Oct 2008

Dashed out of Lima on an afternoon bus to Nazca.

Met an aussie (very friendly) who because of a pre booking on the inca trail (the limited "intimate" inca trek that you do to macchu picchu with 500 other people) was taking a bus from somewhere in the south of ecuador to cuzco. It took him almost 2 days on a bus yay how fun.

He was really nice and by the time I reached Cuzco he actually ended up randomly staying in the same hostal as me.

While altogether friendly david seemed a little crazy (and rightly so due to the lenght of his bus journey) but he was a trouper and kept me entertained so loved him.

At this stage Fin and I had split for a day so I was supposed to sleep in the same hostel the night before our flight over Nazca.

Unfortunately the hostel was full (or so short steve told me so) but in actuality it was just midnight and he couldn´t be bother making anymore beds so he sent us across the road.

In the morning Fin and I spent about 4 or 5 hours waiting for our flight (seriously these people just don't have to be organised cause everyone wants to do one thing while they are in nazca and they aren't going to leave without doing it).

When we flew in out 6 person teeny tiny plane I got see sick but apart from that was astounded with the nazca lines. AMAZING. A pain in the ass with the waiting reasonably expensive (60 dollars for 30 minutes) but I LOVED IT.

My favourite was probably the spider I think or the monkey. They were just bizarre. Usually I would hate someone telling me this phenomenom is a mystery cause it usually wouldn´t impress me but for these there is nothing you can say. Did they know how to build hot air balloons...cause if they didn't how did they construct these perfect straight and curved lines into figures and more importantly why would they if they couldn't go up and see them for themselves?

We had an afternoon to kill in nazca so I tried ceviche (of course with a glass of white wine).

It was a hot afternoon and so this was the perfect meal for me. Ceviche is fish which isn´t cooked but is marinated in lemon juice with a bit of chilli and some other stuff which i wasn't exactly sure about. It was divine. I LOVED it. Served with cold sweet potato to nuetralise the acidic flavour from time to time it is by far my favourite local dish.

Then we had a bit of a pre bus ride drinking sessions (pisco sours and sangria) muchly fun.

Off to Cuzco on my most painful night bus. The stewardess must have thought we deserved a night in hell and put the heating up way too high. It was painful until I went and abused her in my sleepy slurry spanish.

Arrived in Quito to organise our stuff for our next trek to Choquequirao.

Rented another tent from Gladis the twat. She tried to insist that I pay for everything up front and while I should have taken this as a warning that the tent was a piece of .... I just insisted on paying on return.

Choquequirao is a ruin which can only be reached by walking. It is at about 3000 metres and this wouldn´t be a problem except that in between the closests towns and the ruins there is the apurimac river which runs at about 1500 metres. Because of this I spent three of the most physically challenging days of my life in the Apurimac valley.

We arrived in a sleepy little town called Cachora to start our trek on Friday afternoon and fell in love with it. It was quaint with huge lines of pigs trotting down the main square and just genuinely friendly locals as opposed to those in cuzco who just had to sell you something for 1 sol.

The town was then tainted once we were dragged into a local watering hole to share a bit of beer with a couple of drunks. After a few minutes we made every attempt to leave there as quickly as possible and they seemed perturbed that we wouldn't perpetuate some bullshit about "andian duality" and needing to buy the next beer but the problem was averted with ease.

Had our last warm meal and set off on our hike at 7am. After ascending about 300 vertical metres in about 2.5 hours we proceeded to begin the 1500 metre descent to the apurimac. It took us forever and was so painful. We then decided to finsih of the day in style and climb another 7-800 vertical metres so we didn't have to do it all the next day.

When it rains in the apurimac valley it pours. It was awesome when I could see rain coming from about a km away just slowly drifting in. When it started to come through the top of our rental tent I began to cry. Luckily Fin was in her action jackson mode got a plastic sheet and covered the top. My bed mat was wet by I was relatively dry and we survived the night muttering abusive phrases in spanish in our sleep about Gladis.

Day two I awoke with the unexcepted stomach sickness. I will spare you the details but i basically climbed 7-800 metres very very slowly and in a considerable amount of discomfort.

