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The
gold road's sure a long road* - 24/08/04
Well here I am again, I know its been a while but I have
been very busy in Peru, most of it spent travelling with a
Geordie girl. First stop was Trujillo. The own
itself was quite pretty and the nearby Chan Chan ruins were
pretty amazing, set in the endless desert of Northern Peru. The
only problem is that most of the buildings here (and in fact in
the rest of Peru) are left unfinished, in an attempt to escape
some taxes. This leaves all the towns looking like they are
recovering from a war or natural disaster! Not the deepest
darkest Peru of Paddington Bear fame.
From Trujillo we shot straight down to Lima, hundreds of miles
of Monotonous desert passing the windows. Lima is pretty
dirty, not very friendly or safe and doesn't have much to offer
in the way of sights or activities. The best part is the
seafront suburb of Miraflores which bears a striking resemblance
to the North Norfolk coastal town of Cromer! Still we hung out
in Lima for a couple of days and on one of them I escaped the
Geordie, met a Peruvian girl on a local bus and got a friendly
companion and beautiful tour guide for a day around the centre,
which is less than impressive. Lima has become
decentralised in the same way as Managua in Nicaragua. The
locals don't visit the centre, leaving it rather for the less
savoury members of Limean society.
From Lima we bypassed the Nazca lines and the sandboarding at
Ica andheaded for Arequipa. This is a beautiful colonial
town and also the jumping off point for Colca Canyon. We
embarked on a two day tour of the canyon, stopping at villages,
spotting Llamas, Vicunas and Alpacas (I was so taken I actually
had to have Alpaca steak for lunch, very tasty), dipping
ourselves in the hot springs (see I knew missing Banos in
Ecuador was no big deal!) and the next day of course spent time
at Cruz del Condor, watching these three-metre-wide majestic
birds floating on the thermals from the Canyon. Amazing
stuff.
The road to Colca Canyon
The next stop was Cusco,
second biggest city and tourism capital. feeling a
bit tired of the Geordies company I signed up for
two day trips (I know its not my style but I just wanted to chat
to somebody, anybody!). The first tour was of the Inca
ruins around Cusco (Sacsayhuaman, Qenko, Pukapkara and Tambo
Machay). There was a student teacher conference in Cusco
and on the tour I met four Peruvian girls, all student teachers
from Ayacucho. The tour was interesting, the ruins
impressive, and the company very enjoyable.They even bought my
dinner for me later, unheard of in this chivalrouscontinent! We
finished the night dancing till the wee hours and I returned to
my hostel. My second tour the next day was to the Sacred Valley,
more ruins at Pisac and Ollantaytambo, including some nice
walking (which is a whole different story at altitude, just
climbing the stairs causes respiration problems) and the town of
Chinchero. I managed to escape before the
Geordie was awake and I bumped into two of the teachers
again and after attending a variety show held at the University
we went out for more dancing until the sun began to rise. The
next day I explored the sights around Cusco centre itself, a
couple of disappointing museums, a couple of statues and some
churches, oh yeah, and a big Inca Wall.
Pisac from above
Which brings me to the centre
piece of my trip through Peru - The IncaTrail. The first
day was fairly easy walking, 12km in around 6 hours. It was a
good chance to get to know my group - Colin and Katrina from
Perth, Scotland (Colin being a big Neil Young fan obviously
scoring points with me!), Marcus from Brazil, Julie from the Big
Apple, Helen from the Lake District (via Glasgow, Belize and
Mexico) and Jen from England. In my experience on these
trips there is normally one person that drives you mad by the
end, but I am happy to say that this time I couldn't have asked
for a better platoon to trek with. That's not forgetting our
guide Jimmy (or Olmer to his friends) who ensured that the whole
trip exceeded all expectations, but back to Jimmy later. I
want to talk about the food on the Inca Trail. As I am
sure you allknow by now, for me its all about the food. On
the Inca Trail you get tasty breakfasts - e.g. porridge,
pancakes, toast and coffee (that's just one day), a packed lunch
- fruit, boiled sweets and a fruit juice, lunch - could be soup
followed by chicken salad and rice or perhaps pasta salad, rice,
potato stew and cold meats, just a while later is the afternoon
tea break, err... tea, biscuits and popcorn and finally dinner,
Lomo Saltado or maybe Spag Bol. Basically, you are eating or
drinking almost as much as you are walking! I certainly am
not used to this sort of diet on my usually ascetic budget!
Right, now that you are all hungry, back to the
trail. The first day ended with Marcus, Jimmy and myself
joining the locals at camp Wayallabamba for a hard fought game
of football. This is not a good idea at an altitude of 3000m,
though I think I did the English contingent proud with a
dedicated performance and managed to keep up with them for over
an hour. We were playing on a dirt pitch and after a couple of
hard tackles I was covered in muck, not to worry though, a
sympathetic local scrubbed me down afterwards!
