One Giant Step…Is All It Takes

We start the descent in the early afternoon. A dusty, rocky, steep trail that switchbacks down the 1000 meters to the bottom. One thousand meters…that’s one kilometer straight down.

After climbing the heights of Dead Woman’s Pass on the Inca Trail, there was nowhere to go but down…to the bottom of the deepest canyon in the world…Colca Canyon. Okay, full disclosure…there is a deeper canyon (by about 40 metres) but it’s a little further away and more difficult to get to…for my purposes, this is the deepest.

The top of the canyon is dry, scrubby desert…the bottom holds the Colca River and is warmer and lusher. We reach the bottom inn about 3 hours and are impressed by the bamboo dining hut and adobe buildings that will be our home for the night.

I’m even more impressed by the beer that is available as the only way in and out of the canyon is by the trails that zigzag the walls – there are no cars here, only donkeys to help with transportation. But tourism is a major industry here and tourists like beer…so beer is brought down.

The next day is even more impressive as we hike along the bottom of the canyon to reach the oasis a couple of hours away.

Here there are terraces of adobe and bamboo huts, palm trees and…swimming pools! The spaces between the huge boulders littering the site have been dammed and swimming pools created. It is a hot, sunny day…we waste no time in digging out our swimming togs and claiming a spot by the pool for the afternoon.  Our first summer-like activity since leaving home.

The next day starts before dawn for us as we start the hike back up in the dark to avoid baking in the sun. I have said that I think we can do it in two hours and so we set a pace to try. Zig, zag, zig, zag, zig, zag…up and up we go, slowly reeling people in and passing and we trudge slowly toward the top.

One thing we have going for us this time is that we are not at nearly the altitude we were for Dead Woman’s Pass a few weeks earlier so our lungs and heart are not protesting nearly as loudly.

We crested the top at one hour and fifty eight minutes. Pretty happy.

Trekking the canyon was cool. Seeing people living there makes me wonder how they do it…up and down those trails so often. Our guide, Patricia, says that the locals can make it up the trail in 45 minutes…seriously, that is impressive!

When Jason first saw Lake Titicaca on the map of Peru all those months ago, he  giggled like a schoolboy and said that we had to go there.

It definitely has a name that makes us all laugh and the joke is not lost on the locals. The lake is shared by Peru and Bolivia…Peru says the first half of the lake is Peruvian and the last half is Bolivian…Bolivia, of course, says exactly the opposite.

Besides its giggle-inducing name (which actually means ‘stone puma’), Lake Titicaca has a few claims to fame:

• It is the highest altitude navigable lake in the world.
• It is home to the ‘Floating Reed Islands of Uros’.
• It is home to Taquile Island, famous for knitting and weaving.

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I’d heard that Puno was the asshole of the earth. People said ‘don’t stay there, just head to the islands’. I figured it couldn’t be that bad.

We took a tourist tour bus from Cusco to Puno. On board was a guide who explained all the sights along the way. We stopped at four historical/cultural sights plus had lunch at a local buffet restaurant. It was a good deal and I would recommend the newer, and cheaper, Tourismo Mer over it’s more expensive counterpart.

The views from Cusco to Puno were amazing. We were, again, in the altiplano with the valleys alternately widening and narrowing as we weaved our way through the mountain tops. We could see the terrain change as we reached higher and higher altitudes where farming is no longer possible and only the high plains grass can grow – suitable only for ranching. Cattle and llamas are king here.

We thoroughly enjoyed the ride. Taking the bus during the day makes all the difference in the world!! Read the rest of this entry »

The history of Machu Picchu is a mystery. Was it where the great Incan Pachacutec instructed his people to hide during the Spanish invasion? Was it the great economic center of  the Incan culture? Or was it built as a prison to house those that had committed heinous crimes?

In it’s current state it is a beautiful reminder of what the Incan culture must have been like. In it’s former state it must have been an imposing city in the mountains. I lean toward the theory of economic center but with all the amazing temples it must have been even more than that.

The Incans ingenuity and precision is astounding. The site looks to have been built from the remains of a long ago rockslide. There is evidence throughout the site of fallen rocks being incorporated into several buildings. The ‘quarry’ area consists of rocks in their original position, some have carving work, others appear to be in the process of being split or shaped.