We then popped across the ridge top set up our dodgy tent again.

Visited the ruins which were awesome. They had a main plaza which was just stunning to sit in and look over both side of the ridge top. A helicopter pad (actually a ritual platform for llama sacrifice) and some other temples, houses and terraces. It was huge and totally worth visiting LOVED IT. There were also only 5 people there while we were there in ruins which took us about 3 hours to visit (and we didn't even see it all)

Day 3

Started walking at 6:10 am and descended the 1500 metres to the river again (different crossing) then began the painful 800 metres of ascent in the hot mid morning sun. We baked and by 3:00 we reached our destination stinking hot, sweaty and a little worse for wear. We then proceeded to spend 7 hours in taxis returning to cuzco...fun fun fun.

All in all the trek was an adventure. I really had to put all my mental energy into keeping going on all three days and despite the fact I was sick for the second day I would recommend anyone who wanted to do this trek to think twice. After thinking twice still go just make sure you are mentally prepared.

Spent a day pottering around cuzco museums organising stuff etc. Then spent today pottering around inca ruins in the area.

Found an Indian restaurant and after not having a curry for almost 3 months decided I would indulge which turned out to be a bad and good decision. Bad cause the curry was awful but good because it seemed like we were the local pobre (poor) backpackers that everyone wanted to take pity on. First someone crossed the floor of the restaurant to give us their lucky door tickets cause they were about to leave. Then when we didn't win the lucky door prize the people who did, didn't want the bottle of wine they won so they crossed the floor of the restaurant and gave that to us.....bad food free wine= loved it.

Got on a bus to about 8 km outside of cuzco at 8 am. Visited a couple of ruins then proceeded to have breakfast (avocado, tomato and cheese rolls oh so tasty) within an incan ruin (it was really windy so it made good cover and it was supposed to be a rest ruin where people ate when on their way to cuzco so really we were maintaining tradition).

Visited a place called the temple of the moon which is one of the very few incan ruins built inside a rock face rather than on top of. Loved that (seeing a spot where moonlit comes in through the roof of an underground temple onto a platform where they used to sacrifice llamas increased my interest).

Proceeded onto saqsaqwaman which is quite near to cuzco and has huge zig zag outer walls which apparently are supposed to be part of the design of cuzco as a whole. Cuzco was supposed to be in the shape of a jaguar and these zig zag outer walls of this ruin/fotress are supposed to be the teeth of the Jag. The ruin itself was huge and very interesting and after a short stroll more we were back in cuzco.

Loved the ruins around cuzco as well

BUT so far HATE Cuzco, it is very cute archeologically but the people are just out to rake any cash in from the tourists that they can. I have found out that everything in the plaza that someone is selling is one sol. Absolutely everything....and as we heard one Irish woman say to a young peruvian girl who was trying to flog a doll "honey don't sell yourself so short".

I have never said estamos bien (we're fine) so many times.

Onto the sacred valley and then machu pichu soon and then too bolivia...assuming these road blocks are removed some time in the near future.

So the hostel we are staying at isn't really a hostel more just a guys apartment with a person (we have nicknamed stoner steve) permanently inside who answers the door.

It is sufficient and within miraflores which is a great location and we are still only paying 5 us dollars a night.

Lima has been a binge of Japanese food, triple sandwiches (egg salad, avocado and tomato with 3 pieces of bread), great ice cream and white wine.

Went to a couple of very interesting museums, one which had a photography exhibit of the very violent 20 year struggle between the socialist “terrorist/liberationist”, the state and rural farmers who banded together to defend themselves.

Also another museum which had an erotic pottery art exhibit which was well funky. The Chimu´s have a sense of humour and imagination as well.

The weather has been great and Fin and I are still going strong even though I have demanded jap for dinner two night in a row (she is vegetarian but starting to get into her sushi).

Today was a leisurely Sunday morning stroll followed by a coffee and then paragliding. This was rad!

Looking town on private clubs with tennis courts and pools was fun. Cruising right past the top level of the Marriott was more fun.

The landing and take off was so smooth I really had nothing to be scared of. We waltzed up didn’t sign a waiver got strapped in and the guy said all you have to know is run toward the cliff. When we actually tried to run toward the cliff we were already being lifted off the ground so there were no issues. It was a little bit disappointing that we didn’t get to jumped off the cliff but it was still exhilarating.

