Mar 2007

So leaving behind Arequipa and the Colca Canyon and on to Cusco and that place where everyone has to go if they are in Peru - Machu Picchu.

Let me start with the city.......gringo central and party town of Peru. This is the first city where it is really obvious that there is a lot of people travelling in South America and the prices reflect that. Cusco is without doubt the most expensive place in Peru - everything from food down to the souvenirs are much more expensive here than anywhere else in the country,but still affordable from a european perspective.

OK then - food......well let´s just say that it isn´t worth trying to save money by eating in cheaper places. It is possible but your stomach WILL NOT thank you for it! I personally spent a lot more time on the toilet here than I wanted too and from comparing notes with others it appears that was the common experience! So much so in fact that if you visit the post office there is a poster in the window advertising for travellers with diarrhea to help the hospital and the drug companies to develop a new antibiotic to cure it - they even go so far as to offer $20 towards helping with a taxi and other incidental costs. Maybe that goes a little way to explain the epidemic in Cusco! And its not just the chronic need for the loo its the crushing stomach cramps, sweats, fear of being just that little too far from a toilet that goes with it! Not pleasant it has to be said....

That aside a little more about the place - the hostel of choice was a place called Loki which had been recommended to us by several other people along the way, and not a bad recommendation either. The place is pretty big and is set in an old 17th century house/mansion that could well have been some kind of monastery before it was restored for its current use - it had everything from single rooms up to 12 bed dorms and with a surprising amount of space in them. Had the usual bar, etc but the best thing is probably the views of the city, particularly at night - stunning! The only problem with having a view is that that invariably means that it is set on a hill. The steps and the hill up to the hostel can only be descibed in one way - lungbusting! In fact if you were bored all you had to do was go sit out the front and laugh at all the huffing and puffing from fellow guests as they made their way up the steps trying not to give themselves a coronary. In our defence though it wasn´t a lack of fitness (that´s just me), it was more to do with the altitude (above 3500m I believe).

So anyway after a couple of days aclimatising I booked a trip with Elena and Claudia (the Spanish and Venezualan girls) to the Sacred Valley and on to Machu Picchu. I had the option of booking the Inca Trail but after having it explained properly and learning of the amount of knee crushing steps I opted for the easier way!

Leaving Cusco you first arrive in Pisac for the artesano markets and look for ways to spend some more of that hard earned cash - and not too difficult a task either. Usual altiplano items are on offer - by that I mean woolly jumpers, socks, pashminas, scarves, jewellery, hats, art, tat of all descriptions, etc so of course I indulged myself but not too much as the only problem is once you buy it you have to carry it! After Pisac its on to Calca and Urubamba stopping at some amazing ruins on the way and negotiating towering staircases to the top of the mountains to get the best view of the valley around you and of course to get up close and personal to the ruins - the most impressive of which for me were at Ollantaytambo and of course the one where I forgot to take my camera up with me - sod´s law and all that. This is the first place for me that gave me a little insite into the ingenuity of the Inca´s and their engineering ability - truly astonishing how they can build something so perfect on the top of a mountain.

The Valley itself is beautiful - stacked top to toe with rows and rows of terraces built hundreds of years ago for the Inca´s to keep their livestock and cultivate their crops. It´s not that hard to imagine how they lived as contrary to nearly every other place in the world things really haven´t changed that much around these parts. People are still living hand to mouth here, farming for their food, weaving clothes to wear and living in small communities with whole family groups. It really is like a step back in time but then you look around and see the tour buses and think that maybe the gringo trail really isn´t that great a thing for the people.

From the town of Ollantaytumbo we caught the train to Agua Calientes (literal translation is Hot Water - so called because of the natural hot springs here) where we would stay that night and get up the next morning at stupid o´clock in order to make our way up to Machu Picchu in time to see the sun rise over the site and watch the clouds disappear in front of our very eyes........yeah right! We got up there at 6.00 and waited for the gates to open at 7 - so far so good, then we went in and begsn our guided tour and then the heavens opened and continued to stay open for the next 4 hours by which time we admitted defeat and made our way back to town, cold, wet and bedraggled! That however is not to say that we didn´t see anything - the site itself is pretty amazing. Again you wonder in amazement how they managed to build such a perfect city at the top of a mountain, complete with a still perfectly working water and drainage system. Dating from around the 15th century it was built by an Inca king, Emperor Pachacuti, as a centre for ritual (or at least that´s waht the experts say anyway). It was not discovered again until 1911 by a gentleman called Hiram Bingham who was on a search for the lost cities of the Incas. The Inca´s kept its location secret from the maurading spaniards who would almost certainly have destroyed it had they discovered it on their colonial conquest as a lesson to the Inca´s and as a way of keeping them in line as well as converting them to catholicism and abandoning their worship of the sun and moon. So there you go - now you know.

