Peru

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Getting to Peru was an easy bus ride from Copacabana to the opposite side of Lago Titicaca. With reports from other travelers heading south that Puno, Peru's largest settlement on Titicaca was a very drab and dingy place we arrived with the feeling that we were in another country! To start there was tarmac on the road, internet that didn't take eight minutes to load google and restaurants where you could actually see the paintwork! The hard and rewarding work of Bolivia seemed to be over - or would it be...

Puno was a great base to explore Peru's portion of Lago Titicaca. We ventured out to the islands known as Uros, a network of man-made floating islands made from reeds. Its indigenous inhabitants decided to create the islands and move off the mainland to escape and seek safety from the war-hungry Incas. Hence they have resided here for hundreds of years. OK, nowadays the islands are a bit on the touristic side, but they are still a fascinating place to visit. The vistas of the networks of the still traditionally made islands is fantastic, all set in the grandeur of Titcaca's setting. Our trip included a visit to two of the islands, meeting the islanders themselves and getting an insight into their still mainly traditional way of life. It is even possible to stay on an island for a night or two! Giving ourselves a self-imposed time budget for Peru (an attempt to claw back some of the extra time taken in Bolivia), we unfortunately had to decline the offer of staying on the island. Our trip to Uros finished with a trip to the 'restaurant' island (unfortunately southern Peru is all about tourists with sol signs on their foreheads). We shared a table with the Peruvian family on our boat trip and sipped cerveza as the sun started its colourful decent.

As the road to Cusco was blocked we modified our route and went to Arequipa instead. Our first Peruvian bus journey uncovered one of the countries dark secrets - don't believe how long the journey will take if asking the bus companies 'knowledgeable' staff. In fact a rule of thumb for the country is to add three to four hours to the journey! But then that is what South America is. Everything is in perfect operational order - but just be aware it may not happen in a 'normal' manner, nor will any of it make sense!

Arequipa is a beautiful colonial city, set under the gazing stare of several massive peaks, including the graceful Volcan Misti. After mostly meandering around the well-kept city, we visited Monasterio Santa Catalina, a still functioning convent. The nuns have a new quarter and practise well out of sight. But on a Thursday night they re-open the vast complex and allow visitors to wander around the 'mini ciudad' under candlelight. It was a particularly interesting visit especially under the subdued lighting. I also visited Museo Sanctury, which is dedicated to the Inca 'Ice Princess'. She was a mummy found at the top of Volcan Misti (6000m+). The Incas believed the mountains to be very spiritual, so much so that they would essentially 'breed and select' children of royal blood and prepare them as a gift to the gods. When the time was 'right' they would take a 'selected one' to the summit of what they believed to be the most scared places in their kingdom, sacrifice them and then leave them as a gift in the form of a mummy. Juanita was only 12-14 years old.

From Arequipa we also visited Colca Canyon. A canyon twice as deep as Grand Canyon, it is only 163m shallower than its sister, Cotahuasi Canyon (the world's deepest canyon). We explored the Colca Canyon's small towns and naturally stunning green canyon-ness. We left Arequipa on an overnight bus to Cusco, the former Inca capital and home to South America's most visited tourist attraction, Machu Micchu.

Cusco itself is very similar to Arequipa, a gorgeous colonial city - but it comes with a twist! As it was once the Inca kingdom's capital it is home to a number of ruins. When the Spaniards came they used most of the Inca buildings to build in their own style. But they left some buildings and, instead, built on top of them! Iglesia de Santo Domingo is a perfectly good example of this. Cusco unfortunately is crammed full of tourists, most of the older Northern American variety wielding more camera equipment than David Bailey and throwing around more dollars than Mickey Mouse could shake a leg at. The result for the rest of us is sky-high prices and substandard comments! Hence Cusco is a place to get in, do what you want to do and get out. Beyond the drove of tourists, mediocre overpriced museums and easy pickpocketing opportunities Cusco has, underneath it all, managed to retain its charm and character. A place that is easy to wander around and get lost without a care in the world, with stunning churches and nearby Inca ruins, Cusco was a treat to visit.

From Cusco we headed towards the attraction on everybody's South American list - the dazzling Machu Picchu. with careful planning we managed to visit Peru's cash cow for a measly sum compared with the masses. Taking colectivos to Pisac in the Sacred Valley, a very spiritual place which leads to Machu Picchu (in fact one of the founders of the Inca empire founded the location of Cusco based on 'spiritual' grounds), the city was also built in the shape of a puma, one of their sacred animals. We stopped and visited the first set of Inca ruins at Pisac, set into the valley hill slopes. After a bus and combi journey we arrived at Ollaytantambo, home to more impressive ruins and the end of the road! It quite literally is. From here there is no road to Machu Picchu, just rail track. Convenient? Well for Peru's pocket it is! For a measly $62 we managed to get return tickets to Aguas Calientes (the advertised Machu Picchu stop, it costs a further $7 in a bus for a 20-minute ride to get to the ruins, as a South American comparison you can travel for 10 hours in relative luxury for the same price). For direct train services from Cusco it can cost up to $500. Now for 4 hours at $62 I'm starting to think that UK rail travel isn't that bad...

