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A 5 hour flight gets you from South America´s lush green Atlantic coast across the Andes to it´s dry dessert-like Pacific one. I guess the Andes stop the clouds from coming over and sending all the water back into the Amazon, and leaving little for the sprawling, busy, dusty likes of Lima. Walking out of the airport we got an immediate sense that we were someplace very different than either of us had ever been . Getting ready to leave two weeks later I´d say that our initial sense was accurate, erring only in it´s underestimation of what we were about to experience.
Peru has been amazing, I think it´s safe to say it´s the highlight so far. And although it´s the country we´d probably least likely return to, it´s definitely the one to which we´re most glad to have been. I´ve always thought of history as a river, languishing slowly through time and place, carrying with it accumulated experience, guided by the net result of random events and coincidences, ultimately emptying into the ocean of what is. It´s source lies back in time beyond our recordings, but it´s branches have run everywhere, each with it´s own culture and tradition,
its own beliefs and philosophies, its own set of circumstances of how it got to be and justifications for what it is. To carry on with the analogy, not much longer I promise, we found in Peru a branch of that river, so long separated from ours and having run such a divergent course as to render it completely foreign. If you travel to experience new things, different cultures, to grasp new ideas and to witness societies with concepts and ideas different than your own, so you may have a truer idea of the world we share, then I´d say we´ve done royally!
Lima was good in that it was new to us. It´s big, dirty, loud and in some parts pretty dangerous from what we´ve heard. As in all cities it´s has it´s nice parts, mostly nestled up in neighborhoods along the Pacific. We stayed in Miraflores, a lovely little neighborhood, plenty safe and enough to do to keep you busy for a day or two. Lasting impressions would be the ceviche and the avocados, definitely the best we´ve ever had, and the hostel we stayed at where we met some great people. We´ll also remember Raul, who
Lima-Miraflores
The local Government building on the main square in Mirafloreswe happened to sit down next to at one of the local pubs. Before turning his life around, Raul had been deported from the U.S after having spent 10 years of hard time in San Quentin for selling drugs and doing what it took to survive (as he put it) in one of L.A´s more notorious neighborhoods. He gave us a good run down of where to go, and more importantly where not to go in Lima, and I´d
say we left him better for it. Good luck Raul.
After a few lazy days in Lima it was time to cross the Andes. As we keep hearing, "flashpackers fly, backpackers bus", a saying no doubt created not by the purist backpacker , but rather by the jealous backpacker running low on dough. We figured we´d give it a go for the experience and laughs five years from now. It actually wasn´t that bad. The seats reclined into a bed of sorts, we got two decent squares and Jurassic Park 3 in spanish, which is in fact whole lot better once you lose the dialogue. The other 17 hours were spent watching a virtual discovery channel out the window and
Lima-Miraflores
The Cathedral in Miraflores thankfully sleeping through the worst of the endless climbs, descents and sharp turns necessary to drive a bus across the Andes.
...and there we were, 20 hours and a little stiff later, in Cusco, the old Inca capital at 11, 000 ft in the mountains. What an awesome place! A city of about 300 000 people, many of whom still speak Quechua, the original language of the Incas. Its a place awash in color and history, llamas roam its narrow cobblestone streets, it´s inhabitants wear anything from traditional Inca to modern business suits. It has more Cathedrals than any other city built in the classic style of the Spanish Conquistadors interspersed with Ancient Inca ruins and Temples. The influx of tourism has brought with it good and plentiful lodging and some of the best food on the continent (they say). It is also home to Paddy O´ Flaherty´s, the highest Irish pub in the world, itself home to a Shepard's pie to die for and plenty of fellow travellers seeking some familiar food and a common language.
Before we ship out tomorrow we will have spent ten days here and in truth I think we will both be
LOKI - Lima
Hostel Lobby. Amazingly, even tourist from other countries know the JETS suck, someday im giving Mark his shirt back sorry to leave, its such a magnetic place. We have acclimated well to both the altitude and attitude and found it vibrant and energising. We´ve found our little lunch spot where we get a good 4 course meal for 7.50 soles (less than three bucks and includes fresh caught trout, more great avocado salads, and Lisa´s new favorite soup called criollia), met many cool people in the abundance of quaint little bars and taverns and ventured out from here to explore the Sacred Valley of the Incas and of course, the incomparable Machu Picchu. I don´t know if we´ll ever be back here, it´s a long way to come and there´s so much else to see in the world, but I´d guess I´ll think about this little town for many years to come.