Fin also enjoyed her paragliding although she admitted later that she wanted my instructor cause he was hotter than her mid 50s eastern European one.

Lima has been pretty fun (it is a swanky area miraflores) and despite some crazy Croatians causing trouble in our hostel with the live in door man everything has been fine. In fairness even that has been mildly interesting.

Still love Fin

LOVE makoto had a sushi feast there for 15 dollars
Love ice cream again!
Love Lima
Stoner steve is harmless but he is a dope and so unfortunately I am going to have to give him a HATED rating.
LOVED paragliding would totally do it again and it was relatively cheap as far as flying adventures go I think (30 dollars vs much more for either bungy jumping or sky diving).

Manjar blanco is also know as dulce de leche they put it inside churros and sell it on the side of the street everywhere here.

It is very tasty.

Re-read part of the previous entry and was appauled with my writing style (especially the bits that didn´t really make much sense) but alas, that is the result of doing a science and commerce degree.

The next place I visited after Casma was Huaraz (about 8 hours north of the capital by bus)

Had a couple of spanish lessons and went on a 3 hours walk to a small ruin called Wilcawain followed by a dip in yet another set of hot baths.

The town of huaraz itself is a dump but the stuff around it was stunning.

Stayed at a hostel with a relatively friendly but stupid family who kind of got to me after a while.

The hostel was packed and it was the first hostely environment i had experienced in the north of peru which was pleasant. This is where i met finualla (still can't pronounce this name so I just call her fin) who unlunck yong im doesn't care that much that i can't pronounce her name. She is from Northern Ireland and we have now been together for 10 days or so (and married for 7 if you ask a hostel owner in Caraz).

I knew that she was going to be a solid partner for trekking when the first morning we did the long walk up from the hostel to the centre of Huaraz and she paced it out like it was the start of a race walk.

After starting the day thinking she was going back Lima that night she finished the day planning a trek with me and changing her bus ticket to Lima.

We decided to go for 5 days on the santa cruz trek and hopped in one very cramped collectivo to Caraz to stay the night. The hostel owners in Huaraz made jokes about the fact that we were going off together without a guide or any donkeys. First it was our honey moon and second we didn't need a donkey as Fin was going to do all the labouring. I ran with the first one and told the woman in the hostel in Caraz that we were on our honey moon which had Fin hurrying to change the finger her one ring was on and also receiving a spontaneous hug from the random owner.

After a night in a shared double bed we were ready to share a tent together for 5 days. Two egg and two avocado sanwiches were all we could find in the way of warm food before the start of our trek and although we would have liked more, (considering we didn't take a gas cooker) it sufficed.

For 5 days we hiked around snowed covered mountains, lush green valleys and bluey green lakes (some over as high as 4700 metres). We did two mountain passes one at about 4700 metres and the other a spontaneous one at about 5000 metres.

Some of the highlights were lake arhuyecocha near the alpamayo base camp, the punta union cross and Laguna 69 (still not sure if the peruvians names it like that on purpose or whether they aren't aware of the significance), walking past tour group after tour group and telling them that yes we were doing it alone and yes we were carrying our packs ourselves...(oh and also telling them that they were doing the trek the harder way) and eating bread and crackers with peanut butter and chocolate consdensed milk for 5 days.

Some of the low lights were the tiny little bit of rain we got packing up out tent on the 3rd morning, deciding to take a short cut on our last afternoon to realise that the dry river bed led to a dry cliff drop that meant we had to return the 45 minutes back to the real trail, camping at 4500 metres (just too cold to be comfortable), walking 9.5 hard hours on the last day thinking it was going to be 6 (we tacked and extra little bit onto our trek and it was much harder than we thought it was going to be) and eating bread and crackers with peanut butter and chocolate consdensed milk for 5 days.

The scenery was genuinely spectacular however there were times that we were so tired that we forgot to look. Fin was amusing and also made corny jokes that lightened my mood...ie eye spy with my little eye something beginning with n d (no donkey to carry our stuff etc).

