to go back to our homepage
9th March 21st Century, Thursday
Lima, Peru
Despite a pretty "ordinary" reputation, Lima is OK - on a totally different planet from the rest of Peru, but there's worse places to spend a few days. Great place if you´ve got a fetish for electrified wire, razor spike fences and the omnipresent shotgun wielding security guard. Having said this, we've seen no trouble, and haven't been hassled. Haven't seen any felt hatted Indian women either! We're staying in a good place "Friends House" - US$5 per person, in Miraflores, 5 minutes from the "beach" (just don't get any delusions about wanting to get in the water!)
Particularly cool is the Gold Muesum - the underground vault has got literally thousands of gold masks, cups (the Inca kings only ever drank from the same cup once), gold walls, nuggets and a really out-there collect of ancient porno pottery. In the ancient world they played three /four / lots-somes, same team, toys and even the pet dog got in on the action. Much like today..... Upstairs in this place was a Arms Muesum (as in weapons) - there were 10,000's of knives, guns, daggers, lances, blunder buses, swords, armour, Castro's AK-47, Hilters dagger, etc, etc - enough firepower to arm most of Central & South America (even though most of the stuff was WW II and older). After half an hour I got "gun fatigue" (Nika lasted considerably less!) and came back to the hostel, borrowed a "bike"** and rode around the Lima beachfrount. Great views, but the water is filthy and the sky a perpetual grey / blue.
** This "bike" must have been made circa 1800, forged from discarded naval cannons and retro-fitted with the (then) new wonderous invention of 'rubber tires!!'. The bars were so reclined my hands were beside my knees when riding. Cool! Not the beast for Red Hill though.
Managed to get on a plane to the US tomorrow - originally we were going with United, but they pulled out of Peru last week - must have heard we were coming. Adios South American - hello hyper calorie meals!!
7th March 21st Century, A much more civilised houur, Tuesday
Cusco, Peru
Amazing the recuperative powers of a big breakfast! Almost feel human again ... just need to get some clothes back from the laundry, and well, we could appear "normal".
The Inca trail was fantastic! We went with a local company "United Mice" who were outstanding - really recommend them!! Our guide was a great bloke, the gear good and the food awesome - there was so much of it and it was so good, we gained(!?!) weight over the four days of trekking. It was so good, the porters must have carried a full kitchen over the trail - didn't see it thought!
Day One was an ungodly pick-up at 5:30am and a 2 1/2 hour "get to know you" bus ride with the other 11 gringos in our group - a great bunch of Germans, Norwegian, Americans and two Aussie girls who had been up drinking with Ernie Dingo until 3am. The days walk was an easy 6 hours, climbing slightly from 2380m to 3000m. Horrific highlight was watching this 80 year old (+ extra bonus wrinkles!) Indian gandmother trying to spread the entrails of a llama (or some unfortunate other beast) over a rock to dry in the sun - then - choke - retch - gasp - the wind started to blow her skirts up. No God! Please! We don't need to see this! But there is no mercy for the wicked, and the wind continued to blow, and we learned old Indian women don't wear undies. Uhhhmmmmm
Day Two started at 5:30am (sadism is part of this trip) with a gruelling 4 hour trek straight up "Hell's StairMaster" to a 4200m pass. With awesome foresight we hired local porters to carry (more literally "run") our packs to the top - even unlaiden it was a lung buster. Just on the other side of the top, it started thumping down rain - fortunately the porters had set up a lunch tent, our guide produced a great bottle of rum (strictly "medicinal") and we waited out the downpower in great style. At this point we were really appreciating the luxury of going with a tour company - it was sadistically cool to watch the people who were trekking the trail on their own stagger by in the rain, lumbered with all their gear, dreading the eventuality of having to errect their own wet tents and huddle over a gas cooker trying to heat baked beans. Post the rain it was 3km downhill, followed by 2km's of steps to a breath-taking campsite overlooking the trail we'd just staggered over. Another benefit of going with a good company is their porters literally run ahead (laiden with about 40kgs of gear!!) and secure the best campsites. We're turning into trekking snobs (slobs?).
Day three started out fine (at 5:30am again....), but by 8am started to rain, and rain, and rain (and rain). Despite being wrapped in enough layers of plastic to shrink wrap the entire meat departments of several supermarkets, we all got pretty soaked. It didn't stop raining until late in the evening when we reached the campsite at 2700m. There are some fascinating ruins there - an ancient Inca experimental farm made up of dozens of terraces cut into a really steep hill, and some really interestig temples & ritual baths (the Incas were really into cleanliness - something that they love to contrast against the comparable great unwashed European history!)
