Tag: backpacking

Chiang Mai

So far, our route planning for South East Asia has been considerably less structured than South America. We sort of have an idea of where we’re going but if somewhere looks interesting along the way then we’ll stop there for a bit (see Ayutthaya and Sukhothai). Having had quite our fill of the trains (we were starting to understand why the locals avoid them), we decided to take the ~6-hour journey north to Chiang Mai on the bus. We took our seats at the back and as the tour company had helpfully decided to remove the seats in front of us for some unknown reason, we were rewarded with ample leg room, something severely lacking in other parts of Thailand. As we neared the city, we twisted through the mountains and the jungle stretched for miles like a lush green carpet, peppered with “Attention: Elephants” signs. All in all, it wasn’t too horrendous and as Dave has previously mentioned, the Thai people seem to be more than capable of driving coaches around corners without causing the passengers onboard to fear for their lives. As with all the others we’ve encountered so far, Chiang Mai bus station is a practical but tired building, offering just enough free WiFi for us to be able to order a Grab (like Uber) and head to our hotel in the Old Town.

 

The Old City is a 1.5km square and was once surrounded by moats and walls to protect it. Some of the old walls still stand (although refurbished) at various entrance points but the majority were destroyed centuries ago. Still, there’s something about Chiang Mai that makes you never want to leave. Having said that, our first night here we weren’t sure we’d made the right decision, walking out to get some dinner we were confronted by what I’m told the kids call “banging tunes” and people trying to get us to come into their club. Pah! Don’t they know Dave and I are at least 65 on the inside?! It must be hard at this time of year to turn a profit, most of the bars we walked past were dead and in our week here we were rarely joined in restaurants by more than one other occupied table. Once we got past the “phat beats”, we were pleasantly surprised to find a street full of bars and restaurants far more suited to our curmudgeonly ways. Things are a lot more chilled out here, the whole city feels like everyone has just got out of a nice long bubble bath. We quickly tuned into the laid-back feel of the place and spent most of Sunday not really doing much at all. In the evening however we went to our first proper night market. All of Ratchadamnoen Road, running through the centre of the Old City, is closed off to vehicles and is chock-a-block with street stalls, musicians, monks, tourists, locals, food vendors, textiles, souvenirs, anything you could possibly imagine. Squeezing our way through the crowd, we were totally overwhelmed by the sights, sounds and smells, spotting everything from edible bugs to cheesy chips to tuk-tuk models made out of old beer cans. We also quickly discovered that one of the perks of being ‘not from round these parts’ is that even in a tight crowd, you can see over the heads of mostly everyone else, making for a much less claustrophobic and enjoyable experience. After wandering for a while, Dave, as is quickly becoming tradition, found another middle-aged woman to chat up and managed to find some shorts in his size, employing his flirtation skills to acquire a discount, and I found a bag. We spent a princely sum of around £12.50 in total – a real splurge.

Chiang Mai mentality thoroughly absorbed, and given that we’d pretty much been going non-stop since Bangkok, we decided to take a much more relaxed approach to the city, enjoying a late breakfast before heading down to Nong Buak Hard park, Kindles in hand, ready for a long hard day of not doing very much at all. It’s really exhausting all this travelling business you know. We also found that all the local museums are closed on a Monday, so we had to find something to pass the time! Located in the South West corner of the Old City, it’s quite a small park, with palm trees, fountains, fishponds and lots of tiny little black flies that get in your face, hover around your legs and make it difficult to read. I think at last count Dave had killed 82 (don’t tell the Buddhists). Tired of swatting, we headed off out of the park, stopping momentarily to buy some fish food and feed the fish (and also maybe the pigeons), before pausing  for a nice cold drink in a café inhabited by various different cats who came and went as they pleased, totally non-plussed by the farangs trying to fuss over them. Once again, we were the only people in said café, which was fine by us, we didn’t come all this way to MEET people for heavens sake.

