Arequipa and Cusco

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Well its been a very busy and exhausting time since I last wrote about the trip so I´ll do my best to fill you in on what´s been happening.

We arrived in Arequipa on Saturday 17th, having travelled from Puerto Inca. Arequipa is a beautiful town built out of white volcanic rock (it is surrounded by at least three volcanoes) and considers itself to be very independent from Lima. The two principal highlights of Arequipa were Juanita, the Ice Princess (sounds vaguely like something channel five would show) and the Monasterio de Santa Catalina. Juanita was an Inca child (about 14) who was sacrificed on the summit of Ampato (6288m) 500 years ago and whose remains (including skin) and belongings were preserved in the snow. Its quite eery looking at her in the museum. The monestry is unique in South America as it is a city within a city where the rich local families would send their daughters to join the convent. However, each nun got her own private appartments with servants, ornate furniture and other belongings. Basically, it looked better than the hotel we were staying in. The whole complex is stunning as most of the buildings, gardens and the paintings have been preserved.

The day we arrived I suffered quite badly from altitude sickness. A number of people have asked how the altitude affects people and I´ll be honest about it - essentially you just end up going to the toilet every hour because you have either (a) drunk so much water (we´re advised to drink 3 litres a day) that you have to piss or (b) you´ve eaten too much food and the pressure on the bowels causes bouts of wind or diarrhoea. I´m not sure anyone on the trip has managed to avoid this problem. I´ve had to cut down to just three square meals a day.

Typically, as a group we tend to have a big night out on the first night out we get to a new place. In Arequipa we went to Zig Zags which is rated by our tour leader to be the best restaurant in South America. We all had the trilogy of Alpaca, Ostrich and steak. After that we moved on to a local cocktail bar where some people had the recommended Adios Mofo (or Motherf*@ker) which contained about five different spirits - safe to say we didn´t see much of them the next day. Sufficiently pissed, we moved onto karaoke, where even I had to sing a song. Well, I did what was obvious and chose a song that involved no singing just reading the words off the screen - I highly recommend National Express by the Divine Comedy if you should ever find yourself in a similar predicament. However, a number in our group sufficiently butchered their songs that within half an hour we were the only ones left in the bar. We finished off the evening in Forum Rock Cafe which was notable for its striking decor of bamboo huts and waterfalls (clearly the clubs back home are missing a trick or two).

The only other really notable event in Arequipa was perhaps the worst dining experience I´ve had in South America (which on the whole has been very good). On the second night a few us ate just of the main square (breaking the first rule of travel, never eat in the touristy places unless highly recommended) in a restaurant which had an outdoor area overlooking the square (which was very pleasant). Anyway, I ordered the guinea pig which came out flattened, covered in batter, with its head still on (it was possible to make out all the features) and served with crisps(?!). Anyway, it is the only meal I have ever had where I have burnt more calories trying to eat it than I have consumed. We also got ponchos to wear as it was cold outdoors and so I looked like Friar Tuck, which at least amused my dining companions. Arequipa was also where I tried Chica, the local corn beer which taste quite like a fruit beer and is ok, although it can be quite sour.

From Arequipa we travelled early (something like a 4.30 start which for a morning person like me isn´t too much trouble but for others it can leave them a little bit grumpy) to the Colca Canyon, which is the world´s second deepest canyon at 3191m, to watch the candors soaring on the early morning thermals. On our way to Colca we crossed over some very high Andean passes at 4500m plus, which gave us some spectacular views of glaciers, mountains, farming terraces and traditional lifestyles (farmers and herders). At Mirador de los Andes we saw thousands of rock piles which are a traditional offering by the local people to the Gods. They pile rocks on top of each other and make a wish, the taller they are the more chance they have of being fulfilled as they are closer to God.

The Colca Canyon is the best place in Peru to see Condors as the can pass within a few metres of you. Naturally, they didn´t show up for an hour or so and when they did I wasted the whole camera battery trying to capture a decent shot of them. Regardless, they were very impressive, as was the Canyon. After which we had our first walk at altitude and all found it pretty taxing - a good start for the Inca trail (see next blog).

We finished the day in Chivay, a pretty non-descript town apart from its thermal baths to which it seemed every tourist in Peru headed to at about 4pm. The baths were pleasant, especially as they had a poolside bar. One odity was that a bunch of local guys turned up with a video recorder to film all the Western girls in their swimming costumes. As we keep getting asked to take photos of local people in native costumes with llamas for one sol (15p), we thought about charging them. Chivay was also good for the street food, where you could get alpaca keebabs cooked over a small charcoal fire for about 10p. Delicious.

