Peru - Land of the Incas

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Spend a very hectic 3 weeks in Peru. Did so much, saw so many things..I was glad when it was over so I could relax and get back into a more even pace. But it was a great 3 weeks...fulls of contrasts both in peoples and environments...and those Inca ruins are spectacular...they sure knew what they were doing, those Incas.

Peruvian trip began in Lima...I also picked the weekend of the APEC summit to visit this city. On the down-side everything was closed in order to protect George Bush, Kevin07 and their various friends. On the upside I felt remarkably safe as I walked about the city as I have never seen so many police, military and US secret service guys in one place before. It became a game spotting all these guys especially the guys in the suits!

Got chatting to one of the police guys outside some hotel where the Sultain of Bruneii was staying. I was waiting to be picked up for a city tour at the time. Through his limited English and my limited Spanish, this policeman worked out that I was his age, unmarried and childless...so asked me to move to Lima to iron his shirts and cook his food...I politely refused with the universal shaking of the head. He didn´t look too disappointed.

Though some travellers detest Lima, I found it really nice. I was staying in a suburb on the coast and it was very like any coastal suburb in Sydney...even though I did get bitten by the worst bed bugs ever. The hostel refused they existed but then I found them one morning...but not until after 2 nights of being bitten to wells bits...my face and arms had reacted and inflamed so much to the bites I got asked by random strangers what was wrong with me...felt like the Elephant Man. So for that reason I was glad to leave Lima!

It was then onto sand-dune buggy riding and sand-boarding in Huachchina. These sand-dune buggy riders are mental. More than a few occasions my heart was in my throat....or whatever that saying is. Was slightly scared to do the sand-boarding here as they seemed very high and steep to me and I have had a bad fright when sandboarding on Fraser Island a few years ago...but I gave it a go and other than ending up with a mouthful and faceful of sand since I was braking too much, I did have a ball. It was also my forst time to see a real live oasis in the desert...like something out of a Lawrence of Arabia movie!

This experience was quickly followed by flying over the Nazca lines....this is one arid and desolate part of the world...in fact I was told somewhere that almost 20% of Peru is desert and I feel I have seen all of that 20%...I certainly didn´t expect sea, coast and surfing in Peru and I didn´t expect deserts...not sure what I expected...think I thought it would all be green like the Inca Trail. But back to the Nazca lines...I have always wanted to fly over the Nazca Lines and I am so happy I finally got to do it. For those of you who may not know, the Nazca lines are shapes or lines cut into the Nazca Plains and it is believed they were created almost 2000 years ago. It is amazing to think about how they were formed, who formed them and for what reasons...lots of theories abound but what I do know it that a very important legacy has been left to us. From the air, some of them are quite faint and sometimes you need a good bit of imagination to work them out. But yep, very happy and feel priviliged to have seen them.

Mummies...as in the dead sort are very popular in Peru. Saw lots near the Nazca Plains and saw a mummy of a young girl who was sacrificed during the Inca reign over 500 years ago. She is very well preserved and known as "Juanita" and kept in Arequipa. If you are ever there, well worth a visit.

Cuzco was one of my favourite towns/cities in South America. Fantastic Spanish Colonial architecture surrounded by the most amazing Inca Ruins. It was amazing to see walls from the Inca period still standing and being incorporated into the buildings of today. These people were very clever builders, arcitects, stoner cutters, etc. Despite many horrific earthquakes, their building and walls are still standing, some of them intact. In Cuzco´s main cathedral there is a painting of the Last Supper...but instead of fish being served they are eating a well roasted guinea-pig! Yep, took a while to get used to the fact that guinea-pig is eaten just as I eat steak or chicken and has been a delicacy and part of the heritage for many hundreds of years! But still when the person next to me was served up a roasted guinea-pig, looking like road-kill, with head, eyes and exposed teeth intact, I had to wonder!