In general, our time in Chiang Mai was considerably less action packed than our previous excursions into various Thai towns and cities. This boiled down to the fact that most of the things to do are temples and we are desperately attempting to avoid #toomanytemplessyndrome. In light of this, we spent most of the following day trotting around Chiang Mai’s 3 historical museums which are largely overlapping and don’t really have that much cohesion to them – it was just like being back in Cusco! We did learn about ancient Lanna culture though and the museums were good when taken as a whole; besides, aside from the overuse of the word “auspicious”, they had air conditioning, so who are we to complain. They also offered us plenty of opportunities to view our most favourite of cultural displays – textiles! Just when we thought it couldn’t get more exciting than the 9000 displays we saw in South America, we were treated to a rip-roaring adventure into the world of ancient Thai skirts. Our fave.

 

 

Having ascertained that we found the ancient ruins/temples much more interesting than the new ones (especially as they seemed less fussed about offensive shoulders in the older ruins), we decided to pop along to Wat Chedi Luang. Built some time between 1385 and 1402, the peak measured 80 metres from its base but was partially destroyed by an earthquake is 1545, leaving it at around half of its original height. It’s still incredibly impressive and once housed the Emerald Buddha, one of Thailand’s most sacred religious relics. We also happened to turn up half way through Inthakin festival so the place was  buzzing with monks and people coming to pay respects, it also meant that entrance was free – woohoo! There seems to be a festival or holiday every five minutes here in Thailand and we were beginning to understand perhaps why the French had decided this was a part of the world they wanted to get involved with, just think how many days off they could have! Inthakin is a festival unique to Chiang Mai and is a chance for citizens to offer tributes to the guardians of the city, focusing on the City Pillar, previously used in the construction of the ancient city. As we wandered around the ruins, we were totally enthralled with the celebrations, with various donation points dotted around the Wat, offering visitors a chance to donate to their birth year animal (Dave’s the tiger, I’m the chicken, boo.). Animal statues and buddhas were covered in flowers and we also observed people sending water up to the top of the Wat and pouring it onto the ruins. As we sat in the shade and enjoyed the cool breeze, a group of school children walked past and a few of them eagerly said “hello!” and waved at us, before one plucky lad decided he was going to get a high five from the two very white chunky people sitting under the tree. Before we knew it, he’d started a stampede, and Dave and I were inundated with pre-pubescent children eager to slap their hand against ours and offer us a hello. It was absolutely charming. If there’s one thing we’ve noticed here in Thailand it’s that people are a. incredibly eager to practice their English with you and b. always happy to help, even if it means they have to resort to charades.

 

In the afternoon, I had somehow managed to convince Dave that a trip to the cinema to see Godzilla: King of the Monsters, was in order (I still owe him for Mary Poppins Returns), so we headed off to the Central Festival Mall, located a few miles outside of the Old City. The Central Festival Mall is a bit like Lakeside, if Lakeside was 3 times as pleasant, had 1/3 of the people, and had an ice-skating rink in it. It also had a Marks & Spencer so we spent a few minutes mooching around their food hall, delighted to find Percy Pigs, Custard Creams and red onion chutney, before deciding that perhaps we could settle in Thailand after all. Thailand has very strict Lèse-majesté rules, which basically means that any negative comments regarding the monarchy can get you locked up. Tourists have often fallen foul of this law, even for blogs written outside of Thailand, therefore I shall simply say that having to stand for the national anthem and a short video praising the King before the film started was certainly an experience I will never forget and  truly a great honour. Should anyone wish to find out just how stellar a chap the new King is, they need only Google him. Moving swiftly on then…

bty

Apart from a trip to a slightly more disappointing night market where we acquired two fantastic beer coolers which seem to be all the rage here, the rest of our time in Chiang Mai passed relatively uneventfully. We did find some rather lovely kittens next to our hotel and as such I now carry a small supply of cat treats wherever I go but it was nice to have a bit of down time. The city’s relaxing vibe seems to seep from every crevice, and I think we probably could have spent several weeks drinking and reading in bars without noticing how quickly the time was passing. But, we didn’t spend all this time saving to drink ourselves into a stupor (well, at least not every night) so onwards to Laos we headed…