She is great craic and so we had a lot to talk about most of the time....although there were a couple of afternoons when we didn't have anything to say to each other for about 3 hours and then as soon as we would lie down to go to sleep she couldn't shut up.

All part of the charm really. She was a trouper with the climbing, really very impressive and had no problems at all (carried the tent for almost the whole time). All in all it was 5 days of mountain climbing bliss (except for the knee aching 900 metres of descent on the last afternoon).

Ended with us getting to a place where I seriously doubted the existence of a timely lift for us back to civilisation because of how late we were. But luckily a private car of Italian expats came round the corner to where we were looked at us and continued to drive around the corner at which point they were blocked by a massive truck and had to reverse right next to a pouting Fin using her very broken spanish to ask them if they were going to Yungay. In the end they dropped us to within 15 minutes of the major town and the pain of the "detour" was forgotten.

Some fantastic cherry wangs were taken and Fin was genuinely great hiking company. The trail was quite well populated but we were going in the other directions to all the tour groups so we just picked other places to camp and only saw one other independent group with us at the time.

I couldn't decide what to do on the last day (the regular trek only took 3 and a bit days so we caught a bus to another area to do a day trek) and so got abused by Fin for changing my mind 50 times (slightly less politely than the other irish woman who abused me) but in the end everything worked out well and we are still together so she can't hate me too much.

LOVED the santa cruz trek

The following day to make sure we did something worthwhile we went on a tour to Chavin de Huantar and so with aching muscles and a bruised hip (i fell over in the shower) we trotted through a labarynth of underground tunnels which were used by the shamans of this culture. Bascially they used to use mirrors to shine lights through these tunnels and then gave the participants hallucinogens and proceeded to convert them/preech to them (i can't imagine it was too difficult to freak the fear of some god into them quite quickly).

That was great (loved chavin de huantar and the museum although should have stayed there a night cause 6 hours on a bus the day after a long walk was painful).

To make it even more painful we got a night bus to lima that night which had a group of noisy school teenagers on it who didn't want to sleep.

Hated Huaraz
Loved the mountains
Love Fin
Hated Hostel Carolina

Bus rides are particularly memorable which is kinda weird.

Like from cha cha to chiclayo i had an old man next to me who was perfect cause he slept sitting up, from chiclayo to cajamarca (supposed to be 6 hours actually was 10) I had a spare seat which was great and then from cajamarca to trujillo i had an old man who seemed to think his balls were bigger that the wheels on the bus and coudln´t keep his jumper to himself and then from trujillo (or more accurately casma) to huaraz sat next to a man who couldn´t keep his elbows tucked in.

Cajamarca was a total waste of time. In theory is is a very interesting place (the location where the last inca king was captured and killed after 10 months of being held ransom for mass amounts of gold and silver) but in actuality it is not worth visiting. HATED it cause the things that were supposed to be draw points really were and also they had historical monuments (like the place where aforementioned king was held ransom) which didn´t sell tickets at the actual monument but round the corner and up the street. I told my first person that i thought it was tanto (i think this roughly translates to moronic but ruder) however it wasn´t directed at him and he agreed with me.

Went to see a forrest full of massive stones and a 20 kilometre 1500 year old water channel which they really don´t know what it was for.

Basically didn´t really enjoy myself except for the hottest baths i have ever been in which were fantastic. They almost saved the town but the bus rides in and out made me hate the town (20 hours on a bus for 3 days in a city is just absurd).

Met a few dutch people whose initial response to where my sister has just moved to was "why would you move to there" and met a lovely suisse woman marion and also vera (hollanda).

Aparently everyone in Holland rides bicycles and that there is huge theft becuase the junkies steal and sell your bike on the street. For those of you thinking about going to Holland in the near future you spend more money on the locks for your bike than on the bike itself (two separate types of locks and you want to buy a bad bike so that no-one wants to steal it). Also people purposely make their bikes look bad. Tips are pink spray paint and gaffa tape.

I got these handy hints on the way to and from the ruins of chan chan (huge ancient city from about 1000 years ago) and also huaca de luna and sol. These temples were totally amazing. Because everytime this culture built and new temple they filled the previous one with mud bricks and built on top of the previous temple archeologists were able to find 5 levels of temples with the colours that they painted the reliefs still in tact. Totally amazing.

