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Published: April 14th 2005
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Hello readers
As our South American adventure draws to its conclusion, we´ve now hit our last destination - Peru.
Having flown out of Buenos Aires on Tuesday morning (we finally decided to give buses a miss!!) we had a quick stopover at Lima and then caught another flight to Cuzco, capital city of the ancient Inca empire and a massive 3,200 metres above sea level.
Everyone we'd spoken to and every book we'd read warned about the potential for altitude sickness in Cuzco. We decided to take our chances without pills (what with vitamins and malaria tablets we're already rattling) and just take it easy once we got here.
Upon walking out of the airport we faced a scene similar to the one we'd experienced back in Rio almost 2 months ago. Upon spotting a tourist, all the taxi drivers swamp you and try to get you into their cab. The difficulty is spotting a legitimate cab, as so many are dodgy and will try to rip you off. We wandered around the car park to try to escape them and work out who was legit, with a trail of pushy little Peruvians in our wake. It
was all a bit comical, but also pretty daunting, and we eventually found a guy who proved trustworthy and got us to the hostel in one piece.
To combat altitude sickness we'd decided we'd pretty much go straight to bed and rest up, but it was still pretty tough. Because of the lack of oxygen at this altitude you find yourself gasping for breath and getting a bit panicked. Still, we all made it through the first day intact, and even managed to grab a quick bite to eat in the central square.
As I've mentioned, Cuzco was the capital of the Inca empire, and the word Cuzco (or Cusco) comes from the Quechua word QOSQO which means navel. It has quite a few meanings, one of the most important is "Center or navel of the world". The city still retains a great deal of its Inca heritage, with thin Inca style streets in some places, as well as Inca walls. Due to the Spanish invasion the city is actually a bit of a mish mash of Inca and Spanish cultures.
We decided to do a bit of exploring on Wednesday and went to the main square,
which contains the beautiful Spanish catherdral and Jesuit church. These landmarks are all built on top of the ruins of Inca buildings, as the Spanish looked to convert the locals to Catholicism by eradicating any trace of Inca religion.
The weirdest thing about Cuzco is that, for all its historical sites and ancient heritage, it is a complete tourist trap. There are so many launderettes and internet cafes that we're wondering if these were part of the Inca way of life as well! There are also loads of travel agents offering trips to all the local sites, not to mention the famous Inca Trail and Machu Picchu.
We needed to get ourselves booked onto the Inca Trail, and it's such a hugely popular activity that you need to be prepared to hang around for a few days. Showing incredible ingenunity, we booked our 4 day trek to "The Sacred City of the Incas" to start on the 22nd, meaning it will be one of our last and most memorable experiences of South America.
Having achieved success in our main challenge of the day, we popped back for a little siesta (god, I'm going to miss my siestas)
and went back into town in the evening for a meal and a few drinks. We'd lost Jamie by this point, who'd fallen foul of what we can only think was food poisoning. He was in a pretty bad way so we left him to sleep it off.
Another strange thing about Cuzco is the gangs of youngsters trying to get you to go into the various bars off the main square. We had already decided where to go, but as soon as we hit the square about 10 of these kids came literally sprinting across to us trying to drag us to their bar and offering us free drinks. We literally fought our way through and saw the day out with a few relxing beers, with a pretty early night ready for our trip today to The Sacred Valley.
The Sacred Valley of the Incas is a stretch of very fertile land which runs along the Urubamba river or "Sacred River" and is chok full of Inca ruins and existing Inca settlements. We spent a brilliant day touring a number of these sites and finding out fascinating things about the Incas, such as how they moved 9m
long rocks from the top of a mountain through the valley and into their cities. We saw evidence of their progressive culture (earthquake proof buildings, irrigation for their agricultural lands) and got a great understanding of how the Spanish and Inca cultures converged to leave this region as it is now.
We also saw the real South America, or what we expected to be the real South America before we left. Local people (mainly kids) living in abject poverty but still able to raise a smile, fantastic scenery and some of the scariest roads ever. Plus hundreds of street vendors selling enough tat to fill Buckingham Palace with strange porcelain objects, rugs and woolly jumpers that your gran would be ashamed of.
We're going down to Lake Titicaca (the highest altitude lake in the world) tomorrow for a few days and will come back to Cuzco in time to do the Inca Trail on the 22nd.
Bye for now
AC
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Lesson Plans
Wow AC, not only an update on our favourite travelling contingent, but a history and geography lesson at the same time. And i thought it was going to be me doing the teaching today. Keep up the good work, the kids of today would be proud!! - Mike