First stop at Lima, Peru wasn't a pleasant one. Arriving at Lima near midnight, I previously got the hostel to send a taxi to take me to the hostel. Well, the taxi did not show up for an hour and so I had to give the hostel a call and wait another half an hour to finally get picked up. The immediate neighbourhood wasn't the safest place in Lima (I heard afterwards). The driver drove out of the airport and from there, it finally hit me that the journey has started. Looking out the window, seeing billboards, breathing warm South America pacific ocean air, seeing locals hanging out in small streets and holding foreign currency in my hand.  This, I told myself, would be an epic, slightly dangerous, three month journey. 

On the first day of venturing out of the hostel situated in the Miraflores district, I was honestly scared. The culture, architecture, and way to life is so different that I felt scared stepping outside the familiar hostel environment. The buildings were mainly low rise building with metal fences and lots of the building have private security guards. Because the city was in a developing stage, the residences rather build high story buildings over 1000 year old archaeology sites than excavating the site. There were so many mini private owned old 80s buses roaming on the streets and attendance of the bus shouting out location names. There were stalls selling local snacks and look alarmingly unhygienic. Miraflores was surprisingly full of resources. Its got all kinds of clothing shops, food options and electronic stores. It felt like developed countries 20 years ago, it's still in the rough age of coming together as a resourceful place but you can see that everyone has a city mind set of a developing country. 

Tips on walking in foreign third world cities/villages/towns:

• Don't look like a stupid tourist. Put all the valuables out of sight. Lock unessential valuables away in hostel lockers. The possibility of things getting stolen in a hostel compared to getting robbed on the street is significantly lower. A tourist walking with a camera bag, a backpack, and a belt bag is bound to get in trouble that day. 
• Only bring cash for the day and put it in pockets (girls got an extra bra option).If you bring a camera, make sure it's in sight at all times. 
• Look confident. This solves lots of potential problems. If you look confident and know what you are doing, it keeps away unnecessary attention.
• Know your way. Having a map in hand is not necessary but know the general direction. 
• Even if you don't know the way, pretend you do. A friend once said "I just pretend to walk to a destination, I don't know where the destination is, but I will walk very fast to it."
• Avoid eye contact (in some situations). Eye contact gives the other person a chance to interact. If you do not want to interact with strangers, the best is to avoid eye contact, and if they persist, pretend you are deaf and keep moving.