Back to the site - its huge! Even though it was cloudy and wet you still get to see amazing things. I thought it was beautiful - the mist made it seem dark and brooding but utterly inticing. Every so often a cloud would drift and you would get glimpses of the nearby mountains and a glimpse of the valley below emphasising once again the feat of their engineering ability. My only regreat was that I didn´t get to climb Wayna Picchu which is the mountain inside the site and is the place where you can take those picture perfect photographs that make the site as world famous as it is today - alas the weather was not keeping its part of the bargain. Guess it means I´ll just had to come back again some other time.....preferably in the dry season! Anyway - wet or dry its an amazing place and definitely worth the visit.

Back to Cusco - apart from drinking what can you do? Well it has the usual musuems and churches which are worth a visit - just buy the tourist ticket which gives you access to all the main sights and it works out that little bit cheaper. There are several markets around town although you need a strong stomach for some of them....but really interesting all the same. The countryside around the town is ideal for walking and hiking and of course the nightlife and restaurant scene is jumping.

I spent a total of 3 weeks in Cusco getting to know the place and working in the aforementioned hostel, on the whole....apart from the stomach issues I have to say I enjoyed it (but surprising amount of drugs around the place). Final thought...... I really must work on the willpower to say `no` to a night out every now and then.

My usual name thing....Carlos, Andrew, slightly scary Courtney, Avi, Dan, Tim, Patricia, Zara, Andrea, Aimee, not so scary Courtney and Christian.

So first stop in Peru was to be Arequipa and not a bad stop at that! After an introduction to 2nd class (crap) bus services and a 3 hour wait stranded in the middle of the night on a godforsaken end of the earth type road, with the local women praying that bandits weren´t going to turn up and rob, strangle and eat us (I kid you not......well maybe not the eating bit) we eventually arrived in Arequipa at 4 in the morning and then had to find somewhere to stay......but as luck would have it our taxi driver took us around to his mate´s house and woke him and his family up in order to make up our room bless their little cotton socks.

A couple of hours later (or at least it seemed that way) time to get up and explore our surroundings. The city itself is very quaint with the usual churches and museums and is also the place most people come to to arrange trips and hikes to the Canyon del Colca or as us gringos refer to it - the Colca Canyon, one of the deepest in the world (more so than the Grand Canyon) and famed for the regular morning appearance of the Andean Condor.

We opted for a 2 day 1 night trip to take in the local surrounding villages, markets, stunning scenery on the way through and of course the condors as well as the by now common llamas, picunas and alpacas (all handy for making a woolly jumper out of and eating!). The landscape on the way varies wildly from day 1 to day 2, day 1 is barren scrub and rolling mountains with views of the Volcano Misti and stops at various miradors (lookouts to you and me) on the way through until you descend from the dizzy height of around 5000m to the village of Chivay at 3633m. It is here the terraces the Inca´s are famous for begin to be seen with the river snaking through the valleys thousands of metres below -beautiful.

Chivay itself is a small andean town which (you´ll love this) has an Irish pub! My god - what is this world coming to? I managed to avoid the temptation and after taking a shower by candlelight (yep the power cut out) we all headed out to dinner and to watch some traditional Peruvian folk dancing. Have to say the candlelight gave it that little bit of extra atmostphere and the dancing, if somewhat unusual was entertaining, particularly the one where the bloke goes round trying to hit the woman with what looks like a big sausage (control those minds people.....) but basically is a cyclindrical shaped bag filled with sand - and bloody hurts when it gets you as I was to find out some weeks later! So off to bed with folk music ringing in my ears - a 5.00 start the next morning ensured an enforced early night.

Next morning a quick breakfast and then back to the bus in order to make it to the Canyon del Colca and La Cruz del Condor, the highpoint of the trip and a wonderful reminder of the beauty of nature and all that entails. A mere 2 hours from Chivay will bring you to the mirador where around 8.30 in the morning the condors rise on the warm thermal airs and circle a mere 5 or 10m above you - a completely mesmerising sight it has to be said. I was lucky enough to be sat on a rock about 10m away from where a condor landed and preened himself, basically showed off for those watching - he spread his wings, plucked a few feathers, then turned around did the same, closed his wings and sat there staring at us with his beady little eyes. He must have been there a good 10 minutes (and 100 photos later) which was perfect - don´t think I´ll ever get to see anything like that up close again (unless I take up twitching that is). As I mentioned before the Canyon is one of the deepest in the world and is formed by an enormous fault between the Coropuna (6425m) and Ampato (6325m) volcanoes. In fact on the way there you´ll see signs warning of seismic activity - very encouraging........especially when you can look over the edge of the road you´re driving on and look down several thousand feet knowing a slight miscalculation could perhaps end up being a serious one!

