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Published: October 15th 2006
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Hello there,
We are now in Buenos Aires, Argentina, but this instalment of the blog is all about our 3 magnificent weeks in Peru! There is so much tell ... where to begin?
We´re going to start with the highlight of our trip so far .. The Inca Trail to the Lost City of the Inca's, Machu Picchu !! The trek took 4 days, with 3 nights of camping on route, and was about 26 miles in distance. It involved hiking up, over, and back down, 3 extremely high passes, the most gruelling of which (with a summit of 4,200 metres) was "Dead Woman´s Pass". The views from the top of the pass were absolutely breathtaking, in more ways than one!
Our group was made up of 14 other travellers, from the US, Australia and the UK. We all got on really well, and had lots of laughs along the way, which helped us to forget our aching muscles at the end of each day! We also had 25 porters, who carried all of our bags, tents, cooking equipment, food and drink, and everything else we needed, along the entire trek. These guys are unbelievable - they practically
Dead Woman´s Pass
We felt on top of the world at 4200m! run the Inca Trail with about 25 kilograms of kit on their backs! And they are always there to greet you with beaming smiles as you reach camp for the night, clapping you across the line, and then preparing you a slap-up meal for the night!
The big questions, of course, are (1) was the trek worth it and (2) did Sue´s leg hold out?? The answer to the first is a resounding, YES, and the answer to the second is, just about!
Machu Picchu was everything we had hoped it would be - amazingly preserved ruins set in absolutely stunning mountain scenery. It is the one Inca city that the Spanish conquistadors never discovered, which means it was never looted or destroyed and was not "re-discovered" until 1911. It is admittedly a bit on the touristy side these days, but nevertheless an amazing place to visit.
Other highlights from our time in Peru, starting in the north where we crossed over the border from Ecuador, would be the pre-Inca ruins of the Temple of the Moon, in Trujillo, and the 28 pyramids in Tucume. The Temple of the Moon was particularly awe-inspiring, because it is still
Nazca Lines
The Astronaut - not sure what a man with a goldfish bowl on his head was called in 900 BC! in the process of being excavated, which means that you can see the archaeologists at work, peeling back the layers to reveal yet more and more intricate and beautiful mosaics, paintings and friezes (sculptures in the walls).
Further south, we took a scenic flight over the Nazca Lines - 1000s of lines and drawings in the desert, spread across 500 square kilometres, including elaborate designs such as the monkey, the condor, the spider, the hummingbird and a figure known now as the astronaut due to the goldfish bowl head! Nobody knows why they are there or who exactly did them (aliens are of course one theory!), but some of them are estimated to date back to 900 BC!! The flight was a bit like a fair ground ride so, as you can imagine, Mark was trying desperately not to utilise the inflight paper bag - the photo is courtesy of Sue!
Our base for the Nazca Lines trip was the beautiful oasis town of Huacachina. A true oasis, in the middle of the desert, Huacachina is surrounded by miles of rolling sand dunes. The temperature during the day was a cool 30 degrees in the shade, with not
Huacachina
Our oasis in the desert a single cloud in the sky. And with all that sand around, boarding, sledging and buggy rides were a must!
On the Bolivian border, is the stunning Lake Titicaca. At an altitude of 3,800 meters, Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world. It covers over 9000 square kilometres and to be honest looks more like an ocean than a lake. Here, we spent a night on one of the real islands, Amantani, with a local family in their little home, which was a wonderful experience - again, our dodgy Spanish was tested to the full! We say real island, because the lake also houses the floating islands of the Uros people. These people moved on to the lake centuries ago to escape the expanding Inca Empire, and have remained in order to avoid paying the taxes due on houses built on the mainland. The islands are made of totora reed and literally float on top of the lake; the Uros also make their houses and boats from the stuff. Each island lasts about 20 years (although a new layer of fresh reed has to be laid about every 3 weeks or so), and about 4-5 families
Floating islands of the Uros
A bit wet round the edges, but it´s amazing what you can make from reed these days! live on each one - they have to be seen to be believed!
And finally, we need to mention the condors of the Canon de Colca, in the mountains near Arequipa. We never really thought of ourselves as bird watchers before this trip, but in our last two days in Peru we found ourselves on an overnight tour to see a family of condors nesting high in the Colca canyon. The condor is the second biggest bird in the world, and a quite spectacular sight, especially when it flies about 10 metres over your head!
A large amount of the credit for this blog instalment has to go to Mr James Gilmore and Mr Simon Cooper. Because without them, we would not have any photos of our past 5 weeks! In a horrible technical howler, on a day immediately dubbed as "Black Wednesday", we managed to delete all of our memory card in one nightmarish foul swoop! Amid the tears, Sue thought to email James, and we are very pleased to say that he came to our rescue with a software retrieval package. It was then down to Simon, and his fancy computer set-up in Buenos Aires, to
execute the cunning plan, which after a couple of false starts worked perfectly. Phew, our prayers had been answered! So our very, very special thanks go to both James and Simon.
So that's all for now folks. We have now been in Argentina for almost a week, but more about that next time ....
All the best,
Sue and Mark xx
P.S. Please keep all of your comments and messages coming, as we love to receive them.
P.P.S. If you are wondering why your comments do not immediately appear on the blog site, it is because we have to read and vet them first!
P.P.P.S. For our latest technical trick, please see the attached video clips of us having fun in Huacachina!
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great pics!
Good job you didn't loose that one of the Lake by twilight, it's amazing. Didn't you get one of the flight of the condor? And I have to say Mark that up in those mountains you hair has a definite 'ginger' tint - must be the thin air!