The buildings and stonework are stunning displays of form, function and astounding astronomical and geographic knowledge. Stones are placed, or carved, to match exactly with the sun’s winter and summer solstice positions or to line up along the ordinal geographic lines. Seeing a rock carved into the shape of the Incan Cross and then shown, using a compass, that the points of the cross face due north, south, east and west, I was amazed at the knowledge that the Incans must have had.

We had seen Inca stonework in Cusco, but here it was on a much grander scale. Entire temples built using massive stones, stacked upon each other as if they were made to be that way. No mortar, no mud…just intricate carving until they all fit together.

And how did they do all this work with no modern machinery? It’s impossible for me to imagine how many people must have worked and lived on the site. Even when teeming with tourists, I don’t imagine the number of people on site matches the number of those that must have lived there.

It  was amazing to just wander around the site and take it all in. It was even better having walked the same path that the Incans walked to get there.

Having not done much trekking in my life, I can’t say where the Inca Trail Trek rates in terms of difficulty. What I can say is that with a porter to customer ratio of 1.4 porters for every customer (plus a chef and two guides), I have to think that this might be on  the cushy side…and it was still a lot of hard work!

Due to an impending strike in  Cusco, we left the night before we were scheduled to leave – sneaking out of town under the cover of darkness. About an hour into the trip the road became littered with rocks and tires as protesters realized that buses would be trying to leave early. Our little convoy suffered a few thrown rock blows as we pushed our way through at top speed. There was no damage other than a few frayed nerves of those of us on the bus that are not used to that kind of welcome. The driver, guides and porters on board just took it in stride. We arrived at camp in the middle of the night and settled in for a short sleep.

I awoke the next morning eager to see where we were. Pushing open the tent flap all I could see were towering mountains, a slight hint of frost on the ground, and the sun just starting to rest on the peaks. I could tell right then that the next few days were going to be amazing.

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I can hear them well before the sun rises. They are up breaking camp, preparing for the day, making us breakfast.

They each carry 25 Kg on their backs over the same trail that I struggle to negotiate.

They leave after we leave, pass us on the trail, and arrive at camp before us.

They applaud us as we leave camp, and again as we enter camp at the end of the day. Seriously, they applaud us.

They are, in a word, amazing and I am in awe of the work that they do.

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It’s easy to find a Spanish school in Cusco, they are a dime a dozen. It’s more difficult to find one that offers a great program, is flexible, and gives back to the community. We found that, and more, at FairPlay.

Run by John, a Dutch fellow, and his Peruvian wife, FairPlay is a not-for-profit organization that offers single Peruvian mothers a chance to learn how to teach their language to others while they gain the self confidence they need to gain control over their own lives.

Talking to John about how the program is set up, how they choose the women and how they support them during the process, we knew that this was the school for us.

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Inti Raymi is celebrated near the winter solstice on June 24th every year. It is an Incan ceremony that is performed in the native Quechuan language rather than Spanish.

We arrived in Cusco 2 days prior to the actual ceremony and the city square was already abuzz with people and bands and general merriment being made. Apparently the festival has expanded over the years to include the weeks leading up to June 24th also.

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The plan was to take our time getting to Cusco from Lima. We were going to spend a few days, stopping along the way at Nasca and Arequipa to split up the journey.

Then we learned that the Inti Raymi festival was happening in Cusco on June 24th so we thought we would head straight to Cusco instead and visit Nasca and Arequipa after that.

We checked into flights and buses and decided that, at 1/3 the cost, the bus it would be. Sure it was going to be a 22 hour bus ride but I had heard that South American buses were ‘da bomb’ and so thought that 22 hours wouldn’t be so bad. Read the rest of this entry »

We had heard plenty about Lima before arriving, most of it negative. People told us that it was dirty, and big, and dangerous and menacing – that we should spend as little time as possible there.

We ended up staying 5 and a half days…and we quite liked it.

Sure it’s big (>10 million!) and somewhat dirty, but there are plenty of parks and squares to explore and with the current ‘recuperacion’ of the city occurring, there is renewal everywhere. It is much cleaner than I expected. In both Miraflores (the tourist district) and Barranco (it’s more bohemian neighbor) there are roving bands of cleaners, street sweepers and gardeners, all in uniform, generally spiffing the place up.

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