So that was the Canyon and the Condors - a complete bargain at $18 including accommodation. Highly recommended!

Back to Arequipa - one of the most beautiful cities in Peru. What else there is to do? As mentioned before lots of churches and museums but are they worth investigating? Well in a word - yes. The Santa Catalina Convent is here and although a bit of a steep entry price at 30 soles, it is definitley worth exploring. It´s been in business as a cloister for just over 400 years before opening its doors nearly 40 years ago to the public. Inside it has been restored to almost perfection and with a maze like setup and named streets it is a minature city within a city. With colourful courtyards and flower covered patios it is an oasis of peace and tranquilty. There are still some nuns living here but as they live a cloistered life we don´t see them and they don´t see us. If you´re not sure what a cloister is basically when you enter as a nun that´s it - the only people you see are your fellow nuns, all transactions with the outside world are conducted via screens and rolling screens to allow the transfer of goods - you are even buried inside. So beware! Other holy things.....the cathedral is extremely ornate, the art galleries of the nearby San Franciso church are full of holy art and the locals themselves seem to strictly observe catholicism (more than me anyway....).

Museums - (although I didn´t go myself because the girl I´m about to describe was in the fridge at the time) the Museo Santuarios Andinos where you can see the famous "Juanita, La Niña de los Hielos", (the girl of/in the ice) a 550 year old Inca girl who was sacrificed in her childhood. Her body was found in 1995 by mountaineers in the ice on the summit of a nearby volcano and she has been preserved for all the world to see. Her discovery gave up a lot of information about the practices of the time, in particular of course that of human sacrifice.

Well - that was Arequipa, not a bad start to Peru! Next stop Cusco.

After leaving behind the thoroughly uninspiring Santiago time to spend some love and attention on the body by subjecting it to 40 degree heat on a beautiful sandy beach! Those of you who know me well know that would never happen.....the skin just can´t take it! So Iquique then......about 18 hours north of Santiago on the West Coast and famous for surfing - yippee, back to the Ocean - was having withdrawal from it so really good to be back in the water again.

The journey on the way up was pretty - on one side the coastline, on the other the edges of the Atacama desert so beautiful sunset and sunrise. Iquique itself is a nice enough town but with quite a lot of development going on, as appears to be the case in most of South America, but has plenty going for it too (mainly the beach).

I stayed in the usual HI hostel and its here that I met my travelling companions for the next couple of weeks - Claudia from Venezuela and Elena from Spain who both bizarrely enough had spent the last 4 years living in Dublin! Great girls who I had a great laugh with and shared murderous thoughts with towards the local canine population - how much noise do dogs need to make in the middle of the night eh????

Was also glad to note that I wasn´t the only one who was capable of being burnt alive by the sun....Claudia - the one with the dark Venezuelan skin got absolutely toasted - swollen legs, nausea, need for antibiotocs to bring the whole thing under control and take some of the pain away! I was amazed - as was she! Never happened before so she didn´t think it was possible! Anyway - the thing we all shared that week was a dire desperate need for the loo every hour or so if not more often.....very pleasant eh? Not quite the diet I was looking for! That put paid to doing anything too adventurous so had to lay back and take the time to recover - first time though so I couldn´t complain too much.

Apart from that I did get to go swim in the sea and get knocked over by huge waves (nearly losing the bikini in the process and giving the locals an eyeful after a particularly large wave sent me into a tumbling spin and rearranged the position of the aforementioned bikini!). The water temperature was pretty similar to home which was quite surprising but apparently that´s common on the coast of Chile - to get warmer water you need to go north to the beaches of Peru.

The other thing that you can do in Iquique is paragliding which the girls did but I didn´t due to restrictions on the old budget - still might get around to it before I leave the continent if I can find a better deal elsewhere.

On nightlife - well there is one particular area filled with nightclubs, bars, etc which to our credit we only visited once. Pretty good bar with live salsa and a singer all the way from Cuba - excellent. Our night out also coincided with the local football team who were celebrating winning their national football division so plenty to look at.....if you know what I mean (mullets once again in force). This town like everywhere else only comes alive after midnight and that includes the shops and stalls along the seafront - many many opportunities to spend your money on the way to or from the restaurants/bars. In the town centre usual things apply - dodgy shops and even dodgier toilets! Beware!

Oh one other thing of interest - an aussie soap ´star´ came into the hostel I was staying in looking for a bed......never thought I´d see that! For the Irish/Brits amongst you it was Leah´s brother from Home and Away - wierd eh?

Not much else to tell you here - next stop Arequipa in Peru.