A bus marathon through the land of the incas

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Having explored the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca we moved overland into Peru, first stop being Cusco the one time capital of the Inca empire, and now capital of the Peruvian tourist empire. Despite the expectations that the tourism bonanza in Cusco would have totally ruined it we were very pleasantly surprised just how beautiful it remains. It is a patchwork of narrow cobblestone streets, colonial buildings dominate the skyline (notably in the main Plaza de Armas), but look down and there is plenty of evidence of the old Inca stonework beneath. A statue of Christ appears above the city, I wouldn´t say dominating the skyline, but when glowing bright white at night it certainly will please those lovers of the kitsch.

There was an immediate difference that we noticed with Bolivia, and that was that fewer ladies wore the traditional dress for day to day routine, and a large portion of those who did were dragging llamas and alpacas around looking for the tourist dollar..¨photo, photo...one sole¨.

The multitude of hawkers offering artwork, crafts, massage, and other trinkets were none too persistent and it was a thoroughly pleasant place to base ourselves for an exploration of the Inca heartland.

The large Inca fortress of Sachshuaman (pronounced ´sexy woman´...yes seriously) dominates a large area just above the city. The most ìmpressive aspect of this site being the sheer size of the rocks that have been moved into place and carved with amazing precision, some over 100 tonnes in weight. Well worth the grunt up the hill. Lynda also took on the role of photo model as huge numbers of local kids asked to have their photo taken with her, none wanted it done with Matt though!

We spent a great day exploring the sacred valley; we´d decided to shun the tour bus brigade and opt instead for local public transport, not only was this cheaper but it was way more fun too. An early start enabled us to get to the sunday morning market at Pisac well before the tourist hoards, and it was great fun wandering around whilst many people were setting up their stalls not another tourist in sight. Just as the buses started pulling in we headed off on a hike up the hill behind the village to a large Inca ruin. It was in a stunning location overlooking the junction of two valleys, and the ruin itself was wonderful. We had not expected it to be so impressive, in many ways a small version of Machu Picchu. We certainly didn´t have the place to ourselves as the tour buses (actually many local school kids) had arrived, but that did not deter from the spectacle. Next on the list was a visit to another large fortress at Ollyantaytambo, huge areas of Inca terracing again on steep mountain slopes, fabulous views throughout, especially when you could see past the tourist groups again. The transport between these places was also great fun and we had a mixture of local buses chugging blue and black smoke, minibuses packing in unbelievable numbers (think we had 16 at one count), and a shared taxi called a ´collectivo´, this was a normal small car with three people in the boot along with several bags at one point. The scenery throughout the day was great, and best of all on our return bus trip to Cusco we had the pleasure of sitting next to the driver; this afforded great views of the snowcapped mountains soaring behind the small town of Urubamba, but also great views of his overtaking manoeuvers on blind hairpins - sometimes it is best to be sitting in the back in blissful ignorance!!

Following our little exploration we took on the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. This is a 4 day hike through lovely mountains, past several Inca ruins culminating with the ruins of Machu Picchu. We may get stick from many people who´ve struggled through the trail but it really isn´t very difficult at all, as long as you are reasonably fit and reasonably acclimatized to the altitude, the high point being Dead Woman´s pass (nice name hey) at 4200m. We both had no problems and despite Lynda having a dicky stomach...anyway enough of that, onto the trail.

It is the start of the wet season in these parts so expectations were realistically low, yet hopeful. Matt´s previous experience at a very similar time of year saw plenty of low cloud and particularly crappy weather at Machu Picchu, so hopefully a repeat was not on the cards. As it turned out the 3 days of walking was reasonably lucky, although there was plenty of cloud and it rained hard every night we did get some glimpses of the stunning snowcapped mountains; the waterfalls were running hard, and the flora and fauna was thoroughly interesting too..orchids, humming birds and other such girly things that Matt took far too much of an interest in! As mentioned above there were plenty of Inca ruins on the way, the location of each was generally stunning, there was a lot of intricate stonework and plenty of interesting stories provided by our guide (how many were totally believable is up to the individual), and they actually looked really mystical in the low cloud and rain that often greeted us. It was a truely absorbing hike and well worth the effort. We went with a really well run outfit called Peru Treks, our camps were very comfortable and all made up before our arrival each day and the food was fabulous, at least we did plenty of exercise to justify the amount we hoovered up!


So to the final day and the most important day of all...Machu Picchu. We awoke at 4.00am to low cloud and rain, and traipsed in a gringo column to the first viewpoint of the fabled city..¨the sun gate¨...it really should have been named the rain gate or at the very least the cloud gate. We couldn´t see a thing, nada! Remarkably similar to Matt´s previous visit 10 years before. The slow march down to the ruins quietly continued in the cloud, and basically standing on top of the place you could only catch the faintest outline of the site...we were all rather dispondent especially when our guide mentioned that sometimes the cloud didn´t lift all day!