From Cuzco, we struck out the Inca Trail. And I did it, I finally did it. It was a beautiful walk. To be honest I didn´t find it overly difficult. Of course there were some climbs that left you gasping especially the section from 3800m to 4200m known as Dead Woman´s pass but nothing that couldn´t be done. Going downhill was very slippery (rainy season) and the path is all original Inca stones so leading to a few falls and a cracked finger which still hurts....will get it seen to in Sydney, methinks! The third day was the longest but the prettiest scenary. The mountains on this trail are amazing. On the last day we started walking to the Sun Gate at 5.30am. Arrived at the Sun Gate an hour later but was pissing rain so saw nothing. Disappointing. But as we walked closer to Machu Picchu you could see the place. And it was amazing. It cleared up during the day and I just spent hours sitting and looking at it from one of the high spots. I really loved it. It was so peaceful. Can´t imagine how it was built. It is built so high up on a very steep mountain top and it is just clinging there perilously. Again I have to say, ingenious builders these Incas.

10 of us did the Inca trail and we have 15 porters! You should see these guys. They are so humble and treated us tourists like Gods. But they practically run the trail with at least 20kg on their back. They carry everything...tents, kitchen and cooking gear, chairs, tables, food, our duffle bags, etc. And they are always running to get ahead of us so that they have set up everything by the time we arrive at our next stop. Amazing people. We all bought them beer at the end and tipped them too. It is a hard way to earn a living but they are all good-humoured and apparently it is well paid in comparison to farming work which is what they would be doing anyways if they were not porters on the trail....so we've been told...or maybe we were told that to make us feel better in case we hadn´t tipped them enough!

Also visited the Jungle in Peru at Pueto Maldronado...this jungle trip was great...think I like these sort of trips where things are organised,ie meals provided with activities and learning thrown in. We didn´t get to see too many big mammels but lots of frogs, spiders (saw terantula), snakes, caimans, some fantastic birds,red-howler monkeys which have the most amazing call....sound like a gale force 10 wind howling through the jungle...never heard anything like that in my life....late night canoe trips down the amazon river or a tributary thereof! It was so hot and humid there.....humidity around 80% and temp around 35 degrees. Didn'tget bitten by any mossies...but did react badly to my malaria tablets a few days later so stopped taking them...no fever yet so I may be lucky...all this hype about malaria and I didn´t get bitten by one mosquito in the jungle but saw loads elsewhere...feel cheated!

Final stop in Peru was Lake Titicaca...the highest navigable lake in the world at 4200m. The way most people pronunce it...caca means sh*t in Spanish so obviously the locals don´t want us saying that so the proper way is to say caca is with a long a. The lake itself is so beautiful...very blue...azure I have been told! We visited the manmade reed islands that people still live on. Amazing stuff. They use the roots of the reeds which act as a cork and then cover that with 1m worth of reed. They need to replace reeds every 15 days. Everything is made of reed, houses, etc but modern life has encroached...some of the families now have solar panels so that they have electricity and do you know what is the first thing they use the electricity for..a TV!

After the reed islands we spent a night on a permanent island on the lake..it was a sort of homestay where we were farmed out to separate families. My family´s house was so basic. Outside loo, basic beds, etc. There is a food stuff here called quinoa...apparently you can buy it in Australia...its like a staple, like rice or pasta. Well it is meant to be very nutricious and it nice but it sometimes looks like fish eggs! On the island we all met up with our respective families for a fiesta in the evening. They dressed us up in traditional gear...I looked a state but it was fun. I wore 2 skirts and was so tightly bound in I couldn´t breath...but I was lucky...the tradition is for the women to wear 10 of these brightly coloured woollen skirts! Then we did traditional dancing which involved a lot of swinging around. I think the locals were trying to kill us foreigners...I was wrecked by the end of this fiesta...was like a ceili but even more energetic!

After Lake Titicaca (with long a) it was into Bolivia and that mad border crossing but more about that later!!

But after a hectic 3 weeks in Peru, I have left it with very good memories and hopefully a lot fitter after all that walking and dancing at high altitudes!!

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