Otters, Incas and Nazca Lines

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Peru

My rating: 9/10

Daily budget (travel, food and accommodation): USD $30 = 20 pounds

When: 25 August - 30 October 2012

Bases: Lima, Ica, Nazca, Arequipa, Cabanaconde, Cusco, Ollantaytambo, Inca Trail, Manu National Park, Puno

Main sights: Nation Museum, San Fransisco Monastery, Ica pisco and wine tour, Nazca Lines, Antonini Teaching Museum, Arequipa Cathedral Museum, Moral House, Museo Santury, Santa Catalina Monastery, Condor Cross, Sacsaywaman, Qorikancha, Santo Domingo Church, Cusco Centre of Native Art, Pisac Ruins, Ollantaytambo Ruins, Winaywayna, Machu Picchu, Manu National Park, Chocolate Museum, Coca Museum, Uros islands, Taquile island

Top 3 experiences:

1) Manu National Park
2) Inca Trail to Machu Picchu
3) Nazca Lines

Manu National Park

I wasn't quite sure what to expect from Manu National Park.

The boundaries of the park actually start less than 100 miles north of Cusco - a tourist-packed city that's far better known as the former capital of the Incas and the gateway to Machu Picchu. Despite this, it's got a reputation as one of the most remote and out-of-the-way jungles in South America.

The reason is simple. Whereas other destinations allow you to feel as if you've reached the jungle as soon as you've stepped off the plane, with Manu you really have to work to get there. On a typical 8 day/7 night trek, you'll only get to spend a measly 2 nights in the reserve zone proper. The rest of the time is just spent travelling to and from Cusco - most of it via motorboat since the roads don't stretch this far.

Your reward for all this discomfort is access to the best-preserved jungle in Peru, and one of the best in the entire Amazon.

Now I've been disappointed by jungle trips before. In Vietnam, we visited a disturbingly quiet rainforest outside Hue - Bach Ma National Park. And in Laos, we went on a 3-day trek through the country's most celebrated jungle - Luang Namtha National Park - with only an ex-hunter and a professional wildlife photographer in tow. The aim was to find a tiger but we ended up seeing nothing bigger than a squashed millipede. My biggest fear was that Manu would go the same way.

I needn't have worried. In our 8-day trip, we saw:


• black caiman
• white caiman
• cane toads
• piranhas
• brightly coloured macaws
• several species of parrot
• a toucan
• a trogon
• hummingbirds
• the Cock of the Rock (Peru's national bird)
• kingfishers
• king vultures
• black vultures
• black skimmers
• capybaras (the world's largest rodent)
• 7 species of monkey


We also saw giant river otters on 3 separate occasions - pretty amazing considering they're one of the world's most endangered creatures. And on our way back, the park ranger proudly showed off a photo of a jaguar he'd just spotted down by the river. A jaguar!

Clearly, the wildlife-watching opportunities in South America are a million time's better than south-east Asia. This really caught me by surprise, so I started asking everyone the same question. Why?

From what I can piece together, there are 3 big reasons.

The first, oddly enough, is cocaine. According to the US, Peru recently reclaimed its position as the world's biggest cocaine producer from Colombia (a title it held throughout the 90s), and the Class A drug is almost all made in the rainforest. Now the Peruvian authorities have neither the time nor the resources to crack down on all these producers (many of whom are seasoned fighters from the bloody Internal Conflict of the 80s and 90s) and open up the region to development, so the jungle is left largely to its own devices.

The second issue is population size. Although Peru is 5 times the size of the UK, it has less than half the population. Manu alone is 20,000 sq km - roughly the size of Wales. Now there are a few hundred tribespeople in Manu but they're exceptionally scattered and isolated - 1 group attacked a tour boat with spears a couple of years ago when they mistook cameras with flash as offensive weapons (luckily no-one was hurt). The point is there simply aren't the same population pressures on the environment here.

The third reason is tight regulation. Peru looks after its rainforests better than most - it is, after all, a highly lucrative tourist attraction. To preserve Manu, 80% of the jungle is completely off limits to tourism. The reserve zone accounts for another 10% but only 100 tourists are allowed in each day (the remaining 10% is open to everyone). These 100 tourists are brought in by just 7 licensed travel agencies who are only allowed to use licensed guides. And to gain those licenses, guides have to spend 3 months on placement with experienced park rangers. It's a neat system that ensures guides, travel agencies and ultimately tourists do nothing to damage the environment. The pity is that more countries don't adopt this approach.

That's not to say there aren't threats, however. Hunt Oil - the world's largest private company - wants to set up a hydrocarbon extraction project in the east of Manu, in the face of fierce resistance from local communities and campaigners. Meanwhile, the recently completed Interoceanic Highway (which links the southern coasts of Peru and Brazil) threatens to open up nearby Manu to all sorts of development.