...all this rambling and not even at the good stuff yet, probably just avoiding the frustration of not been able to remotely describe the indescribable or to begin to explain the inexplicable. If the historians and archaeologists haven't yet done it justice what hope could this hack have? Suffice to say that to begin to understand the magic of Machu Picchu is to stand there yourself
LOKI Lima
the rooftop hangout area at Loki. Great place to meet fellow travellers and swap info, stories and general B.S and bear witness to it with your own eyes and senses. No picture will ever do it justice, no article will ever convey its essence. It does not have a recorded ´´western´´ history as the conquistadors never found it and was only ´´discovered´¨ in 1911. What is known is that it was built in the 1400´s and was and still is a very important part of the Inca world.
It truly is awe inspiring. It is an example of stone masonry unsurpassed in history, no need for cement when you have 70 tons of stones chiseled and moved to millimetric perfection on top of a mountain with sheer cliffs on all sides...and they´ve been there for 600 years in a region familiar with earthquakes. And then, for good measure, they threw a couple of temples up in perfect alignment with the winter and summer solstice...and the surrounding mountains...and the milky way where their sacred constellations lie. I could never even get my wooden mail box square!
It was a long day. We had planned to get some good sleep before rising at 4am to do the hike up to Machu Picchu from the little town of Aguas Calientes
LOKI - Lima
Definitely one of the nicer hostels we´ve stayed in, the building was great and the personal could sort out all your needs. Lots of other travellers, met some really cool people. before sunrise. Aguas Calientes had different ideas. Apparently, in their effort to keep up with the rapidly expanding little town, someone decided that construction would continue until 3 am, so with two jackhammers doing the tango somewhere very near our heads, sleep was hard to come by. We dragged out of bed at 4.30am and headed out, armed with a flashlight and an unwavering sense that we´d bump into someone who knew the way. We got lucky, we found a group of fifteen or so of climbers and collectively found the trail, which was pretty well marked to be fair. 587 steep steps at altitude later, drenched in sweat, lungs on fire, legs like jelly we stumbled out onto Machu Picchu just as first light was beginning to show. Incredible! Standing, practically alone, above the clouds, looking down on the ruins amidst the light show that insued was breathtaking.
About an hour later everyone kind of stops and looks across the valley waiting for the actual sun to rise directly between the notched saddle of the two mountains. We missed the winter solstice by 5 days, but we were close enough to watch the sun´s first rays beam through
Lima - Miraflores
Some local Peruvian Flora the winter solstice window and align almost perfectly onto the Altar of the Sun Temple with everything else still in the darker light. Incredible!
Once the legs had settled down a bit, and nourished with a granola bar (you kind of feel compelled to do the hippie thing up there ) we decided to climb Wayna Pichu for the classic look down on the ruins and to check out the temple of the moon. Wow, what a climb! Not for the faint of heart or those afraid of heights. Straight up, narrow and even less air. 10 steps catch your breathe...10 steps catch your breathe...10 steps catch your breathe, CURSE! and so on, but man...what a view once you are up there!!!!!
Well, I guess you gather we enjoyed it. It is a special place, hard to pinpoint why, it just is. The locals believe it is a junction between mother earth and the heavens, the mystics and hippies which abound believe it´s some kind of spiritual thing, the shamans something else. I just believe it´s a remarkable, if not astounding, achievement by a people who had figured out the heavens and math and architecture enough to make
Lima Plaza de Armas
The central section of Lima or "the Plaza de Armas" is dominated by Fantastic Colonial Architecture, and a bunch of good museums. Go a few too many blocks from here in you´re in a dusty, dirty, poor place it possible. At the end of the day as we stood taking a final look, about to turn for home I glimpsed out of the corner of my eye a movement in the valley below. There rose two Andean Condors, very rare, riding the up swells in the valley. I pointed them out to a guide, judging by his reaction it doesn´t happen very often. We watched them rise from below us to above us and then, as if on cue,
they did a long slow circle of the Machu Picchu complex, itself shaped in the form of the sacred condor, before slowing floating down to specks in the adjoining valley, never having flapped their wings once. Maybe there is something special here!
Anyways folks, sorry about the diatribe and run on sentences. Thank you Peru! Bring on Central America.....
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kevin
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belize
how about some company in Belize...i promise i'll try the skype soon. glad you guys are having a great adventure...thx god for you beer is global.