Also went to another temple similar to above with marion called brujo which was a little further out but still very interesting espeically with the vibrant colour maintained.

Trujillo was awesome except for the beep beep jump in my taxi attitude. LOVED IT

Before i describe everything i did in trujillo i really need to mention marion.

A lovely suisse woman who looked 18 but was actually 29. She worked in a company that sold solar panels....and ate more slowly than martin walked up hills. She was tiny but lovely and full of interesting conversation about her travels (seeing llamas packed underneath busses), ruins, love of seafood (despite never ever finishing a meal she ordered) and her days in nudist colonies.

She almost lost all these good praises with the speed of her eating but at the same time she never finished anything so i ate like a king in trujillo and everywhere i ordered meat and then had a second serving of fish for desert (she really knew how to order tasty fish dishes). At one point i ate in a restaurant for 2 meals in two days and tried 5 different dishes (2 I paid for 2 from marion and one from vera). Some of you know I am a scavenger well now you all know. I eye off peoples food once i´ve finished scoffing my own and generally will eat anything left on their plate....usually it is quite embarassing when you have to stop the waiter taking the plate away especially when the person whose food it is says they are done....but i have refined my technique. I embarassingly admit to my scavenger status in advance so they give me their food once they are done.

Marion was perfect for that and so i´ve put on all the weight i lost trekking around.

We also went to the curso de primavera (spring festival) and spent the afternoon with vera and marion eating everything that there was on the street. we had random peruvian deserts, popcorn (both caramel, plain and indeterminate "sweet flavour"), ice cream, beer (my first alcohol in 28 days) and churros with dulce de leche adentro (oh so good). oh and we also watched the parade....cause that is what we were there for no? it was a mix of local dress, commercial floats and miss peru etc entrants. Very fun.

Vera had convinced us that there was music and dancing somewhere for the festival at night and that a local famous band (grupo cinco) would be playing somewhere...but every person we asked wanted to be supremely helpful when they actually didn´t know anything.

If you ask someone where is grupo cinco playing etc we want to dance then if they don´t know they won´t tell you that. They will just tell you whatever they want to, to refrain from seeming unhelpful. Oh it is over there....hmm well if you want to dance there a lots of place you could go here or there or there.

NO one we spoke to knew where grupo cinco were (we aren´t actually sure whether they were in the city that night) and if they did know we had lost faith in everyone else so didn´t trust them. And after my few beers i went home for a relatively early night considering it was fiesta time.

Marion and I proceeded to go to casma which is a little visited fishing village where i rode a bike for the first time in 10 years (my bum still hurts even though it was only 5 kms to the ruins). We went to another funky ruin called sechin which was impressive but difficult to tell waht was restored and what was original.

I finished a few more of her meals before on our last meal we decided that sharing something was best. Had another tasty seafood meal and after a sunset stroll along a pebble beach it was time for me to depart from casma to huaraz to visit some more mountains.

Loved Trujillo (AMAZING RUINS)
Loved vera (good value at the fiesta and found asking random strangers about a party which may not have existed as entertaining as me.
Loved marion (she was very nice and a riot and i could sit through a long breakfast, lunch or dinner with her again. And if i did meet her again i guarantee you that i would have to she takes 45 minutes to eat breakfast).

PS

Cajamarca actually had one more good thing to offer.

There was a tiny little university sponsored museum of pottery which had awful lighting but was very interesting. I ended up spending most of the time talking to this lovely little woman who followed me round the 5 room museum talking to me about everything but the artefacts (she was the curator/cleaner).

This annoyed me but paid off in the end when she opened the secret cabinet of erotic artefacts.

It was hilarious the way she stood in between me and the pottery and acted all shy about it as though she knew there was nothing wrong with looking at it but still felt guilty in a way. Some of it was a amazing and interesting in that it wasn't all just pottery of copulation some of it was oral sex as well.

She was a ditz the way she blocked me getting too close and also for having the best stuff hidden away in a cupboard but because of this it was the last thing a saw and really did change my mood after 3 mediocre days in cajamarca.