Anyway, as luck would have it we didn´t need to wait long for that possibility to be negated, as a shaft of sunlight broke through the clouds illuminating the centre of the ruins, an absolutely stunning and mystical vision...real wow factor stuff. Following that the sky completely cleared and we were able to explore the ruins under clear blue skies...the best of all our time thus far in Peru! We climbed the very steep steps up Huanapicchu, the mountain behind the ruins, for spectacular birds eye views of the ruins and better still the location in which they sat. The ruins themselves are impressive with the stonework, variety of buildings etc but best of all is the location surrounded by lofty peaks perched high above the Urubamba river...totally stunning! Well worth its position now in the new 7 wonders of the world (that was being advertised to death by the local media).

The trip finished with a soak in the hot springs of Aguas Calientes, and a train ride back into Cusco. A fabulous few days. Oh, and we enjoyed our first well earned Coke after 1 year and 4 days...we´d given up in Namibia and thought this was a fitting location to end the drought.

We had decided that flying up to Ecuador was rather too expensive to justify, so we had a bus marathon ahead of us in order to get through to Ecuador and meet our pre-arranged Galapagos trip (more on that in a later blog no doubt). The marathon started with an overnight bus through to Arequipa, an attractive colonial town surrounded by three volcanoes, the most aesthetically pleasing being the conical El Misti. A day exploring there had to be sufficient and we were back on another night bus down into the desert and Nazca.

Nazca is famed for the huge drawings in the desert of various animals and things; these are best seen from the air so we managed to get on a scenic flight very soon after arriving. It was great fun being bounced around in a small 6 seater plane, taking some very tight turns to see the lines, and all in all we saw all that was to see and had a great time. The lines are truly remarkable, and still little known, clearest of all was perhaps the humming bird, Lynda loved the spider (you don´t hear that very often!) and the oddest was perhaps the spaceman/astronaut (bearing in mind the lines are something like 500 years old or more). Not only were the drawings fun but the surrounding rocky desert scenery was also spectacular, an excellent excursion. Following that we also did a little tour to a rather more gruesome expose of pre-inca culture; a trip to see some Nazca mummies in a desert cemetery. It was actually quite interesting but funniest of all was the lack of a complete excavation of the site that meant we even saw one human skull just lying in the dirt, can´t imagine that being allowed in Canada!

That was enough of that we had another couple of local buses to catch to get us to Lima (via Ica), it was only after the fact that we found out this little 7 hour trip had been with a bus company that had had a run of safety issues...least we only knew afterwards!

In Lima we were lucky enough to have a friend who lives there, and Juan Carlos gave us a really nice tour of the city. We had a fabulous lunch of Peruvian specialities at a fantastic restaurant, we´d certainly not eaten anywhere near as luxuriously as this since perhaps our splash at Tetsuyas back in Sydney. He also showed us around some of the nice suburbs like Miraflores and Barranca, so we got a good feeling of what it was like to live in the city.

Time was ticking, and another night bus was awaiting (literally as Matt´s name was called on the tannoy...honestly they didn´t have the gate number up on the departure board, not just us being stupido gringoes). This time we batted all the way to the north of the country to Piura. Most of the 14 hour trip was at night but we did have some great desert views in the last 4 hours or so.

From Piura we were heading straight into Ecuador using the scenic route rather than the more popular coastal route. Unfortunately the direct bus was not running, no idea why but hey all our transport had been far too smooth thus far! As it turned out this was for the better as we decided to wing it in several phases, using a variety of forms of transport, and the resulting journey was thoroughly absorbing. So having left the attractive, if rather dusty, city of Piura we caught a cramped local bus the 45mins to Sullana..this was the type of bus where we sat on our large backpacks, there were chickens in the overhead baskets and people crammed in every possible space; great fun. Some nice locals next to us helped with the next phase of the trip; we had to jump on a little motorised rick-shaw and bomb it across town to where we could pick up a collectivo. As mentioned above these are shared taxis where the driver crams as many people in as he can...for the two hour drive to the border we both shared the front passenger seat (Matt basically sitting on the driver´s gear stick...oohh err missus), there were 4 people in the back and 3 in the boot...ridiculous. That got us to the border, formalities were straightforward (well once we managed to find the Peruvian authorities- must have been siestaing- and when the Ecuadorian guy could take his eyes off the Chelsea match on tv)...we were out of Peru.

From the border we hitched a ride to the nearest little town of Macara, and eventually found another bus for the short 6 hour drive up through some lovely scenery to Loja. What an entertaining day of travel...certainly all about the journey rather than the destination!! Since leaving Cuzco that was 50 hours on public transport over 4 days...and some more to come in Ecuador before journey´s end. That can come in the next chapter.........

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