But these are problems for the future. For now, Manu National Park in Peru remains one of the best destinations in the world for watching wildlife.

PS. After writing this - and during one of my (many) bouts of altitude sickness - I came across a copy of National Geographic from January 1994. The lead article was all about macaws in the jungles of Manu and nearby Tambopata. Among other things, the author wrote that Manu "probably holds more species of plants and animals than any other protected region on earth". Which says it all really.

Inca Trail to Machu Picchu

The lost city of Machu Picchu is the most popular tourist attraction in South America - you'd be hard-pushed to find a tour of the continent that doesn't drop by at some point. And the Inca Trail is the region's most popular trek, with demand so high that you need to reserve your place months in advance. All things considered, then, the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu has a lot to live up to.

But before asking whether the reality really lives up to the hype, I wanted to figure out why it's so ridiculously popular in the first place. And for that we need a bit of history.

At its height, the Inca empire must have felt invincible. It ruled over some or all of modern-day Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina and Colombia - basically, most land west of the Andes. They could be brutal at times, but they also spread civilisation wherever they went, building an astonishing network of roads, aquaducts and agricultural terraces, and even implementing a basic social security system to keep everyone fed, working and healthy (an ancient version of Obamacare if you will). They were basically the Romans of South America.

But while the Romans had 1,000 years to get their acts together (2,000 if you count the Eastern Empire), the Incas were cut off in their prime after barely 100 years of empire-building. And their destruction came at the hands of an enemy they didn't even know existed - the Spanish.

Tooled up with steel armour and swords, iron-tipped lances, firearms, mounted cavalry and - perhaps most importantly of all - smallpox germs, the Spanish conquered the vast Inca empire in little over a decade.

The conquistadors spared nothing - every Inca site they came across was plundered mercilessly for gold and silver. The only ones that escaped were those lucky few that were too hard to find like Machu Picchu. For hundreds of years, the defeated Inca people hid the whereabouts of Machu Picchu from the Spanish until an 11-year-old local boy led US academic Hiram Bingham to the site in 1911. Since then, it has grown to become a symbol of the heights that the Inca empire - and South America generally - was capable of before being bullied into submission by the west.

All of which goes a long way to explaining why Machu Picchu is so important to South America. The Inca Trail, meanwhile, is a much more recent invention.

There are actually hundreds of Inca trails criss-crossing the Andes, and at least 8 have been discovered arriving at Machu Picchu. Nowadays, though, the Inca Trail is the name given to a specific 4-day trek that takes you (literally) to the gates of Machu Picchu.

What surprised me most about the Inca Trail is that the trek itself isn't actually that gruelling. The first day is a lot of walking on the flat, the second is a steep climb up Dead Woman's Pass, the third is mainly downhill and the fourth is basically just a couple of hours descending into Machu Picchu. The difficult part for westerners is the altitude - what should be a relatively quick trek takes forever because your lungs simply can't take in as much oxygen at 4,215m (the high point of the trek).

Still, it's pointless complaining. Us pampered tourists get to do the trail carrying nothing but a daypack. Our porters, meanwhile, do it carrying 25kg of clothing, tents, cooking equipment, food and god knows what else. Before the rules were tightened 3 years ago, it wasn't unusual to see them carrying 50kg. What's more, I'm told that every 2 years the porters have an end-of-season race to complete the full Inca Trail (minus the baggage, thankfully). The fastest can apparently complete the 4-day trek in less than 3-and-a-half hours. Now that's impressive.

Anyway, let's get back to what draws tourists to the Inca Trail. While it's true there are now many treks that finish at Machu Picchu, the Inca Trail is the only one that allows you to walk all the way into the site at dawn - and through the famous Sun Gate.

Unfortunately, what with Machu Picchu being a lost city in the clouds and all that, the Sun Gate was clouded over when we clambered up at dawn (not unusual in August, apparently). And while it was undeniably cool to walk into the site before the tour buses arrived, I must admit the driving rain detracted rom the experience somewhat (bloody August again).

But putting those irritations to one side for a minute, what really made the Inca Trail special for me were the sights along the way. The landscape changes from arid hillside to cloud forest as you walk. The views from the mountain passes are breathtaking. And the Inca ruins you pass along the way are fascinating - my favourite was Winaywayna, a half-neglected Inca city near Machu Picchu with the same spectacular views but none of the footfall.

We were also lucky in that our whole group got on really well. Everbody from the guides and the porters to my 10 fellow trekkers were so supportive that the trip was much more fun than it might otherwise have been.

If you've got a few months to spare before coming to South America then, I'd say, put your name down for the Inca Trail. But don't worry if not - there are plenty of other great treks to Machu Picchu that can be booked more cheaply when you're out here or, if you want the easy life, you could just visit the city itself in a day.