Day four started at a Satanic 3:30am - getting dressed and packed up inside a pitch black micro-tent whilst still 99% asleep was "challenging" - I've now a new found empathy for animals who are carried around in sacks! The upside to this pain was a gloriously clear night which slowly lightened into a crystal clear dawn (after about an hour of stumbling in the dark along a thin rock trail with huge drops on one side - what we couldn't see definately could hurt us!). The first view of Machupicchu was from the Sun Gate - this was still a few hundred meters above and two or so km's from the site - unlike the impression given in photos, the site is actually on one of the lower ridges of a mountain range - it was awesome looking down on it. We arrived just outside the site at 7am, and took 000's of photos during the sunrise (& it was deserted - no tourists allowed in until 8am). Breathtaking! Wow! Superlatives! More superlatives! Must see! On the crack of 8am we rushed in, and crawled everywhere - awesome place - only around 1000 people lived there, but the ruins are in great condition and the view looking up to the surrounding mountains was simply awe inspiring!
Post the ruins crawl we climbed Huayna Picchu ("young mountain" - the one in the backdrop of all the Machupicchu photos). This was a "brief jog" 700m straight up (more like a quadruple heart attack actually..), where our group showed our "butt-er" sides to the world (this is worth a look!!). By the time we got back to the main ruins they were literally infested with hundreds of day trippers - it really pays to go early!
We then (literally) ran down serval thousand stairs to the base village (been watching too many porters pass us!) - got smashed in a restuarant right by the railway tracks, stuffed ourselves onto a train, and then went out that nite until God knows what hour and got way trashed. Neat!
Today is a chill out day - having lunch with everyone, doing washing, watching videos, sitting in cafes drinking (real!!) coffee - all prior to going out hard again tonite. Tomorrow we're on a sparrow flight to Lima, then on Friday to USA (to spend all our money, so we come back destitute and broke - cool - always wondered what it will be like to be "spiritual" ie broke!)
7th March 21st Century, Very Late At Night (Early In Morning?), Tuesday
Cusco, Peru
Got up yesterday morning at 3:30am to hike to Machupicchu - had awesome day there!!!! Unbelievably cool spot!!!! Now 1:30am next morning - have not been to bed - in some wild crazy sleezy quite neat Peruivan nite club - had way too many Cuba Libras - too smokey - need air - beer is strang¿ly refreshing - Germans are going freaky on dance floor - going to sleep until 5 million o'clock tomorrow - then big breakfast!!! - brain fade - uuuugghhhhhhhhhh
2nd March 21st Century, Thursday
Cusco, Peru
Wow - TEN months today since we left Australia! Must have a drink tonite to celebrate (just for something different!). Wierd, feels like a) we were in Sydney only a few weeks ago (amazing how up to date email & the net keeps us) & b) we've been gone ages and been to thousands of places - it feels like we were in Turkey a few years ago!! Enough D&M...
We're currently in Cusco "gringo town" - civilisation! There's great coffee here, free movies and cafes - with magazines in ENGLISH!!!! Never thought I'd be reading & luxuriorating in a 10 year old Marie Claire so much. They just don't do hairstyles and power dressing like that anymore (mercifully). Cusco is cool, but one of the most touristed towns in S.America - there's a great bar scene, with free drink offers to get us inside - the logic is "after a four nip drink each, they're not going anywhere". It works..
Cusco was the center of the Inca civilisation, and was home to such goodies as the Temple Of The Sun, which was coated in literally tonnes of gold & silver. Enter the kindly Dominicans, who "converted" the masses, stole all the gold, and literally erased 98% of knowledge of the Inca religion and customs. Oh, "Dominican" literally means "dogs of god" - their speciality was breeding large dogs that used to treat the locals like Pal (the dog food, not friends!). We saw the few remaining walls of the Sun Temple (which were revealed in the 1950's when an earthquake knocked down much of a church which the kindly Dominicans built over it). Awesome structure - shame so little of it is left!
By contrast, the main catherdal here is one of the most decadent we've seen (and we've been to Spain & Italy!). The Catholic grip here has been so strong, that the peasants would literally freeze, giving the money they had saved for a vital blanket to the church. Uhmmmm - enough said. One really cool thing in the church was a Jesus, whose skin was made of llama skin - over the ages he has slowly turned black - reverse Michael Jacksonism.
Ancient Cusco was laid out like the side profile of a puma, except that it didn't have a head. Well, the Inca king didn't want to upset the Sun God (who was the only one who could see this in the days pre-aircraft). Not a problem that time, money (& conscripted labour) couldn't fix - he had the side profile of the pumas head built from literally 000,000's of huge stones (and the surrounding hill leveled to ensure the god could see it clearly). This site Saqsaywaman is awesome! The stones are huge (up to 120 tonnes!), there's thousands and thousands of them, and they are fitted together with such precision that I couldn't slide a sheet of paper into the joints - they didn't use any mortar either. Stunning engineering and stone masonary! Nowdays, anticipating the advent of air travel, the Sun God has obliterated the puma profile in urban sprawl.