From Chivay we had a 10 hour travel day heading to Cusco (the former capital of the Inca Empire), stopping off for numerous photo stops, including La Raya pass at 4355m above see level. Again, there was some stunning scenary, including lakes with flamingos, glaciers and snow covered mountains. We passed through some of the most forbidding landscapes in Peru and it is amazing that people are able to live out there.

Cusco is famous for being shaped like a Puma (one of three sacred animals for the Incas) and a lot of the foundations to their buildings remain, althought they were built over by the Spanish. It is a really pleasant town to stay in with narrow winding cobbled streets and plazas. Cusco was also our base for the Inca trail. One of the highlights of the visit to Cusco is Saqsaywaman, which is known to all the tourists as "sexy woman", it is a vast Inca fort, made out of giant blocks of rock (one weighs over 120 tonnes), joined together with no mortar but just cut so it fits like lego (apologies if I do over 500 years of culture a disservice with that analogy). The site acts as the head of the Puma so many of the walls zig zag to form the teeth of the animal.

Quite a few of the group went on dates with locals whilst in Cusco (more to follow). Amusingly, one of group almost walked away from her date when her guy asked her if she would like him to take her to see Sexy women, as she thought he was going to take her to a seedy sex show or strip club. Ah, the perils of communicating in a foreign language!

On our first night in Cusco we had a meal at the excellent but eccentric Witches Garden where the guy who acted as waiter walked around in a white no-sleave t-shirt which said "sorry, you couldn´t afford me" on the back of it, before moving on to the highest Irish bar in the world for happy hour, which surprisingly lasted only half an hour. From there we moved on to a local nightclub where my mate (Jules) and I pulled a couple of local girls.

Unfortunately, things are never as easy or as simple as they should be. We had heard a number of stories of both foreign men and women being drugged in clubs and we were all warned by our tour leader not to take anyone back to the hotel as on a previous tour a guy had had all his stuff stolen from his room when he woke up the next day. Anyway, at about 2am, the girls asked us to join them in five minutes in the main square to go onto another club, Jules and I had to check with our tour leader that it was ok! To be fair, we weren´t sure who was going to meet us in the square. Anway, as it turned out we had a good evening and arranged to meet the next night. Unfortunately, that night I ended up dreaming about my half naked body being tied up and dumped somewhere in the nearby mountains!

So the next night, we had a double date, which almost didn´t take place as we waited in the wrong place for 30 minutes! Thinking, we had been stood up we were just about to move on, when a bemused and very cold Peruvian walked over to us and asked us what the hell we were doing! After that poor start we warmed up over coffee. It was awkward for me, as pretty much the whole conversation was in Spanish and all I could do was nod at what I thought was the appropriate moment and smile with a stupid grin on my face. I was told I need to learn more Spanish and quickly, and to be fair after five weeks in South America it is still rubbish. That said, I find that my Spanish improves considerably the more pissed I get so we quickly moved onto a club.

As an aside, it is slightly worrying that as my Spanish is so bad that I cannot use my sparkling conversation and witty banter to impress, and so I am having to rely on my looks and my dancing! I have had to quickly expand my repetoire of four dance moves (mostly for student unions and weddings), which now includes a number (of poorly performed) salsa moves.

In the club, I was forced (not that much, I´ll be honest) to Salsa and drink the night away. One of the most amusing sights was a mixed group of 16 year olds who looked to be out on school trip after their exams. Anyway, their dancing was practically x-rated as they bumped and grinded to the music (I never remember school discos being like that, clearly I didn´t go to the right parties!). At one point Jules got mobbed by the group with each girl taking it in turns to gyrate against him with the rest of them screaming like grown women at a Take That reunion gig. Anway, a good night was had by all (actually I don´t know that for sure - I had a good night and that´s what counts).

A couple of other good venues in Cusco, which we checked out, were Jack´s, a coffee bar that does the El Gordo (fat bastard) breakfast and other delicious food, and Top Coffee, which is Cusco´s only topless coffee bar. Naturally, after walking around in the morning, a number of us felt like some light refreshment, although typically, we turned up when it was just a coffee bar! Still the coffee was quite good, even if we had to make our own entertainment.

On Friday the 23rd we set off from Cusco for the Sacred Valley of the Incas, the starting point for the four day Inca trail, finishing at Machu Pichhu on Tuesday the 27th.

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