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Peru

The first thing that Boomer, our trip leader/driver/mechanic, did after entering this country was to give us all his "Peru is a dangerous place" speech. It was needed, Peru was, for a tourist, a dangerous place.

Lake Titicaca

We drove to the coast of lake Titicaca, where we left the truck and took a boat across to Anamtami island (15 39 56.14 S, 69 42 42.66 W). The trip across was bumpy, as even though this was a fresh water lake, the waves were quite large. I started out sat at the bows of the boat, in the little cabin, but after watching water leak down the wooden sides of the hull for a bumpy two hours, I moved to the open rear of the boat. Here the ride was far better, although I did get wet from the spray.

We stayed on the island with a local Indian family for the night. After eating our meal with them, we went to their "village hall" for a bit of a dance. After that, it was back to our respective family houses (adobe brick with thatched reed roofs) and some sleep. My bed was a raised adobe platform with my sleeping mat on top.

The next morning we explored the island, some went to the top of the hill to see the Indian tomb. Unfortunately I was suffering from a case of "runnie bum", and so kept close to "my" house (it had a toilet). This was a great pity as the parts of the island that I saw were really beautiful.

After visiting Anamtani island, we took a train to Cuzco, while Boomer drove the truck. This was done because of bandit troubles on that particular road, which meant that Boomer and Jonesie (co-driver) had to drive non-stop to Cuzco. We meantime were enjoying the first class carriage on our train ride. The trip was great, with some great views, and mid-day meal thrown in. We were warned not to allow anybody out of the locked first class carriage, as this was one way that theives gained access. During our trip, one of the other passengers (local) did unlock the door, but we quickly re-locked it again, and our journey wasn't interrupted by theives.

Cuzco

At Cuzco railway station we had been told that the truck would be waiting for us, and not to bother with a taxi. Of course, the truck wasn't waiting for us, it was late. Some of my fellow passengers started talking about taking a taxi to the hotel. Thankfully, Jonesie turned up in the truck before this could take place. Our hotel turned out to be on the one of the main squares, and had one wall that hailed from an earlier Inca building.

Cuzco (13 31 00.26 S, 71 58 43.95 W) is a great place to get things done. I managed to get my clothes laundered, money changed and letters sent. The food was good, which was a nice change from some of the "interesting" meals cooked on the truck (lentil lasagna comes to mind. The cook group that particular night learnt, too late, that the lentils needed soaking overnight first). But all the time I was there my guts kept playing up. The random way in which running water was available (a few hours a day) made toilet trips somewhat unpleasant.

Cuzco, as well as being a good place to catch up on chores, was also handy for the Inca ruins of Sacsathuaman, some white water rafting and the start of the Inca trail up to Machu Pichu. The Inca ruins of Sacsathuaman were like all ruins that we visited in South America, it had a large (sometimes enormous) Christian cross planted right in the middle of it. I suppose it was a way for the missionaries to tell the indigenous peoples that the "new" Christian god had defeated their "old" god.

White water rafting was great fun, even though the river was only a beginners grade. Perhaps white water is the wrong word, as the river was used as a sewer, so perhaps it would be better to say the I'd been brown water rafting. Still great fun though.

Inca trail

Immediately after the rafting we started out on the Inca Trail. This starts easily enough , but soon gets tough as it takes in two passes, both over 13000 feet (4000m). Some of the Inca trail that it follows is little more than a rocky animal track. To add to my burden I still was suffering from my case of "runnie bum" (had been since lake Titicaca) and on top of this, I most was definitely unfit. Fortunately we had employed the services of some porters to carry most of our stuff (personal kit, tents, food etc.), leaving us westerns to struggle with our lightweight day-sacks.