As for Machu Picchu, so much has been written about the lost city that it's hard to know what I can add. Yes, it really is spectacular. Yes, it still feels magical despite the endless stream of visitors. And yes, it probably would have been more sensible to go in July.

But above all, yes, Machu Picchu is truly unmissable. The Inca Trail comes highly recommended, but however you reach Machu Picchu, trust me you'll be glad you got here.

Nazca Lines

Apart from Machu Picchu, the Nazca Lines were the only Peruvian sights I knew about before planning this trip. Even then, my knowledge was patchy at best. I was aware that there were a few animal shapes etched into the desert and that was pretty much that.

In fact, the Nazca Lines exist on a much bigger scale than I had ever imagined. Spread over an astonishing 500 sq km of desert, you can find some 70 animal and plant drawings, including world-famous ones like the 136-metre condor and the 110-metre monkey. But there are also plenty of lesser-known lines like the 51-metre dog, the 45-metre hands and another one that I photographed but still can't identify. Not only that, you can see around 300 geometric figures and 800-odd straight lines.

The process by which all these lines was made sounds straightforward enough - their creators simply moved around sun-baked reddish pebbles to create shapes using the whitish soil underneath. However, the really strange thing is that these shapes are only visible from the air, yet they were all constructed between 1,000 and 2,000 years ago.

This has led to researchers putting forward all sorts of wild theories. Some say they prove the Nazca culture invented hot air balloons, others that they were built by aliens. As for their purpose, it's been claimed at various times over the last 70 years that they served as astronomical calendars, water maps or even running tracks. The current flavour of the month is that they were used by a water cult for ritual celebrations, and that they were designed for aerial viewing because their gods lived in the sky.

Really though, it's anyone's guess. Much like the Incas (and every other pre-Spanish civilisation in South America), the Nazca people didn't keep written records. So historians are left trying to understand complex cultures using little more than fragments of pottery, textiles and a good deal of guesswork. Or in the case of the Nazca culture, lines in the sand.

In some ways, though, that all adds to the appeal. As you set off on your god's eye view of the Nazca Lines in a rickety one-propellor Cessna plane straight out of Indiana Jones, that element of mystery makes it feel like a true adventure. Throw in the fact that some lines are impossibly faint or were drawn over again and again by the tireless Nazca people, and you can almost believe you're seeing some for the very first time. Indiana Jones, eat your heart out.

Random facts:


• Peru has the highest number of butterly species in the world - and the 2nd highest number of bird species behind Colombia.
• The world's largest flying bird, the Andean Condor, weighs up to 15kg. It can go a month without food, or eat a staggering 5kg in one sitting, making it too heavy to take off!
• The potato originated here - there are an estimated 4,000 species of potato in Peru alone.


Impressions:

The thing I like most about travelling is that you get a sense of how much variety there still is in the world, not just between different countries but also within the same country.

Take Peru, for example, It's not really 1 country at all but 3 separate countries bundled together under the same flag. First, you've got the Pacific coastal strip that accounts for 20 per cent of the total land - beaches in the north, desert in the south and the sprawling money-spinning madness of Lima in between. Then you've got the Andean highlands, accounting for a further 20 per cent inland from the coast. And then, largely fogotten by the outside world, you've got the Amazon jungle in the interior, which accounts for a staggering 60 per cent of all Peru.

These 3 regions - the coast, the highlands and the jungle - are radically different from one another in all sorts of ways:


• Food- coastal regions specialise in fish and seafood dishes like the eye-wateringly citrusy ceviche, while the highlands focus on beans, potatoes and roast guinea pigs (yes, really) and the jungle enjoys an abundance of tropical fruits.
• Language- the colonial history of the coast makes Spanish the main language here, whereas traditional highland communities may only speak Quechua or Aymara and jungle tribes have their own unique dialects.
• Weather - the coast gets searing heat (and 6 months of depressing fog in Lima), while the Andes alternates between sunshine and clouds, and the jungle veers between unbearable humidity and huge, refreshing thunderstorms.


As a tourist, there are places worth seeing in every region. For starters, the Nazca Lines are on the coastal strip, Machu Picchu is in the mountains and Manu National Park is one of the world's best jungles.

That's not to say every region is equally enjoyable, however. While the Peruvian jungle is spectacular and the Andean highlands are superb, I'd have to say the endless arid deserts of the coast are so-so at best. I don't know, maybe the beaches in the north are better - I never made it that far.

But if you've only got a limited amount of time and money for Peru, Machu Picchu is absolutely unmissable. And if there's any way you can possibly make it to the jungle, go for it.

Next stop: Bolivia

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