Making the most of it

Bangkok’s Thonburi station is certainly no Paddington, in fact it’s barely a Dorchester South. A sheltered platform runs around 50m alongside the tracks, with some benches dotted about the place which were definitely not made for our Western sized bottoms. There’s a yellow line and signs warning you not to go past it but the rather cavalier attitude to health and safety is both refreshing and unnerving. There seems to be an ongoing mentality across Thailand that if you’re stupid enough to do something that puts your life at risk, then you probably deserve to have something bad happen to you. The Darwin award would do exceptionally well here. In fact, the train before ours was situated on the next set of tracks over, with the only way to access it being to cross said yellow line and walking over the tracks themselves – brilliant. The trains themselves are wonderfully old fashioned, with the engine carriage being added separately just before departure. They’re a step up from steam trains, but if Poirot had suddenly sauntered across the platform, he certainly wouldn’t have been too out of place. Our destination on this wonderful anachronism was Kanchanaburi, a town around 90 miles West of Bangkok and home to THE Bridge over the river Kwai. We took our seats on two blue padded benches (again definitely not designed for Western bottoms, nor Western height) under the cooling breeze of several fans. There is only one class for the Kanchanaburi train and rather than air conditioning, it has huge open windows which can be pulled closed in the event of rain. Our train set off around 2pm and before we knew it we were rushing through luscious green fields, banana farms and small towns. At times it was rather reminiscent of home with the flat green landscapes in the rain, though the train ran on time and we both got a seat so perhaps upon further consideration it wasn’t like trains at home at all. Around 2 hours into our journey, the heavens opened and along with our fellow passengers, we hurried to close the windows. In our carriage were two other Western couples but the majority were Thai, wholly uninterested in the landscape and often bemused by two huge Westerners pointing out things that must be everyday features for them. I like trains. Arriving in a grey haze to Kanchanaburi around 5:30pm, we trudged through the drizzle to our new temporary home: The Nine Guesthouse, a medium sized hotel with various rooms surrounding a garden area in the centre, also home to a lovely white Cockatoo and several very skinny and very skittish cats. We were pleasantly surprised to find an enormous bed with a comfortable mattress, sufficient pillows AND a TV with Fox Sports, meaning we were all set to watch the Formula 1 over the course of the weekend, without having to attend one of the English/Aussie bars around town. Not that there isn’t a time and a place for getting rekt and watching TV surrounded by other Farangs, but we’re not here to eat a Sunday Roast or “get drunk for 10 Baht” (about 25p), as one bar proudly advertised; at least not yet anyway.

Our first stop the following morning was the Kanchanaburi Death Railway Museum and Research Centre to learn a bit more about the history of the place, and to set us up for a trip down to The Bridge a bit later on. The Museum, set over two floors, sits alongside the POW Cemetery and offers visitors a comprehensive, and sometimes rather harrowing, explanation of the Death Railway and the POWs held there during World War Two. Founded by an Aussie chap named Rod Beattie, who curated the majority of the museum’s pieces, exploring much of the abandoned railway himself as well as contacting the families of the POWs. It’s really incredible how much effort has been put into this place, with many original uniforms and medals on display, as well as various items recovered from the POW camps themselves. The majority of the POWs who died during the construction of the Death Railway were British, and throughout the museum people have placed poppies and crosses, commemorating the sacrifice of family members. It’s incredibly moving. As we reached the end of the exhibits, the heavens opened once more and so we sat on the second floor and enjoyed our complementary cup of tea and let everything sink in.