The routine for the next two days was to be woken up each morning with a hot cup of coca tea (helps with the effects of the altitude), followed by breakfast (which I couldn't eat), then the trudge along mountainous trail. The porters meanwhile would pack up the tents, then sprint past us (they with a huge load on their backs and me with nothing - after the first day, I carried only a water bottle, the camera in my day-sack was to heavy!), and prepare our mid-day meal (which, thanks to my runnie bum, I also didn't touch). The afternoon slog was, for me, much like the morning one, hard going. Most of the trail was up 30+ ° rocky trails, in pouring rain and low cloud. The porters, after clearing up the mid-day camp site, would again sprint past us to get to the night's campsite. Here they would have the tents pitched, and a hot cup of coca tea waiting for us slow westerners, when we eventually got in. They then cooked our evening meal (which, again I did not touch) and cleared up afterwards.

I would like to describe the wonderful scenery that I saw on the trail, but, it being November, it rained constantly and most of the time I trudged in fog (low cloud). It reminded me of training that I had done in the airforce in the Welsh mountains.

On the last night we stayed at a mountain lodge, where, as usual, we westerners took all the available hot water for showers and washing, while the porters smoked and drank beer, waiting to be paid.

The clouds did lift for our arrival at Machu Pichu, the end of the Inca Trail. So I got the "full on view" of the ruins as I made my way along the last, precipitous, trail. I was the last of our group to make it to the ruins, and after I left the narrow trail, I looked back, alerted by a rumbling noise, and watched as a boulder, the size of a bus, crashed down the mountain side, hitting the spot I had been trudging some 30 minutes earlier. It wiped out the trail. I watched it as it carried on down the mountainside, wheeling through thin air, ending up in the river far below.

The ruins were everything I had expected. I only wish that I had been less exhausted, so that I could have properly explored them. As it was, I had to let the standard tourist tour surfice.

While at the visitor's centre I visited their doctor, with Judith along for moral support, and he prescribed some heavy duty antibiotics, to get rid of my "runny bum".

Needless to say, after three days of hard slog over the mountains, taking in only water, no food, I had lost about two stone (28 pounds/12kg). It was the thinest I'd been for years!

After clambering down from the ruins to the river valley below, we left Machu Pichu by the local train, that runs along the valley, to Agua Calientes (13 09 11.54 S, 72 31 21.81 W); which, as the name suggests, is the site of some hot springs. Here we stayed at a "random hotel" made by Gringo Bill. I say "random" because Bill, a 60s surfer who had left the States to evade the draft and never bothered going back, had built first one room, then another then another ... He hadn't followed any particular design, just placed the individual rooms of his hotel more or less randomly on a hill side.

We met Gringo Bill that evening, while we sat around his "Aga" stove, drinking beer and keeping dry out of the pouring rain (fortunately he had seen fit to put covered walk ways between the rooms of his hotel, so we didn't get wet going to bed that night). Bill seemed contented with his life away from the States and the sea, but he was planning on moving away from Peru to Brazil.

S&M nunnery

Reunited with the truck (Jonesie had stayed with it while we trekked over the mountains, and had a very relaxing few days without us) we then drove to the coast and the S&M nunnery (Monasterio de Santa Catalina (16 23 42.79 S, 71 32 12.21 W) in Areqipe. This was a fascinating place that we were shown round by noviete nuns. It had been a place where, for centuries, the daughters of wealthy families were sent to be nuns (normally the second born daughter, as the first born daughters were married off to men from the right families). These nuns would, through their prayers, secure heavenly salvation for both themselves and their entire family. This gave these women a great deal of power, if very little freedom. This power was used to get them the very latest European furniture for their nunnery cells, which were quite grand. Life for the nuns was quite easy, as each had her own personal servant - a local Inca Indian slave girl - who, as well as her domestic duties within the nunnery, was allowed into town for shopping and other chores. Occasionally these slave girls would become pregnant, but they were not be allowed to keep the child. Any girl child was raised to become a servant in the nunnery, while boys were trained to read and write - as slaves with such skills brought a high price on the markets. The small spartan rooms, where the slaves lived, had none of the luxuries of the nun's quarters, and also no Christian crucifixes; as it was thought that as they had dark skins they had no souls, so it would have been a waste of time to try and save them. These, most un-Christian, practises only came to an end in the mid-eighteen hundreds; when the Pope finally found out about the place and sent a new abbess out from Rome, to bring the nuns into line with papal doctrine.

