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Published: October 18th 2006
I believe I can fly
I believe I can touch the skyWell, we have finally completed the journey from Quito to Lima. What would have been a 2 hour flight has only taken us about 10 days on the bus, but it has been a great journey and I have become a champion bus bingo player.
The buses in Peru are soooo good compared to Ecudor (and the UK for that matter). They have beds, semi beds, air conditioning, leave on time, have films that you can both see and hear and have entertainment such as bus bingo. I am a convert although this is South American bingo so is a bit more raucous than back at home with bonus numbers for getting questions right. I have even won a game although I didn't want to shout bingo as I still get confused between the words for 60 and 70 and was very unsure about my card. Unfortunately Nos shouted bingo on my behalf and I had a painful 5 minutes waiting to be shamed in front of the whole bus for getting my numbers wrong. To my and the bus hostess´ amazement I did actually have it correct although it took a while for my red face and hot sweat
to dissipate.
Leaving Mancora we got the bus down to Trujillo which is like an oasis city in the middle of the desert. Nos was complaining about the termites in the room at Mancora and was particularly dismayed to find her knickers full of the buggers when we arrived. The town itself seemed a bit ramshackle and we visited about 6 hostels before finally finding one we liked. We visited a site called Chan Chan which is a huge archeological site of a sprawling town that existed before the Incas. The guide book said the restoration relied more on enthusiasm than historical accurancy and that kinda summed the place up. It wasn't helped by the guides English (and given the state of my Spanish I shouldn't mock) who constantly confused the word 'offering' with 'orphan' which led to either very generous or brutal society depending on which word he was using.
The next day we visited the Temple of the Moon which is much less advertised but which is amazing. The temple was bullt in pre Inca times and were made from bricks made of mud. Every 100 years the temple was filled completely with these bricks and
Temple of the moon
the 4th temple ruins above the ruins of the 3rd temple a larger replica was built around it. When it was finally abandoned the desert swept a layer of sand over it. This has meant that the site has been really well preserved to the point that where they have excavated down into some of the older levels that had been filled with bricks, even the original painted decoration on the walls still exists. They said the restortion would take another 20-30 years but it is really good already and I would love to go back in 10 years to see how it has progressed.
Moving on again we went to the mountain city of Huaraz which sits in the Cordillera Blanca mountain range. The mountain range has loads of peaks above 5000 meters and although the winter season is meant to obscure the peaks we were really lucky as we had bright blue sky and amazing views the whole time we were there. We went mountain biking on our first day which was fab. We were taken up to 4000 meters and then took and off road track back down to the city.
Nos then decided that a four day trek over some mountain pass, known as the
Santa Cruz trek would be fun. Now, I know I hate camping, in fact I really hate camping, my pampered corpse can no longer stomache the discomfort. Despite knowing this I think I had forgotton the true pain of lying in a hard bumpy floor in a freezing sleeping bag staring at the roof of a tent for 10 hours waiting for morning. Thus, with only one night of being a miserable git about the whole thing I agreed to go. The 1st person we met from our group was an Isreali cunningly pretending to be English because the tour agent refused to deal with Isrealis. Luckily he didn't fit the general stereo type Isreali backpacker and was neither arrogant, argumentative nor aggressive but was a thoroughly nice bloke called Amit. Day one was great with a sunny sky and despite a hair raising bus journey up into the mountains to the starting point, the walk was easy and having donkeys to carry the heavy stuff made for a very pleasant trek.
That was until the camping....the site was spectacular surronded by massive, craggy, snow-capped peaks with a churning stream thundering past. Darkness fell at 7 when we crowded
At the bottom of the pass
Very relieved couple find that it's downhill all the way from here into the guides tent for our 'vegetarian' option dinner of boiled rice with a fried egg on top - mmmmmmm. 8.30 was time for bed which proved, as predicted, to involve 9 hours of freezing discomfort involving little to no sleep. In fact, to add to my woes, I also got a sore throat and my guts decided to let me down, causing a precarious, uncomfortable and frankly messy trip to the pitch black, stinking hole in the ground toilet. Needless to say, that come morning I had a face like a slapped arse and was all ready to turn back and call it a day. Only after being told that I could condense the last 2 days into 1, thus meaning only one more night of camping, plus Nosi's look of dissapointment persuaded me to carry on for a bit longer.
A grey bowl of Oliver Twistesque gruel for breakfast cheered me up not a jot and so we departed with my chin dragging along the floor a few feet behind me. The trek was spectacular though, slowly making our way up to the pass at 4800 meters which was at the glacier level of one of the
mountains. The view at the top was fantastic with snowy peaks in all directions surrounded by green meadows and turquoise pools below. (To be fair you get similar views if you go skiing in Europe but you are just 4000 meters lower - this seems to be important to climbing geeks). The weather was clear and hot and the descent down into the lush green valley was really beautiful. We walked for a long time with my mood steadily improving as the day progressed and I was postively bubbling with enthusiam by the time I reached the second campsite. Dinner was edible and I was soo tired that I slept the whole night with my guts redeeming themselves and making a full recovery.
The next days trek was thorugh a beautiful green valley still surrounded by massive mountains on all sides with huge emerald green lakes dotted around the place and the constant roar of the churning water making its way along the many streams. We left the rest of the group at the final campsite and made the , admittedly tough, last 3 hours back to the end of the trek. The trip back to Huaraz was notable
for 3 things - 13 people squeezing into an estate car taxi, an equally squashed mini bus ride and my longest conversation in Spanish to date, which I was very pleased about.
One thing which has been keeping me amused for days is Nosi´s attempts at getting hold of some new earplugs. Speaking our kind of pigeon spanish Nos walked into a very serious looking chemist shop and asked for ear tampons. I burst out laughing and the man in the shop looked at her funny and said no. As we walked out I could only imagine that the shopkeeper must have been wondering how a mad Welsh women with bleeding ears ever make it out of their country. Nos was eventually vindicated when she got hold of some ear plugs and proved that they are actually called ear tampons here but I won't let the reality ruin a funny image in my head.
We have now moved onto Lima which on first appearances looks like a big old dirty city so we think we will just stay here over night and then head off South first thing in the morning.
Adios for now
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Jonny L
non-member comment
happy birthday outers
like everybosy else outers, happy belated birthday. not got too much time to check your blog, its hard work at the coalface. if you think the boiled rice with fried egg is bad, cannot wait for you to enjoy the home cooking of the people who live on the islands on lake titicaca! kepp writing is certainly brightens up what is becoming dark, cold and wet days in caerdydd.