The next morning I wasn't feeling quite so energetic, a bit of a
problem as Day 2 is "the hard one". It involves a
climb from 3000m to Dead Womans Pass at 4200m before dropping
down to the camp at 3600m, a trek of 12km. Amazingly, Colin and
I managed the ascent in a ridiculously short amount of time, I
am quite proud of that, and were amongst the first half a dozen
people to reach the first meeting point. Although it is
challenging, Day 2 is also short and there is no more trekking
after lunch, only an ice-cold shower to look forward to in the
afternoon.
El Camino Inca
Day 3 was the highlight of the
Trail for me. The morning is a beautiful trek up and down,
crossing the 2nd pass at the Inca ruins of Runkurakay, trekking
though cloud forest and up to the third pass. Every single
time you look up the scenery takes your breath away and you find
yourself having to stop just to take it all in. The
morning was stunning, the afternoon was exhilirating.
Jimmy took us on the "optional trail", a trek along
proper trails, skirting through pastures, gaining cover from the
tree line and catching a glimpse of Machu Picchu from across the
valley. It was proper Ashau Valley stuff ("when your
times up, your times up") and it filled me with an
incredible amount of energy, much to the perplexity of my
fellowgroup members (Sorry guys - I just couldn't keep it all
bottled up!). Still, at least there is an NCFC crest carved in
the dirt up there! After being fed yet again we celebrated
(almost) completing the Inca Trail with a few beers in the local
"bar" onsite, even corrupting a couple of porters into
joining us!
Final Day. Up at 4am, trekking in the dark, felt like some
sort offairytale, before reaching the Sun Gate for the first
proper view of Machu Picchu. The quick trek down to Machu
Picchu found me and Jimmy caught in a "lads"
conversation, culminating in Jimmy setting me up with a female
guide who I had pointed out to him earlier! Nice one. What can I
say about Machu Picchu - the ruins are pretty amazing, well
preserved for the most part and one is able to imagine how the
city used to operate. Not feeling too tired I joined Jen and
Marcus on the final hike up to Huayna Picchu mountain, just
behind Machu Picchu. I was in a hurry to meet up with
Elizabeth (the guide) as I had been chatting to her and found
out it was her birthday so I ran upthe mountain in 25 minutes
and raced two porters down in 20. Good work. I spent the
rest of the time chatting to Elizabeths group, joining them for
a drink and organising to meet her later that night - more
dancing after 4 days of trekking and sleeping in tents.
Our group came together for one last time to present Jimmy with
a token of our appreciation and I delivered a short speech to
thank Jimmy before getting the train back to Cusco. Returning
from Machu Picchu I indulged in a single room to myself to
escape the Geordie (I know that will shock some of you, used to
me saving every penny!) and went out to meet this guide for her
birthday. As it happened she never showed up, but that
didn't matter because, as is the way in Peru, I was soon picked
up by two other girls and spent another night dancing until dawn
before heading home, after a confusing round of taxi journeys.
Its a hard life this backpacking lark you know!
I spent one more day in Cusco before leaving the Geordie behind
for good and headed for Puno on Lake Titicaca. I did a two day
tour of some islands including the floating islands of Uros,
made entirely from the Tortura reed, woven a metre thick.
Not only is the island made out of it but everything on it -
furniture, houses and boats - and you can eat it as well.
We spent the night on Amantani and after a roll call that was
evocative of the alloting of refugees in WWII I stayed with a
local family on their "farm", including sheep, cows
and pigs! I was sharing with a French girl and in the
evening we had to dress up in local costume and go to the
Peruvian equivalent of a barndance! The second day we visited
another island - Taquile - for more breathtaking sights of the
lake and exhausting walks up hills before heading back to Puno.
My last night in Peru went the same way as many of the previous
ones. I was sharing a room with an American guy, Robert,
and we went out to a locals club, i.e. not one full of bored
looking gringos, and were soon dancing away in good
company. The night deteriorated however when Robert fell
down the stairs, covered himself with his drink and split his
arm open. The girls we were dancing with assumed he was
drunk (barracho) after too many beers (mucho cervezas)!!! The
night ended with us wandering home munching kebabs (sound
familiar). OK, so maybe this email is not as culturally
rich as my normal standard and contains more descriptions of
clubs, girls and drinks than ruins, cathedrals and roads but I
didn't find Peru to be as much of an amazing cultural experience
as most people do. Some countries just click and some
don't, nevermind, I am in Bolivia now and already feeling more
like my old self!
*You may be wondering why I chose Fools Gold by The Stone Roses
for the subject. Whilst on the trail I became aware of a
link between the lyrics, the video and the Inca Trail (of course
it was probably the Pennines!). I know the song talks
about fifteen days and the Inca Trail is only 4 but it took them
five years to make The Second Coming so its not inconceivable. I
don't know how many times I have quoted Ian Brown in the past,
but I know it is a lot. Maybe Brownie had more to say
than people think.
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