Mortification of the flesh was practised, by some of the nuns. And an amazing collection of (self) torture equipment was on show. Hence my crack about the "S&M nunnery". There were various scourges and hair shirts, as well as vests made from chain mail with small inward pointing spikes.

The nuns, however, were not permitted to harm other leaving creatures, not even a flea. So, on show, was a narrow necked bottle half full of decades old dead fleas. The fleas had been plucked, alive, from the nuns' bodies and placed in the bottle, for God to decide their fate. In every case he decided that the flea should die. Funny that.

Nazca lines

No trip to Peru would be complete without visiting the Nazca lines, made famous by Erich von Daniken in his book "Chariots of the Gods". The serious archaeological work had been done, not by von Daniken (who was a nutter), but by an amazing lady called Maria Reiche. Maria had spent fifty years of her life mapping the lines and protecting them from modern day vandalism. We met her sister, who gave talks in a local hotel and sold copies of Maria's books.

The flight over the lines (14 41 38.79 S, 75 06 51.32 W) in an ageing Cessna was exilerating. The pilot banked steeply over each figure, shouting out the name, and some times the figure actually looked like what he was shouting about.

Nearby was a burial site, where the sands had blown away from the seated mummies, who now sat on and not beneath the ground. Previously some students, on a visit from their school, had taken the long bones (leg and arm) from some of the bodies and spelt out, in the sand, the name of their institution!

From Nazca we drove to Lima. Here the warnings about Peru came true. Those careless enough to wear their wrist watches in the street (even cheap and cheerful watches) had them literally torn from their wrists. We all walked around in groups, trying to keep an eye on each other.

Breakfast

After a month on the road, a couple of us decided to treat ourselves. We had breakfast at the Lima Sheraton hotel. We didn't stay there, only had there buffet breakfast (US $15 a head). They served bacon (real bacon) and eggs and sausage and eggs and bacon and... well you get the idea (did I mention the bacon?). We ate for two hours! The waiters kept on having to fill the chaffing dishes, as we kept on emptying them. It was glorious.

North of Lima we explored the ruins of Chan Chan (08 06 28.73 S, 79 04 30.09 W) at Huanchaco. Here the Chimu people had lived, until overrun by the Incas. Most of the mud brick ruins were little more than indistinct mounds of dry mud, but some had been rebuilt (such as the dragon temple shown in the photo).

On our way further north we spent a windy, sand blown night on the beaches at Cabo Blanco (04 14 55.51 S, 81 13 25.51 W), where Hemingway was reputed to have written the "Old man and the sea". Out at sea now there are only oil rigs. The beach was home to numerous nodding donkey oil pumps, and despite their steady thump thump thump I found no problems getting to sleep that night. Because we had forgotten to do a food shop that day, we had to buy some salt fish from a small local village. No matter how much we tried to wash the salt from it before cooking, all you could taste was salt.

As the wind got up, I busied around my tent, trying to make the pegs hold the ground (sand) better. Night had already fallen and my only light was my mini-maglight, held in my mouth as I worked. Just as I'd finished adjusting my tent, the torches bulb blew. By the light of the truck I quickly replaced the bulb, but couldn't help but think what it would have been like if the bulb had blown when I was alone in the silver mine in Pottosi.

Palm trees

The drive north to Ecuador was long and dusty. We knew that the border was upon us when, suddenly, the desert, that we had been driving through for weeks, gave way to tropical palm trees and greenery (this marked the point where the southerly Humbolt current swept away from the shore allowing the warm tropical sea current to effect the climate). The two border posts were 10km (6 miles) and the road (tarmacadamed) between them was filled with street traders. Quite who they paid their taxes to, I never found out, but so many people were in the street shopping and generally milling about, that Jonesie (our co-driver) had to get out and walk in front of the truck clearing the way.