Soon after the rain stopped, we stepped back out into the heat. We both commented on how awful it must have been to have been forced to do heavy labour in this weather. We can barely walk down the street without breaking into a sweat. Having seen on the map that it was about 3k to The Bridge, we decided to make use of the hotel’s offering of free bikes and cycle instead of walk. We soon discovered why the bikes were free however, as mine had a decidedly flat tyre and neither of them had any gears, making what was supposed to be a breezy trundle down to The Bridge, a rather more arduous affair – nevermind. We arrived to a throng of tourists taking pictures and a small amount of street vendors and market stalls, set up to cater for the aforementioned tourists. Often when you read the reviews of historically significant places, people seem to be outraged at the fact that the locals are attempting to capitalise on the presence of large numbers of tourists, and perhaps unsurprisingly, these also tend to be the types of people that complain when there isn’t a coffee shop at The Killing Fields – you can’t please everyone I suppose. So off we went, to cross The Bridge over The River Kwai. Interestingly enough, it’s not actually the River Kwai, its proper name is the Khwae Yai but in true Western fashion, we’ve managed to bastardise the pronunciation. Maybe if we said it louder and slower… As you set out further onto the bridge, the tourists thin out and we were joined by a lovely dog, who happily trotted alongside us for a while. Reaching the other end of the bridge, the train tracks descend into thick jungle and there is a sign informing you that the bridge is the River Kwai bridge – thanks sign! There is also now a bar where the old POW camp used to be, down by the river. We were trying to decide whether it was offensive or incredibly fitting that you can sit and have a beer where so many young men lost their lives. We decided in the end that it was probably a suitable tribute as we could imagine nothing better on a hot sweaty day than a nice cold beer, especially as so many Aussies were there as well. All in all they’ve done a good job of making the place as accessible to tourists as possible, without selling out the soul and significance of The Bridge and Kanchanaburi as a town. The bridge itself is the original, apart from a small middle section which was replaced after it was bombed during the war, you can even see some of the original bomb damage on the concrete pillars. As we headed back towards town, there was a small amount of commotion behind us. We turned to see a train heading over the bridge – eek! Luckily along the bridge are small metal outcrops, designed precisely for this purpose, and once we realised we weren’t about to be flattened, it was really quite exciting to see a train going over THE Bridge over the River Kwai. Trains are one of those things which, alongside dinosaurs, are cool all the time, forever, no matter how old you are or where you are in the world.

Upon returning to the hotel, we decided that the following day we needed to do something a bit lighter and decided upon a visit to Erawan National Park, about 65km up the road from Kanchanburi. As well as the opportunity to spot some more wildlife, Erawan park is home to 7 tiers of waterfalls, offering visitors a chance to swim in its crystal-clear waters, and also enjoy a free foot nibbling from the resident fish. Rather than restrict ourselves to the sweltering confines of public transport, there is of course only one way to see Thailand as it is meant to be seen, and that is of course, by scooter. Our hotel offered 24h rental for 200 Baht (£5) so it was a no brainer really, especially as entry into the park for both of us was going to cost 600 Baht (£15). So the following morning we got up bright and early, and headed off for Erawan National Park, eager to beat the crowds. Whilst I can certainly see the appeal of mopeds/scooters/motorbikes/whatever you want to call them, I wasn’t quite prepared for the fact that after around 15km, you start to get an enormously numb bottom. It’s difficult to shift your weight without upsetting the balance of the bike so you are forced to sit quite still, leading to a somewhat unpleasant journey for both myself and Dave. We stopped about halfway for a brief respite but quickly got underway again when we realised how hot it was once you haven’t got a lovely cool breeze washing over you. Arriving at the park at around 10:30, we decided to stop for a bite to eat before tackling the climb up to the falls. I pause here to mention that Dave has, rather usefully, been teaching himself a bit of Thai in an effort to gain favour from the locals. As I spoke more Spanish when we were in South America, he has taken it upon himself to be our voice for Asia, which is absolutely fine by me. Thai is a tonal language, meaning that you can say exactly the same words but with two different tones and they can mean entirely different things. Having said that, the only thing Dave has managed to do so far is make middle aged Thai women completely besotted with him, once they discover that he can speak more than the rudimentary “please”, “thank you” and “hello”. As we stopped for lunch just outside the park, he once again proceeded to chat up the woman serving us lunch and all was going very well until he produced a 1000 Baht note to pay for our ~150 Baht lunch. It wasn’t our fault, the machines rarely give out anything below 1000 when you’re taking out large quantities, but her face was a picture when he produced it. After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing and Dave’s innate charm (*eye roll*), she eventually decided it was ok and ran off to find change from somewhere.

