Peru

From Bogotá I flew to Lima in order to visit Cusco and Machu Picchu. After spending an uneventful 24 hours in the capital I headed South to see some Inca ruins. My plans to head straight to Machu Picchu were thwarted by the exhausting altitude of Cusco but since it´s a very beautiful place sith fascinating museums it wasn´t so bad.

Cusco has magnificent architecture and walls dating back to the Inca settlement which started the city. There are indigenous people walking the streets with their llamas (although most of them want to be paid for a photo) and a spectacular Andean backdrop.

While I was people-watching on my first day a school trip arrived to visit the sights. This being Peru, they were all dressed in colourful cloths and intricate embroideries and arrived in a cattle truck. I was able to get some great photos of traditional costumes and my subjects were just as fascinated by me as I was by them.

From there I visited some of the museums which demonstrate the extraordinary potting skills of the various indigenous culture and also some very impressive jewellery. After fishing the shark on the way to Colombia the crew had made a necklace and bracelet from the vertebrae and I was interested to see that the indigenous cultures of Peru did just the same with their prey. Apart from adorning themselves with items of bone, shell and precious metals the Incas also deformed their skulls using metal strips. According to the museum, this practice doesn´t affect brain function and simply demonstrates the nobility of the subject. Having soaked up some of the culture, it was time to visit some ruins.

I had received instructions froma Dutch guy who had lived in Cusco about how to get to Machu Picchu and avoid the tourist rip-off. The trip involved a bus and then a taxi to a village with thermal springs. In the taxi I met up with some French and German tourists who were taking the same route and we decided to travel together.

We all left Santa Teresa at 4.30 am and the adventure began as we crossed a huge, frothing river by pulley. Once on the other side we got in the back of a lorry to the local electrical plant which is linked to Machu Picchu by rail. From then on we followed the railway tracks for 2 or 3 hours until we arrived at Machu Picchu. On the way we met some Peruvian boys who were all taking their mothers on an outing to the ruins. Together we all visited the ruins and climbed the Haynu Picchi, an adjacent mountain which gives spectacular views of the ruins.

The Incas were very keen on steps I have learned. After an exhausting day of walking up and down them and checking out the various temples we decided to stay in thearby village of Agua Calientes.

At dinner the waitress informed us that we could walk to the next town in 4 hours, again along train tracks, and that the hike would allow us to see some spectacular scenery. After a day of walking for 13 hours, the prospect of 4 short hours seemed like a great way to end our time in the Sacred Valley.

The following day we visited the thermal springs in the morning, bought some snacks and set off at noon. The scenery was indeed very beautiful but after 5 hours of walking, with night approaching, we began to get worried about when we would arrive. When we came across some railway workers they infromed us that we had another 12km before the nearest village, which was still 15km from the town we had planned to walk to. Since there are no roads in the area and the trains were unwilling to take us, we had no choice but to press on and grit our teeth against the blisters and aching muscles. At 7.30 we finally arrived in the first village that had a road and as we spotted a delivery van we magically summoned the strength to run and catch it. Providence smiled on us as the delivery driver agreed to take us halfway back to Cusco if we didn´t mind sitting in the back of the open truck on packets of rice and pasta.

The grocer´s van dropped us at Urubamba, some 2 hours from Cusco but on a popular bus route. So popular is the route that there was no space in any of the buses. Emboldened by our luck with the van earlier in the day we approached a man who had parked on the roadside to take a phonecall. Again we were incredibly lucky as he was going to Cusco and agreed to take us. Luis, the driver, told us tales of his two sons Luis and Luis, his father Luis and his grandfather and great uncle, also both Luis. To add to the confusion they all live under the same roof in Cusco. After leaving gifts of football cards and pens with integrated lights for the Luises we parted happily in Cusco and ready for bed. It was time to dream of the next stop: Isla del Sol, Bolivia.