Aguas Calientes is nestled in a valley just below Machu Picchu, an uninspiring place built purely to serve its master on the hilltop. So we aimed for an early start to attempt to beat the crowds present here and the day-trippers from Cusco. There must have been over 500 people at the bus stop at 05.30. With our plan already foiled, we got onto a bus relatively quickly and got to the site's entrance at around 06.20 (they are pretty organised). After entering and noticing the site administration were insisting that all US citizens pay to store their bags at the site entrance, we used the opportunity to rush over to the other end of the 'ciudad' to attempt to be two of the lucky few to get tickets to climb Huayna Picchu. The rush was worth it - we were allowed to climb to the top of Huayna Picchu on some pretty sketchy steps. All I can say is the Incas must have had small feet! The hour-long steep ascent was well worth it. From the small array of ruins on top of Huayna Picchu the view it gave of Machu Picchu demonstrated why it is what it is - a city built on top of a serene mountain in the middle of a cloud forest. It is from here that the magic and mystique of Machu Picchu takes hold. Built in the shape of a condor (another sacred animal for the Incas), the city was laid on a plateau surrounded by stunningly beautifully shaped mountains covered from tip to toe in forest with the now gentle flow of roaring rivers in the valleys underneath. For the Incas this was a secret place, a place that was to be of service only to royalty, a place that was to be the most scared and spiritual of all Inca creations and the location for which they searched for years to find. The day turned into a lucky one for us - as it was Sunday most of the tourists were at Pisac's Sunday market. For some reason it was also a quiet day for Machu Picchu; by the middle of the afternoon there were probably only around 30 tourists at the site, a far cry from the thousands of daily visitors Machu Picchu usually attracts. It allowed us to wander around the ciudad in peace and sit on the agricultural Inca terracing admiring Machu Picchu with a virtually unobstructed view. We had talked to other people who had trekked various overpriced Inca trails to Machu Picchu who had ultimately found an overcrowded anticlimax at the end of their trek, much preferring the shrines and ruins en route. But for today Machu Picchu's splendour and aura captured both of us. It's somewhere where the magic and energy of the ciudad's crumbling temples and observatories demonstrates why today this is still an important and sacred place for Inca descendents (whom I had met) - people who have retained the beliefs, ideals and way of life of their ancestors. After firstly thinking I should go to Machu Picchu just to see it, the site gave me a lot more - a trip highlight so far and one that will last to the end. I'm glad I didn't trek and thankful for a quiet day with good weather - probably couldn't have caught it any better.

Returning to Cusco we picked up our bags and headed to The Real McCoy, an establishment owned by a Norwich ex-pat. After tales of said relegated team and The Unthank Kitchen we overindulged with Peru's closest answer to an English breakfast and satisfactory apple crumble! Another overnight bus journey was on the agenda from Cusco's 3000m to Peru's coast and Nazca. With the town itself holding no interest, we headed straight to the airport and boarded a light aircraft destined for the fascinating Nazca Lines. The lines are shrouded in mystery with nobody having any answers for their existence. So what are they? Basically the Nazca civilisation drew lines on the desert floor, creating massive images of mainly animals and other strange beings. These lines are only properly visible from the air so for 40 minutes the 6-seater banked hard to give us a clear view of the 12 drawings etched into the ground below. With nothing else to keep us in Nazca, we cruised up the Panamerican Highway to Ica, followed by a short taxi ride to Huacachina, a small oasis town surrounded by giant sand dunes.

Huacachina is a poky little town surrounding a lagoon, nothing much happens here other than the 200 or so locals providing accommodation and mental sand-buggy/sandboarding trips. One afternoon we boarded a 6-person dune buggy and spent the next few hours yelling for all we were worth as the buggy charged around colossal sand dunes, driving up to the peaks and just about getting airborne on the way back down! In between roller coaster rides we had a go at sandboarding, another good experience. The boarding ended with laying head-first and flat on the board and lunging down a near-vertical 100m drop off the side of one of the dunes - safety, typically for South America, was at the top of the list...