 

Climbing to the 7th tier of the waterfalls takes around an hour, but it’s all uphill, through the jungle, in the heat, so we decided upon reaching the 5th tier that that was good enough for us. The waterfalls are truly impressive and though we’d seen pictures, the clear blue waters were even more inviting as we reached them sweaty and tired from the climb. As soon as we entered the water, swarms of fish nibbled at our toes and legs. It’s a really bizarre sensation as some of them are quite big and they will not get the hint when you try and brush them off. They seem to enjoy toes the most which, if you are ticklish like I am, is intolerable after more than a few seconds. Still though, we sat and enjoyed the serene surroundings and the cool clear water for a good few hours. A well-deserved break from the heat and the chaos of Bangkok. Originally our plan was then to head to Hellfire Pass but funnily enough, the beautiful cool jungle paradise won over the 1.5 hour numb bum drive further up the road. As the pools became busier and the afternoon ticked by, we decided it was about time to head back to the hotel and were slightly perplexed by the “please don’t feed the monkeys” signs dotted about the place. We hadn’t seen any monkeys so either it’s all a bit of a joke, or the signs have done their job and the monkeys don’t bother coming anymore because no one feeds them. As much as it would have been great to see them in the wild, hopefully they no longer rely on humans for food and are off doing monkey things somewhere else. Following a necessary ice cream stop, we begrudgingly climbed back onto the scooter and numb-bumingly headed back to Kanchanaburi, rather sad to be leaving the cool waters and beautiful surroundings behind.

Suitably relaxed and refreshed by our trip to the Nature Park, we decided that the following day we’d head off back out on the scooter to Wat Ban Tham, a local temple atop a hill that involves climbing through a large dragon. This was only 12km away so not quite enough time for the scooter’s lack of comfort to set in. We arrived around 10am and set about climbing the 701 steps to the top. Once the initial entertainment of climbing up through a dragon’s mouth, followed by a short spiral staircase up through a cave structure, passed, it became hotter and harder to proceed. We had climbed Machu Picchu mountain some 3 months prior so were quite surprised at how difficult the steps proved to be. It just goes to show how much more difficult it is to do anything in this heat and we quickly depleted the 2 litres of water we had brought with us. Luckily about 2/3 of the way up there’s a lovely open-air temple where you can sit and cool down, enjoying the cool breeze as well as the endless view over the lush green fields. The river widens and winds its way into the distance, punctuated sporadically with hills that burst out of the ground like huge anthills, such is their juxtaposition with the paper flat landscape. We reached the top shortly after but as there was no shelter, we quickly descended again, welcoming the ease at which we descended, counting the steps as we went and offering encouragement to those on the ascent. Reaching the bottom, we couldn’t help feeling a sense of accomplishment at having not only climbed one of Thailand’s hills, but having done so dripping with sweat and almost giving up more than once. We stopped briefly at the POW cemetery on our way back and were once again moved by the sacrifice of these poor lads, the vast majority of whom were younger than both Dave and me.  Arriving back at the hotel, we found ourselves to be absolutely exhausted and after a brief foray out for lunch, both collapsed onto the bed and did not much of anything for the rest of the afternoon before enjoying a junk food dinner and a beer with the Monaco GP.

Our time in Kanchanaburi had been a real mixed bag, with harrowing WW2 history, beautiful waterfalls and a big dragon temple on a hill, all of which has been thoroughly enjoyable. As I sit and write this on the terrace of our hotel room, a thunderstorm has rolled in and flashes of lightning flicker across the cloudy grey sky every few minutes, oddly enough, all without any rain. The next stop on our trip is Ayutthaya, the old capital of Siam, but I’ll leave Dave to tell you all about that.

I hate night buses

Ask anyone who knows me and they’ll tell you that if sleeping was an Olympic sport, I would get gold every time. I slept through an earthquake in La Paz for heavens sake. I could probably fall asleep now as I sit at a small Ikea style table overlooking the pool just outside of Huacachina. Anyway, I think you get the idea that if you look up “Katy Boyce” in the dictionary, it would say “main occupation: sleeping”. Night buses in Peru however have proved to be somewhat of my Achilles’ Heel. Perhaps this is revenge for me claiming that I can sleep anywhere, ‘ha ha!’ thought the bus, ‘I’ll soon show you!’. The seats are not made for ample Western bottoms and if you’re anything over about 5’6 then good luck! Also they seem to insist on making the leg rests out of this awful plastic which isn’t ideal when you’re travelling in heat, as you find yourself having to repeatedly unpeel your sweaty legs – YUM!

 

We were picked up in a timely fashion from our hostel in Puno and headed out to the suburbs to meet the larger bus which was to take us to Arequipa. In true South American fashion nobody was telling anybody what was going on and so all the people going to Arequipa and all the people going to Cusco found themselves in front of just one bus, but planning to go in completely separate directions. As it transpires, when we got onto the bus it was then that the guide decided to inform us that the bus would go about 4 hours towards Cusco (away from the road to Arequipa), and then those travelling to Arequipa would change buses and go all the way back down. Fantastic. So now not only would we be able to get no sleep but we would also get to be interrupted half way through our journey! It turns out that reason for this is that those travelling to Arequipa meet the bus that has departed from Cusco and so it means they only have to run 2 buses rather than 3. I’ve had only good things to say about Peru Hop up until now but honestly for the price we paid, it hasn’t been half as good as it has claimed to be. The seats recline just not quite enough for you to get comfortable (not like our lovely El Dorado bus in Bolivia ❤ ) and there aren’t always USB chargers on every bus like they claim. It’s nice to have an English speaking guide on board but I think knowing what we know now, we wouldn’t use them again.

 

Arriving in Arequipa our lovely AirBnb host Rosa-Luz had advised us that checking in at 5am wouldn’t be a problem, for which we will be eternally grateful. Once again however, Peru Hop had other plans. We stepped off the bus, groggy and grumpy and ready for a nice long kip, and were promptly shown to our minibus and taken to our AirBnB. Just kidding, we were made to wait 45 minutes in the dark with no apology and no one telling us what was going on. One of the guides did seem to be getting arsey with someone on the phone but at no point did she stop to communicate with us just what was going on. When a minivan did eventually turn up, the driver and his companion spent a good further 10 minutes chatting away outside the van while we got more and more frustrated. This wasn’t helped by the woman next to me saying “this is just how it is in South America, just calm down”. I’m not sure that ever in the history of someone telling someone to calm down has it ever actually resulted in that person calming down, in fact it often, as in this case, has the opposite effect. The rage was palpable but as I am a calm natured person and rarely lose my temper (*cough*) I chose not to punch her in the face and we were soon underway. We dropped off a few of our fellow travellers and then the driver decided to stop at a random doorway, get out of the van and proceed to have a further 10 minute discussion. Anyway, we finally arrived at the AirBnB at around 6:30am, a good 1h30 minutes after we had arrived in Arequipa. Not great. I fired off an e-mail to PeruHop to complain and to their credit I did receive a response from one of the owners but it was very cut and paste, oh well, enough complaining, time to enjoy Arequipa!

 

As is tradition post-nightbus, Dave went for a well needed nap and I stayed up and tried to get the TV to work. Our AirBnB was located to the North of the city just outside of the main tourist area next to a beautiful green park and with cracking views of two of the city’s Volcanoes: Misti and Chachani. Luckily both are closely monitored in case of eruptions so we felt very safe. Following Dave’s awakening we popped down to the town centre for a mooch around and discovered the beautiful Plaza de Armas, with towering palm trees and the white volcanic buildings, it firmly shoved Sucre out of the way, claiming the top spot for most beautiful city (sorry Sucre, still love you for dinosaurs though.) Groceries acquired and still feeling a little worse for wear we headed back to the flat, settled down with a mountain of nachos and spent the rest of the evening exploring exactly what there was to do in the city.

