Welcome to Peru and a 67km Trek!

Hola Amigos and Amigas,

So we had just been fleeced by the Bolivian immigration office, albeit only about $2 each when our bus pulls into the main bus terminal at Puno, Peru for a change over en route to Cusco. We had only been travelling for a short time, maybe 2 hours or so and it seemed a good opportunity to relieve ourselves. As always in South American you just never know how many times a “wee” stop might occur so you must jump at the chance.

Into the terminal we go locate the SSHH or WC or Bano or whatever and pay the obligatory S/.0.50 each ($0.20) for the pleasure of relieving ourselves. Afterwards, we turn back towards the gate and go to walk out when we are told we must pay “the exit tax”. For what? We are in Peru, going to Peru and anyway we only “entered” to take a damn p*ss because we didn’t know if the bus would stop anytime in the next 7 damn hours of our journey! Back we go, not happy (again) and head to the tax counter to pay...wait for it...S/.1.00....yep just $0.40! What a joke! To top it all off we only had S/.50 and S/.100 notes and the women wouldn’t accept our fifty!

It’s about now that I tell you that getting change in South America is a continuous challenge. Automatic cash machines continuously spit out large denominations and shop owners constantly growl at you when you want to pay with them. Sometimes they look at you like you have just slept with their daughter or bashed up their son! All we want to do is pay! Luckily for us a woman nearby could change our fifty and were allowed to exit Puno Peru to go to Cusco Peru. It wasn’t the start to Peru we were looking for after our finish to Bolivia. Nonetheless we pushed on to Cusco in our uncomfortable bus.

Cusco is nestled in between mountains at 3,400m above sea level. The altitude can get to you but we had spent many weeks now up high and we were prepared. It is most certainly breath taking though. The views of the surrounding mountains from most anywhere in Cusco are amazing. They are not pretty snow capped types that you might imagine, rather rocky dirt ones but the setting is just something special. This is especially so when you couple them with the old terracotta roof tops on white rendered walls that crawl endlessly from the central point of the Plaza de Armes up the mountain sides. Individually the buildings are quite grotesque, unappealing but in unison are somewhat beautiful and hold great character.

Settling into our hostel we bumped into a German guy (who wants to move to Australia and who believe it or not, reigns from a small town only 5 minutes from where Chris’ sister lives near Frankfurt) that we had met in Rurrenabaque, Bolivia. Together with two other travellers we shared a taxi to nearby Pisaq ($2 each) some 45 mins outside of Cusco. On our way the cabbie (Fidel was his name, ha!) asked if we would also like to visit the Inca ruins of Pisaq. We had planned a day in the famed Sunday markets but a touch of history seemed fair. So he ups his quote and we head to the site. I visited the Pisaq markets but not the Inca site during my last visit to Peru and I have absolutely no idea as to why not...it is amazing. It doesn't have the "wow" factor that Machu Picchu has but it is certainly a very special attraction.

Our taxi driver ended up waiting for us whilst we toured the site for about 1.5hrs and he again waited for us whilst we crawled through the markets for another 1.5hrs. He was our own private chauffeur and the cost was ridiculously low. You see in Peru, you can get a cab to anywhere, I can guarantee they'll take you ...just make sure you get a quote first - there is no such thing as a meter.

There are plenty of other worthwhile ruins sites around Cusco so our new tour group decided to employ Fidel for another day - this time at a cost of only S/.45 each ($17.50) - for 8 hours of driving! Loco loco! We visited Inca sites at Ollantaytambo, Moray and Chinchero. Moray was a site I had not visited...and again why not? This is a must see site for anyone travelling to Cusco. It is just so different - see photo - my description would simply not do it justice (neither does the photo, but hey...).

You may recall Noel (Nooooel) was an Aussie (Tasmanian) character we had met on our earlier travels in Bolivia. Well we managed to bump into to Nooooel again in Cusco. He had just finished a 7 day trek to Machu Picchu which is pretty crazy and he was celebrating in fine style in a hostel bar. In true Nooooel fashion, he had donated his Wests Tigers jersey to the bar - complete with his signature and random comments from several other travellers. I managed to get a comment about Souths on the jersey along with my signature. Funny.

With me having conquered the Inca Trail in 2006 (and given we didn't have the trek booked 6 months in advance - can you believe that's how early you have to book?) we decided to tackle an alternative trek to Machu Picchu. The Salkantray trek is probably the most popular of all "other" treks that take the tourist to MP. Given it's gruelling path I'm somewhat surprised - this one is only for the fit! Check out these stats:

 •  Day 1: 19km (most uphill) from 3,600masl to 3,900masl - over night temps of around minus 10degs!
 •  Day 2: 21km (at least half uphill) from 3,900masl to 4,650masl and then down again
 •  Day 3: 14km - pretty easy day actually
 •  Day 4: see above but including a 13km walk along train tracks to Aguas Calientes (town near MP) was kind of cool
 •  Day 5: 50 minute stair climb at 4:30am to get to gates of MP

The scenery, especially on days 1 & 2 were out of this world. Snow capped mountains surrounded us and views over the Peruvian landscape could be seen as far as the eyes would allow. We were blessed with 5 days of nothing but sun, sun and more sun. It was just great if not tiring!

