Road blocks and non stop travel

In reality while the Inca ruins that I experienced were huge and some of the achitecture/masonry work was amazingly impressive all in all the ruins inca ruins that I visited didn't blow me away as much as I thought they would.

After our zig zag walls near Cuzco I spent one day in the sacred valley visiting Pisac and Ollataytambo. The town of Ollataytambo was impressive in that a lot of inca stone work that remained was actually used as the first floor outer walls of the houses sorounding the plazes. They had some pretty interesting buildings which acted as refridgerators.

Proceeded onto Aguas Calientes and arrived at about 1030 pm and were asleep within 30 minutes.

After arising at 330am and walking up the mountain to Macchu picchu we entered the site within the first 25 people at 6am. While the mornign weather was absolutely awful we had secured our ticket to climb Wayna pichu (the mountain you see behind all the classic photos of MP) and off we went to explore in the mist. We were to lazy to return to the start of the site for a guide and so spent the morning guide hopping/stealing which was both informative and entertaining (but not amazingly subtle). Eventually the weather cleared and we hiked up the mountain for some great pictures and stunning views of the valley and the site itself. It really is huge and on top of the mountain is thoroughly entertaining at there are some huge boulders to sit on and the atmosphere of comraderie and hilarity compensated for the 1000 people at the site and 40 people up the top of the mountain with you. There were a pair of fluro coloured girls who had been told off for putting on zinc and wearing fluro coloured clothes to MP. Apparently it was theatre and they could be earning money for it (trust the peruvians not to support prevention of skin cancer). In fairness though about 50 people took photos of them and had they been locals they would have been charging for it. A couple of americans got in a bit of trouble becuase they had brought costumes up the mountain for halloween to get some pictures of them in costume at MP....luckily my cherry wangs didn’t count as “theatre”.

After 9 hours at the site we had thoroughly explored, stolen several chunks of information from a range of english and spanish speaking guides and were ready to head back down the mountain. The walk down was fun (especially considering pretty much everyone else caught the bus) and by the time we reached the train station we were rushed onto a train 30 minutes before the one we were supposed to catch.

As we hadn’t organised it in advance enough we’d been forced into buying the vistadome package rather than the backpackers (no food, no comfort) carriage. Not only did we get fed on a two hour train ride there was also a “cultural show” with a guy dancing down the ailse with a fake llama toy and a big sock over his head (bizarre) and then a fashion show of the real alpaca wool jumpers and shawls by the two carriage attendants (mildly entertaining).

In relation to MP it was hideously expensive including accomodation for the night before, entry and the train ticket it was almost 150US for the day but totally worth it and while it sounds as though there is going to be way too many people there it is a huge site and I didn’t find it that annoying.

Someone who soon became Fin’s new best friend (she got a little crazy after this) told her that there would be a break for the road blocks for the weekend as the government was entering into negotiations.

This began what was an entertaining 24 odd hours as after getting the earlier train and finding out that we weren´t going to be stuck in cuzco we found a relatively cheap bus direct from Ollataytambo to Cuzco (a local woman helped us bargain at which point Fin decide she deserved a hug and a kiss on the cheek) and then within 90 minutes of arriving in Cuzco we were on a night bus toward the boarder. After reading several blogs that week and speaking to people who had attempted to cross the road blocks I was astounded when I woke up in Puno not having noticed a thing. People faced rocks being thrown at their busses. Incidental police tear gas exposure and some of being told that if they walked 5 ks with their luggage they would find taxis only to find themselves 5 hours later back in a bus returning to their original destination). We were so fast asleep we didn’t even see the remnants of a road block.

Spent a pleasant morning in Puno bus station (not expected or intended) and then hopped accross the boarder with ease....the Peruvian’s didn’t put you through a computer and the Bolivian’s barely looked to see if I was the same person as my passport photo.

Arrived in Copacabana and hopped on a boat direct into Lake titicaca and after 24 hours of travel had a chance to catch my thoughts. The island of the sun’s northern community is really quite beautiful and pleasant the more touristy southern town is pretty foul but we only spent a very short time there. Stayed one night on the island at about 3800 metres about sea level. The hostel was quite pleasant even though their verson of running water was filling up the water tank on top of the house everytime anyone had a shower.

Rose for sunrise the next morning which was particularly dissapointing. Hated the sunrise I expected stunning and all I got was mediocrely beautiful (should ahve stayed in bed). However once the sun rose and we’d set off on our walk down the island I settle down and began to really appreciate the beauty and also doing a walk at a leisurely pace that wasn’t either ascending a mountain or descending to a valley.

Loved island of the sun.

Had an entertaining time with the locals. After paying the fee to see the ruins on the island (supposed birth place of the inca’s god) we proceeded to run into a bevvy of more locals trying to claim a bit of cash off the tourists for nothing. I had no problem with the meals which we paid for, the water that was slightly more expensive than on the mainland but when someone is just trying it on and they print out tickets for the purpose it puts me off a bit.

The south had 3 different posts collecting money and Fin and I flatly refused to pay any of it. They just all looked well dodgy like they were trying it on. The worst one was the you have to pay to enter the south end of the island but they tried to make us pay it when we were leaving to get onto the boat. After careful consideration I still reckon they were just trying it on but they were making a mint off it. One of them had the unfortunate experience of trying to block Fin’s path and while he had had heated arguments with other tourists who thought it was a load of crap, he soon gave up when it came to Fin.

Proceeded onto La Paz and after an hour on the bus the bus stopped and everyone started to get off. I asked one of the locals que paso. Basically they told us that we needed to cross something (I didn’t quite catch what). At which point we all left the bus. Fin and I were a bit confused but then something clicked and I remembered we had to cross some body of water which the bus couldn’t do full. At this point we hopped out into the freezing cold wind of another area of lake titicaca turned round the corner and proceeded to see vehicles being loaded onto rather shaky looking barges which could only manage one car (they were about two buses wide and 1.5 busses long). They were powered by a couple of small motors and I just didn’t understand how they could guarantee that busses wouldn’t fall in considering how choppy the water was. We popped accross in a motor boat and after about 45 minutes our bus eventually made it off on the other side. Totally bizarre loved it although it was too dark for decent photos.

We then proceeded onto La paz and stayed a night in a filthy hotel.

Stayed tuned for my visit to the San pedro prison.