Advertisement
I loved a monkey
Matt and his sweetheart - Neca I have to start this off with the unfortunate news that Katie and I are no longer a couple. I had to break it off as I was being dishonest, I had fallen in love with Neca, a 3 year old capuchin monkey. I had no choice really - Neca and I developed a special bond - she was an orphan and didn’t really know how to interact with other monkeys, let alone people, but she loved me, and what made it all the more difficult was that she hated Katie! Every time Katie came near, Neca’s eyebrows would raise, the teeth came out and she pounced at her, seriously! Obviously quite a good judge of character.
This occurred at the Inti Wara Yassi animal refuge in Villa Tunari, a refuge for orphaned, rescued and injured animals on the edge of the Amazon basin. The animals here include big cats - a jaguar, pumas and ocelots; snakes; a variety of small animals including tejons (raccoon type things) and these huge ferrets; a large variety of birds; and monkeys - spider, howler, night, squirrel and capuchin. We were lucky enough to spend our two weeks volunteering working with the capuchin monkeys,
of which there are about 450-500 allowed to roam freely in the park and the wider forested area. However, as they had been introduced to the area by the park over the years the available food had to be supplemented by us - so our jobs were basically to put out fruit and veg in various places and clean up a bit after they had eaten. There were also babies that had just been introduced, and others newly up from quarantine that we had to make sure were being accepted by the troupe, and that they were keeping well. During a 12 hour day this didn’t take up too many of the available hours, so the majority was spent getting to know (read ‘playing with’) the monkeys. This included much mutual grooming (including Matt’s beard and armpits), feeding (the monkeys loved sharing their food with you - all very sanitary I’m sure), and talking to them (we learnt fluent Monkey too). Suffice to say we are sorely missing each and every one of them now - and yes, I have taken Katie back now in place of dear Neca!
After the tearful goodbyes to our cute new friends it
Baby
Named so for obvious reasons! was time to move on and think about leaving Bolivia. After another few days in crazy La Paz we took another great bus journey (honestly I swear it is all just hype about how bad the buses are in Bolivia… this one even picked us up from the hostel!) to Copacabana on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca, the world’s highest navigable lake (apparently). Which is beautiful but flipping freezing at nearly 4000m! We could have been mistaken for thinking the endless lake was the sea, it was enormous and glittered under the constant clear blue sky. We took a short boat trip over to Isle del Sol which in true Bolivian style was a bit rickety with safety a bit of an after, well... non thought, for example: as we were the only ones downstairs when the driver realised he needed to do a small mechanical job on the second engine he beckoned Matt over to do the honours and drive the boat for half an hour... much to the horror of the 20 odd passengers sat up top! Not many people can say they drove a boat on Lake Titicaca, can they?
After a couple of days
in the very chilled out hippie town, we could no longer take the constant 'At the Copa, Copacabana...' running through our heads so decided it was time to move on. Time to leave Bolivia, which has been amazing us with its extreme scenery, helped the budget severely with its 33p three course lunches, annoyed us with the constant (seeming) rudeness of some people, and of course given us many monkey memories! It was time to see what Peru had to offer.
One of the slightly comforting things about entering Peru is the change in good luck charms for homes, buildings and businesses. China pigs have thankfully replaced the dried llama foetuses seen around in Bolivia!
Puno is the Peruvian equivalent of Copacabana on the shores of the lake, but is a world apart, with bustling streets and trici-taxis everywhere, we were suddenly thrown into a country that has definitely woken up to tourism. Making it hard to walk down the street without buying something or bartering for lunch or a free pisco sour. The boat trip on this side was very different, including statutory life jackets and a professional guide (who we couldn't get rid of!) Here we
visited the floating islands, Los Uros, which house a whole community whose life nearly entirely revolves around the reeds in the lake (and tourists of course). They make their floating islands, houses, boats, beds and even dinner from the stuff! Unfortunately they do have to rebuild everything after a while though as it gets wet and starts to sink!
After Puno we moved to Cusco and a trip to Machu Picchu. We decided not to hike the 4 or 5 day Inca Trail and took the train option - as we are obviously very unfit and plain lazy! The train took us through the beautiful Sacred Valley of the Incas after a series of very entertaining forward and backward zig-zags to get us up the hill and out of Cusco. Machu Picchu is the single most expensive thing we've seen or done on our travels so far, and the base town for the site - Aguas Calientes - is not dissimilar to a cross between Margate and Magaluf but without the beaches; however, the moment we saw the Incan city that was forgotten immediately. After the multitude of pictures we'd seen of the place throughout the whole of South
America we thought we would be slightly immune to its wonders, but the sheer height, size and almost immaculate preservation of the amazing site, not to mention the fiercely steep sides dropping straight down from the edge of the city, and the entire surroundings was nothing short of awe-inspiring. We couldn't help thinking how crazy the Incas must have been to be farming on the terraces so close to the sheer drops to the valley below! We spent two full days at the ruins with the first just spent wandering in every Incan nook and cranny with our mouths agape. The second day we took the first bus to the site at 5.20 a.m. in the hope of walking to the Sun Gate (which was now rumoured to be open again after a landslide) for first light. We were actually the first in the park and to see it in such an eerie, grey, empty half-light was beautiful, and actually quite humbling being the only ones looking on this marvel. We walked back along the Inca Trail for about 45 minutes only to find the Sun Gate still closed. However, we sat at another temple half way with a great
Los Uros
The floating islands of Lake Titicaca view over a still empty and dark Machu Picchu. The sun (or clouds!) did actually let us down though, so we weren't able to see the sun stream in across the site.
We also took a walk up to Waynapicchu, which is a smaller set of equally well preserved ruins perched at the very peak of the pointed hill in the background of all the Machu Picchu photos. An hour's very very steep climb up Incan steps clinging to the edge of this sheer hill not dissimilar to an 18 inch wide, near millennia old version of the La Paz to Coroico death road, but on very crooked steps! The climb included a few tunnels and finished with two slabs of rock sat above the highest parts of the ruins that gave simply the best views of Machu Picchu and the entire valley - the sun treated us here! We spent the rest of the day back in the main ruins, lying on the terraces, taking in the sun and watching the ruins. Our peace was only once disturbed when Matt was charged by a llama... I think he'd got bored of having his photo taken.
We are
now back in Cusco, a town full of Incan history itself and totally and utterly designed for tourists, but it still has its own charm. Next stop Lima and the north of Peru, and maybe even a quick trip into the jungle... we need our next animal fix!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.266s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 8; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0449s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb