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Published: August 12th 2008
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For me the second visit to this country, but it still amazes me. So many different landscapes and such rich history. Archeological sites are scattered around the country and in places where they are not visible, you can be sure there is something underground.
And to make it all the more interesting...... The buses are an absolute godsend. We travelled all the way from north to south along the coast and after that crossed through the country towards the Bolivian border. During the three weeks in this country we spent almost 50 hours on buses and the fact we can still refer to them as comfortable, says enough.
The first couple of busrides we ploughed through vast neverending desert. We visited some of the driest places on earth and at our first stop, Trujillo, we were told (after we had a discussion about bringing our raincoat as it looked a bit grey) they only experience rain ones every 12 years. This lack of rainfall is one of the reasons why the miche people - a pre inca culture - who lived here hundreds of years ago, could decide to build their entire city from clay. They are currently still excavating
it, but the part you can visit is already from such immense scale, it is seen as the biggest clay city in the world. The tour we joined was great and our guide was an inspiring woman, enormously involved with the site and fighting for the preservation and protection of this amazing place. Very hard as most of the money and tourists in Peru end up in Machu Pichu...
So here I go, a little bit of promotion. If anyone comes near this region in one of your travels, it´s definately worth a visit.
But then again, there is so much to visit, it feels like one big history class. Off course several levels more exciting then the ones I remember. So I can get into the little hystorical details myself here, but knowing that there is a big possibility I will lose a couple of bored readers or upset several that are well aware of all the facts, I will try to keep this to a minimum.
But let me tell you this, It is a strange, intriguing feeling trying to figure out why the pre-Inca culture spent decades creating lines in the middle of the desert;
several of these Nazca lines in perfect alignment with the astrological signs and many forming figures or geometrical forms only visible in its full from the sky. Or who were the inca´s that created a city on the top of a mountain in the middle of the jungle and why was this magical place, Machu Pichu, abandoned by it´s people in the end.
Whilst visiting these places we noticed that much is still not known, except for the fact that these people, living here so many years ago, knew and understood our planet and universe in a very deep way ........ They created and used sundails and calenders, knew how to work with the seasons, understood herbology and the medicial and culinary use of each plant and the inca´s had such architectual talent that nowadays we are unable to reconstruct a wall built with the same precision and detail.
Besides learning all about their rituals and culture it was spectacular enough to get to these mysterious places.
The Nazca lines, for example are really only visible in full from the air... which meant a flight in a plane much smaller then we would normally set foot in. For a
moment we had some second thoughts as unfortunately just two weeks before our visit a plane with tourists had crashed, but after several reassurances that they tightened the control of maintanance (although not able to show us any maintenance record) we decided we actually didn´t want to miss it. After nervously waiting for an hour at the tiny airport, we got escorted to and tightly fitted in our plane. 4 people, including the pilot, all cuddled up together, taking off from the security of the runway was exciting enough, but our pilot thought it would be great to show us how sensitive our little plane was to every bit of movement and demonstrated with a ´uppy downy´ manouevre(his words) which caused our stomachs to leap from our mouths.
And of course getting to Machu Pichu on a train ride through the sacred valley, passing immense mountain ranges and green jungle walls is an attraction in itself. Even more rewarding when the next morning we sat on top of a mountain overlooking Machu pichu waiting for the sun to come up. Machu Pichu is an enchanting place... unfortunatey a lot has changed since I visited the site 8 years ago.
Prices (entrance, train bus) have gone up astronomically and I was waiting for the first bus to get up the mountain before sunset with ten other people 8 years ago, this was now more then tenfold. There was something strangely disturbing in the fact that we had to queue with hundreds of other people at 5 in the morning, to be all hurded in a bus to go and see some ruins. But apparently it was a reasonably quiet day and there were luckily still moments where we could block out the sounds of all the tourgroups passing us to realise it is a magnificent place.
We also thoroughly enjoyed visiting all the city´s and villages on our way through the country. Lima, the capital, maybe not the most beautifull or relaxing city in the world, but definitely enjoyable for a couple of days. We visited a very interesting archeological museum (to expand our historical knowledge even more), joined in on a festival right outside our hostal in the neighbourhood Miraflores, had a stroll to the old centre of town - and even had the rare opportunity to sit on an nearly empty Plaza de Armas, as it was
cleared for an international Presidential meeting - and were several times amazed and admittedly a bit intimidated by the security all around this city ( although Mark was impressed by the the Doberman attack dogs)
After Lima and the Nazca lines we left the coast and spent about a week in the beautiful colonial town of Arequipa. It´s a great place with its beautifull squares, old buildings, cosy restaurants and magnificant view on the volcano´s surrounding it. The city itself has enough to keep you occupied for several days. We lost ourself for many hours in a convent located in the middle of the city. Within its walls containing a complete village with colourful cobblestone street, little squares and even a tiny park.
Arequipa was also the start of what would be weeks on high altitude and this required some adaptation and a couple of days at low pace.
Our last city in Peru was Cuzco - known as the hop off point for Machu Pichu, but also a very interesting and pretty city itself - Cuzco once was the capital of the inca empire and although most of the structures got destroyed when the Spanish arrived, there
is still enough visible to get an idea of how important this place must have been. Massive inca walls blend in with the colonial structures, women and children colour the streets with their inca dresses and plenty of big ruins are found in the surrounding area.
Our heads spinning with all the information, but very satisfied we headed for the border of Bolivia. Another (what would be our last comfortable one for a while) long busride reaching an even higher altitude at Lake Titicaca (4800m). Our entry point into Bolivia.
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Yuri
non-member comment
Hello you two
Hi, Nice to read something again. You still are in South America now. When are you going to the east? Pictures are nice to get a glimp of the beautifull things you see and feel over there. here the rain is coming down and down. A lovely dutch summer again, but I still hope you will think about moving to the Netherlands after this little trip.::) We just came back from a short holiday to Turkije. Just one week laying in the sun and bake. You know that daisy can bake all day!!! But we were tired after all the preparations from our marriage day. 8-8 was our big day, and It was a verry nice day. It was all we dreamed off, too bad you (both) could not be there, but you had a good reason. It was soo nice, and daisy looked soo nice in her dress. If you can go to hyves you can see some pictures at Daisy her site... when you are back you can see all the pictures off course. Ik think we need to book a weekend together, so that we can see all of your pictures, and you can see ours.::)) Now we have to work again, but that is the normal life. Hope you will enjoy the next period as you enjoyed so far!! X Yuri