With nothing else to keep us in Huacachina we caught the next bus from Ica to Lima. Travelling with Peru Bus isn't a good idea, as Cecilia found out. With her bag under her seat and nestled between her legs the person in the seat behind dragged it back, undid the zips and relieved her of her £200 camera and placed the bag back between her feet before leaving the bus at the next random stop. Upon arrival in Lima (big city with population of 8million), we spent the early hours of the morning getting sent to two different police stations, ending up with us getting told to go to another police station in the afternoon. Unfortunately the 'third' police station wasn't any smoother and we spent most of the day messing around trying to get a police report. Then it was my turn - nothing stolen thankfully but I somehow got an infection in my finger and ended up in hospital getting a blister popped. In the end we spent three days in Lima going to three different police stations and two different hospitals (incidentally, I'm now registered with four different health authorities worldwide!) having blisters popped, skin removed and fingers redressed. We stayed an extra day, had a night out and finally made it to the historic centre. We left one of South America's notorious crime capitals (load of rubbish) and travelled to Huaraz, a mountain town sandwiched between the Cordillera Blanca and Cordillera Negra.

With only three days planned here, I was left a little short but then that's been the story so far - just not enough time. I spent a day hurling downhill on a mountain bike, taking in steep trails and cross-country single tracks starting from 4000m. It was a hard and tricky day but the view of the cordilleras was magnificent. In a trekking town you would have thought it would be easy to find people to trek with but I couldn't find anyone to even go on a day trek (transport for one is unbelievably expensive). Rock-climbing was also off the menu (great place to try) due to the gammy finger, so I had to resort to horse-riding as a way of getting closer to the magnificent mountain ranges - worth it for the vistas but zero on the adventure scale. Huaraz left me itching to get back into the mountains but with no time left we headed back to Peru's coastline to the small and charming fishing village of Huanchaco. Good surf, seafood and extremely interesting traditional fishing canoes made of reeds that are still used today. With surfing now also off the menu (oh, the finger!), Huanchaco was an excellent opportunity to relax, chill out and check out the pre-Inca ruins around Trujillo. We visited a mud city of the Chan Chan dynasty (still standing - well sort of), the extremely impressive Huaca del Sol and Huaca de la Luna which contained excavated temples still complete with their original colouring (superb!) and a sizeable mud pyramid giving in to the elements.

With time whittling away on our three-week timescale we decided to squeeze in two more places before crossing into Ecuador. The first stop was a morning bus to Chiclayo and a visit to Peru's best museum - Senor de Sipan. The Sipan dynasty was small and mainly located towards the foothills of the Andes. Excavations in this area uncovered tombs full of treasure, mystique and clues on the ways of life of the Sipan. The artefacts on display made me think this is how I imagined pre-Colombian South America to be!

After Chiclayo we caught a night bus up into the northern highlands and the unlikely capital of Peru's slice of the Amazon Basin - Chachapoyas. Hopes of an early arrival were dashed by an overnight police blockade. Fortunately arriving 6 hours late didn't hinder our chances of hiring a taxi, a guide and visiting the fortress of Kuelap, perched high up on a hilltop. The ruins are hardly visited and gave us a great opportunity to see a site bigger than Machu Picchu and still mainly consumed by the forest (and ongoing excavation site and how Machu Picchu would have been found). The site is similar in appearance to Machu Picchu but was actually a city in itself with the fortress protecting its inhabitants. After enjoying the empty remote site and a lunch of cow's heart, we lodged in Chachapoyas for the night. The next day we would travel to Ecuador on a would-be difficult and very remote route. Whilst route-planning we also found out that the blockades were to stop the indigenous people rioting with the police. Where would our route take us? Straight through the middle of the towns engulfed in the conflict. Finding out more information, it seemed the government had released Amazonian land to be excavated for oil, something the local residents aren't too happy about - and quite rightly so. Locals also told us about the propaganda from the government and that the true death count of the local indigenous population is horrifically higher than some would allow the rest to believe. As things had calmed down we armed ourselves with a sense of adventure and headed off on a day of no less than four connections (which would only get us to the border) and bang into the thick of it. Thankfully the only thing we saw was the char-grilled aftermath of a government succeeding in 'looking after' their population.........oh yeah, and the odd spear.
Full Puno & Uros Photos on Flickr
Full Arequepa Photos on Flickr
Full Coca Canyon Photos on Flickr
Full Cusco Photos on Flickr
Full Sacred Valley Photos on Flickr
Nazca Lines Photos on Flickr
Full Huacachina Photos on Flickr
Full Lima Photos on Flickr
Full Huaraz Photos on Flickr
Full Huanchaco Photos on Flickr
Full Trujillo Photos on Flickr
Full Chachapoyas Photos on Flickr
Full Kuelap Photos on Flickr

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