Chapter 14: in which Bern and Jim eat a Guinea Pig and turn into Human Icicles at 5,000 metres

WARNING: This blog contains scenes of Guinea Pigs in mild peril. If you are of nervous disposition, or perhaps just eating your lunch, you may wish to avert your gaze from the photos at the bottom of this page...

Gruesome isn't it? I really didn’t expect it was going to look quite so horrific. I mean we’d decided we were going to try it - you know, “when in Peru” etc, but somehow when you see Baked Guinea Pig on the menu you imagine something that’s.... well I don’t know what precisely, but just not something that as you can plainly see bears more than a striking resemblance to an oversized, bald and slightly crispy rat. Which died having a fight.

Poor little fella. By the way the cute fluffy one in the picture before isn’t actually the one that ended up on the plate - even I’M not that insensitive - it was taken a few days before in another town. Although it probably did end up on someone else’s. For anyone interested though, this local delicacy tastes a bit like Peking Duck, just with more skin and fat. Once is enough for me I have to say...

Just a typical day out of three weeks travelling across Peru... I don’t think I’ve ever crammed in so much in such a short space of time. Peru is of course famous not only for the being the origin of Paddington Bear, but also the heart of the Incan Empire. Lima, where I wrote my last update, was made the seat of power by the invading Spaniards but for hundreds of years before, Cuzco was the Imperial Capital of the Incas; literally translated it means the Navel of the Earth as nearly two thirds of South America’s population was governed from here until the sixteenth century - quite a feat when you think about the scale of this continent and its difficult terrain.

In our travels we visited many ruined cities and citadels, the most famous of which is Machu Picchu, now considered one of the seven modern wonders of the world. What is simply astounding is the Incas’ masonry skill and expertise. Huge monolithic stone blocks interlock perfectly together like jigsaw pieces - stone was considered sacred by them so any religious building was built in this fashion without the use of grout or cement. They were also experts at earthquake-proofing their buildings, something the Spaniards tried to emulate years later without success: in areas where earthquakes are common the walls were built at an angle of 14 degrees from perpendicular and no higher than one floor. In areas less prone the angles were reduced and the floors increased to two or three storeys. There are several examples dotted around Cuzco where Spanish walls have collapsed leaving the original Inca foundations that are still in use today. (I should add as a footnote that although it sounds like I’m being harsh on the Spanish - I really don´t intend to, it’s just for once it’s rather pleasant to visit a country where the English aren’t considered the villains!)

I could fill pages with all the things we’ve done - sand boarding in the desert; taking a small “vomit-comet” plane to see the mysterious “Nazca Lines” (ancient markings of animals, birds and other geometric shapes etched into one of the driest deserts on the planet and only rediscovered accidentally from the air in 1927); seeing Condors swooping through Colca Canyon, the world’s deepest (twice the depth of the better-known Grand Canyon); staying with a local family and playing football at 4,000 metres (gasp!) on an island in Lake Titicaca, the world’s highest navigable lake. (Yes more injuries and Steptoe-faces!)

The most rewarding experience though was trekking in the Andes. Most people who come to Peru visit Machu Picchu and join a trek known as the Inca Trail which takes you straight to the ruins for sunrise. A friend of Bernard’s (thank you Philippa!) advised us that because it´s now become so busy with coach loads of people arriving every day, we’d get more out of a lesser-known trail called the Lares Trek which the Incas used more for commerce and trading.

Our first day was fairly tough. I remember getting into a plodding rhythm - left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot... at times although I was only moving at the pace of a heavily sedated donkey I could feel my heart rate pounding as if I’d just finished a 100-metre sprint. This was of course because of the altitude - I remember we´d found Bogota in Colombia, a challenge at 2,600m - by comparison our first night’s camp here was at 4,100m. By the time we got there though, it wasn’t the lack of oxygen that was the problem.

The outside temperature went down to -8 degrees shortly after sunset; despite the amazing array of food and drink laid on by our porters (popcorn, hot chocolate and all the coca leaves you could munch or make tea out of - they help combat altitude sickness, don´t worry Mum!) I just couldn’t keep warm. I couldn’t believe that an hour before I’d been walking along in a T-Shirt and now here I was in a tent wearing everything I’d got inside a sleeping bag with a thermal liner - and yet I was still rattling and shivering. At some point in the night I discovered the sleeping bag (which was hired) had a drawstring at the top that could be tightened - brilliant! I’d actually stand a chance of being found alive at sunrise. I pulled it so only one nostril was exposed to the icy air inside the tent. Unfortunately my rather overactive imagination got the better of me and I pictured being found asphyxiated in my sleep and so had to release the reigns a little. Somehow I eventually dozed off but I’ll never forget waking up the next morning to find frost actually inside the tent. Thankfully within minutes of the sun rising, the temperature slowly creeped back up. I remember standing on a rock in the camp with my arms outstretched like some cold-blooded reptile for maximum absorption of the sun´s warming rays.

The scenery on the second day was breathtaking as we crossed a pass that was just below 5,000m - but the most rewarding part of the trek was passing through the local communities and villages that were on the trail. Each time a group goes trekking, the guide takes everyone to a market beforehand to buy either fruit or bread - on this occasion it was the former - to hand out to the children on the way. So as we were walking towards a small farm or village we’d often see a small head pop up from behind a rock or bush and then moments later the landscape would become a flurry of scurrying children rushing up to greet us. I remember at one point having fallen a little behind the rest of the group, I came round a bend in the path to find a small boy of about three bawling his eyes out - he obviously thought he’d missed the bread run as he’d reached the path too late... a bun in each hand soon solved that problem!

All the people we met are descendants of the Incas and as a result most of them speak very little if any Spanish - the ancient imperial language Quechua is still the order of the day up here. If you think I’d embarrassed myself with my Spanish pronounciation you should have heard me here. I think I got Hello (“Allillanchu”) across ok but somehow when I said Goodbye (I’m not even going to attempt to write that, suffice to say it's got about 20 syllables) they just looked worried. I wondered whether from their point of view they were watching this strange red-haired chap saying something like "Gouuurwddbryeeeeee"...

On the last day we were treated to a gathering of children singing a local song - of course it was in Quechua so I have no idea what it was about, but naturally we gave a hearty clap at the end. Then it was our turn to sing and in hindsight our choice of Old MacDonald had a Farm was perhaps a little hasty: they of course didn´t understand a word of the ensuing cacaphony and to make matters worse we´d all agreed on the first verse being about pigs. When we all started grunting and snorting I´m sad to say the little children just looked embarrassed, possibly even a little sorry for us...

So here I am now in La Paz, Bolivia. Tomorrow we´re off to do some Bolivian "Road of Death" bike ride, a winding treacherous mountain road which has sheer 300m drops off the side. Apparently about 4 bikers a year misjudge the odd turn and drop to the bottom of the valley a la Wile-E-Coyote...

And on that bombshell I´d better finish up now so I can get this all up on tinternet... see you next month!

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