We're perfecting our begger / street merchant juijitsu - the ancient and noble art of deflecting / foiling approaches for our $$$ with the subbtlest body movements (flick of fingers, eyebrow twist, etc) using the perpetrators own force against them. We're coming up for our third dan grading soon! I haven't had to resort to using weaponery (my umbrella) yet. They may lack the charm and sophistication of the Turkish carpet sellers, but make up for this in sheer numbers and desparation! I'd wake up screaming if my house was full of the stuff they were selling!
We're leaving for the Inca trail tomorrow - actually really looking forward to the walk. It ends up in Machupicchu - long walk at four days, but not too bad as appart from the second day it's mainly downhill, and Machupicchu is only at 2400m - this is almost like being at sea level compared to the altitudes we've spent the last six weeks at! Should be cool!
Later that nite....
28th February 21st Century, Monday
Puno, Peru
The new taste sensation of the (Western) Universe! Alpaca with chips! Called locally "Lomo", this dish rocks! And an added bonus - they're really cute wandering around in the fields
** They're playing Lenny Kravitz at the moment ** Life is good....
The BEST Things About Bolivia
* Huge cactus on "Isla de la Pescador"
* Chewing / drinking / talking about coca
* Trek from La Paz to Corocico
* Awesome views / videos / pool at Hostel Esmeralda
* We were "millionaires"
* Brightly coloured bags & rugs
* Excellent gringo travel circuit
* Uyuni 4-wheel drive trip
* Double feature movies for A$2
* Continual high altitude buzz / drain (over 3900m)
* Incredibly cheap to get smashed
* Felt bowler hats worn by Indian women
* Babies & everything carried in brightly coloured shawls on backs
* Omnipresent "pollo broaster con papas fritas"
* Going to prison in La Paz
* Eating lunch & sunbaking on Inca sacrifical altar - Island of the Sun
* Great song "Llorando se fue"!
The WORST Things About Bolivia
* Stench of llama herders
* Desperate beggers
* Hell's own "roads"
* Omnipresent smell of sewerage
* Long distance bus trips
* "Bolivian time" (anything from 15 mins to 5 hours)
* Locals are a rather grim bunch
* What's biting us now?
28th February 21st Century, Monday
Puno, Peru
There are some things you just can't get at home.... last nite Nika was wandering around a small supermarket and came across a can of "Fillet de Fanny". Another untapped marketing opportunity to bring back to Australia!
27th February 21st Century, Sunday
Puno, Peru
What a difference crossing a boarder makes - we slid out of Bolivia on a mud "road" (even "track" is being too kind actually) across into Peru onto a sealed road - without potholes! The amazement and delight grew when we hit the first town and there wasn't the (Boliviain) omnipresent sewerage running down the street and the hords of desperate llama herders cum beggers. Wow! This is probably giving Bolivia an unfair rap - there's some really cool things to do there, but the place sure does have its problems!!!
On our last day in Bolivia we took a cruise to the Island of the Sun which was awesome! The island is a dramatic barren 15km or so long, and famous for being the birthplace of many notables, the sun (really! Christianity mustn't have got it quite right), a vengeful bearded white god Viracocha, and the "Adam & Eve" Incas. Their descendents were into human sacrifice, and left a few really nifty sacrifical altars which today are surprisingly warm and comfy to sunbath on, if just a little freaky... The hike from the top to the bottom of the island was well worth doing - stunning scenery, accentuated by the 3900m oxygen debt. L1 & L2 (our pet Lizards) loved this place!
Also heard one of the best marketing terms ever! When you can't afford geniune alpaca wool clothes, you can luxuriate in "poly-alpaca"! This must be the best name for nylon I've ever heard! Neat! Accept no substitute! I want to buy some just for the label!
In Puno we've just got back from an all day cruise to the floating islands (Uros) and beyond. These islands are about 50m square and are made of layers of reeds which slowly sink only to be topped up with more reeds thrown on top. Living on them would be a life of perpetual damp! Wandering around on them is like being on a giant trampoline with the added excitement of knowing you could plunge through a weak spot and do a Peruvian version of the guy who fell through the ice in one of the Omen movies. The other evironmental hazard on these islands were the hords of locals (about 50 of them) who make their living by selling tourists souveniers. Actually these people had three things going for them; they weren't too pushy, their stuff was actually quite good and cheap, and lastly they didn't herd llamas. We even had a ride in one of the reed boats, complete with Inca dragon head - cruisy, but they become waterlogged and sink after about six months! Less with our lard on them. Later in the day we visited Isla Taquite, which has set itself up as a giant commune where 2500 Indians live in communal bliss - everyone shares the farming land, profits from the restuarants, communial markets and there's no police and (claimed) crime. From what we saw it seems to work - it was really clean and everyone was hyper-happy - first time in South America! Both places were definately worth the trip!
Tomorrow we're off to some really old inverted conical shaped tombs (still can't quite picture this yet!), and then hit the road to Cusco. Right now must go and consume more of the omnipresent roast chicken and chips. And yes, it is my money belt visible under my shirt in our scanned photos (with, well, a just little bit of chicken / beer assisted waistline growth).
to go back to our homepage