The trek included mules to carry our gear, a cook, a night at some very fancy hot springs, transport for the entire tour group in the back of a truck, a serious bush fire not so far from us on night 3 and a clash between 3 Belgian girls on our tour and the tour guides which ended up in tears at the police station.

So we arrived at Machu Picchu bright and early at 5am to queue for limited (400) tickets to climb Huanya Picchu (small mountain in the background of all MP shots). Gates opened at 6am and we had secured our tickets. Now, I visited MP in 2006 but even with knowing what to expect, I was still blown away. The place is just something else. You are forever wondering how in the world they built it...the location, the granduer, the exquist craftsmanship...how? It is no wonder it has recently been voted as one of the new 7 wonders of the world! You can stand in awe for many hours...and that's pretty much what we did along with reeling off 100's of photographs. Chris was in her element.

Our climb to the top of Huayna Picchu wasn't as hard as I recall from 2006 but it is still a crazy, crazy thing to do. The steps in some places are treacherously steep, narrow and very uneven. Some paths have nothing to one side but several hundred metre drops to the river below. Slow and steady wins the race and the race is your chance to view MP from above. With over 4,000 people visiting MP every day, that leaves only 10% or fewer tourists that actually get to see the great wonder from such a special viewpoint. The 3:30am start was now well worthwhile. They say the shape of MP resembles a flying condor, I think it looks more like a puppy dog. The dramatic tales of yesteryear wouldn't quite be the same if a tribal elder passed on such soft information to the youngsters...nevertheless a puppy it is to me!

It was a great trek and we had a wonderful group of people with us for all around the world. Unfortunately our tour guide was pretty much useless - the group pulled through though and everyone had a memorable time.

Back in Cusco we opted to entertain one of the many massage sprukers that pestered us whilst pounding the cobble stones of Cusco. We were weary so why not? Why not too when we were quoted S/.20 ($7.00) for a full body, hour long rub down! BOOM!! We had hit pay dirt. The hour was just what we needed. As an aside, the masseuse at one stage was straddling me on the massage table during the hour.... they are not tall people the Peruvians. I was wondering if the hour might end differently to what I was expecting.

Including the trek, we ended up spending 10 days in Cusco. Again the town was awesome, it has so much character coupled with a touch of home ...I just love the place. I'm not sure if I will ever go back, but hey that's what I said last time.

Our departure from Cusco for Arequipa was a late one. 9pm. A 9 hour trip laid ahead so we booked ourselves onto a Cruz del Sur luxury bus for the journey. Food, movies, safety instructions, blanket, pillow even bingo all for just $37.50 each. It makes travelling easy - I actually slept for 6 or so hours which is unheard of!

Arequipa greeted us with our first really unsavoury incident on our travels thus far. But that's a whooooole 'nother story my friends.

I'll leave you now with a new segment I've named "You know you're in Peru when...."

 •  Toilets are rarely made of white porcelain. Blue (many shades), pink, purple and even black are all common colours of the throne over here and what thrones they are...the actual bowl part is twice the size of those back home!

 •  Taxi drivers "personalise" their cabs. Their name is usually stickered across the top of the windscreen and sometimes the driver's wife's name (or maybe girlfriend's) gets a run too. Nike "swoosh" stickers get a good go as do lightning bolts. Crazy stuff.

 •  The taxis are so small you can't fit 4 people in (even if you try!)

 •  Buses show seriously violent movies or movies with topless girls - even with youngsters on board!

 •  A bus is full but they still stop to let more peple on ...and on they get ...and on they get ...and on they get! 25 people in a Toyota Hiace van is our record so far.

 •  An ATM won't let you withdraw more than S/.400 ($150) because you are "exceeding your daily limit". What the...?

 •  You see farmers carrying Sony transitor radios the size of a box of tissues

 •  All men only wear soccer shirts


Adios

Ryan


P.S. Here’s some vital ongoing travel statistics to enlighten you further:

• No. of countries visited since leaving Aus: 7

• Cheapest beer to date (calculated on 100mL conversion): $1.30

• No. of hours spent on public transport (inc. taxis) in SA: 44.5

• Cheapest room (double room shared bathroom, breakfast included): $8.33 each per night

• Cheapest dinner meal: $3.00 (meat, salad, fresh OJ, bottle water, coconut and toffy coated strawberries on a stick)

• Cheapest meal: $1.00 - 2 saltenas (pastry thing with meat in it - similar to a pie)

• Highest altitude reached: 5,000m

• Distance travelled in SA: 3,445kms

• No. modes on transport used: 15 (foot, plane, bicycle, boat, motorcycle taxi, taxi, taxi-bus, coach, ute back, car, 4wd, mini-bus, crawling, ferry, truck)

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