The answer is, not that much really. The main pull of Arequipa is the nearby Colca Canyon, the second deepest Canyon in the world and one of the best viewing points for spotting the endangered Andean Condors in the wild. We did however manage to find a free walking tour and so normal service resumed. We popped along to the Las Gringas restaurant meeting point and were greeted by our delightful guide whose name has unfortunately escaped us (Dave thinks it was Juan, I said that was racist). He was certainly one of the best guides we’ve had in our time in South America, with exceptional English and a flamboyant style, he took us round the city and explained the history of Arequipa. With almost year round late spring/early summer temperatures, it attracts a lot of Europeans and there seemed to be French people everywhere. The upside of this is that we consumed a lot of tasty crepes during our time there. We also found out that evidence supporting the Big Bang Theory (the space one, not the awful TV show) was uncovered in the Boyden Observatory just outside of the city, so that’s pretty darn cool! We finished our walking tour at a rooftop bar just before sunset and spent a bit of time taking it all in before heading back to Las Gringas for a pizza and a beer. Or at least we would have ordered a beer if it was possible to have anything but craft beer in Arequipa. As an aside, they do have various different ciders which are brewed locally so that was a nice treat, but to be perfectly honest, sometimes you just want a beer. A normal pilsner with no frills and no inflated price tag. Sorry it seems this is turning into the agony aunt blog post, I’m not ungrateful I promise, I fully appreciate just how wonderful an opportunity it is that we have to be travelling like this…….but……beer!

Aside from a beautiful main square and excellent walking tours, another of Arequipa’s main tourist attractions is the fabulous Mundo Alpaca or Alpaca World! I think the use of the word World here is probably slightly hyperbolic as it’s more of a shed with a small field filled with llamas and alpacas. The guide gave us a quick tour in v-e-r-y s-l-o-w and v-e-r-y c-l-e-a-r Spanish and we had a chance to feed the llamas and get up close and personal with the machinery used to process the wool, which was really interesting. We could have taken the opportunity to see yet more traditional weaving patterns but if I never see another one of those, it will be too soon. After visiting Alpaca “World” we one again trotted off into town to see another one of Arequipa’s claims to fame: Juanita. Juanita is a perfectly preserved ice mummy, killed between 1450 and 1480, when she was between 12-15 years old, as a human sacrifice to the Ampato volcano god by the Incas. Her skin, teeth, hair, organs and blood are remarkably well preserved. Sadly for preservation reasons, we didn’t get to see Juanita in the flesh (sorry) but we did get to see another equally impressive mummy – Sarita. She’s not quite as well preserved as Juanita but it was still really interesting. Our tour guide spoke very good English and explained all about the different artefacts that were found surrounding her before we finally stepped into a freezing cold room to see Sarita herself. I think I probably could have stayed there all day staring into those empty sockets but we were soon ushered out by the guide. It’s definitely worth a trip if you’re in Arequipa, especially if you’re there during the high season when you get to see Juanita herself, and there’s a short film at the start all about the discovery and the conditions surrounding it.

 

Feeling suitably peckish after our visit to Sarita, we headed off back to the AirBnB to do a bit more research about Colca Canyon tours. We booked with the Peru Hop recommended company, hoping that their tour group recommendations would be better than their ability to organise minivans and luckily for us we were correct. Paying around £40 for a 2D1N tour, we were picked up just down the road at around 7:30 and began our long drive through the Arequipan landscape, stopping at various points along the way to be sold tourist rubbish but also to see some more volcanoes. The landscape around Arequipa is almost prehistoric, the volcanic nature of the terrain provides for some excellent photo opportunities. Our group consisted of ourselves, a handful of Israelis, a Spanish couple, an older Swedish couple and a young family from New Zealand travelling with their 10 year old daughter. We got quite friendly with Rachel, Stu and Isabelle during those two days and were grateful for their company. Stu set up a pest control business that it turns out sold its products in the garden centre Dave used to work at – small world eh! Continuing on our journey, our guide Flor pointed out the mountain where Juanita was found and also the volcano just next to it which erupts on average around 24 times a day. The air was noticeably hazier and it was clear just how much the ash lingers and why when that volcano erupted in Iceland it proved to be such a big problem. We reached a high point of 4910m that day, not quite the highest we’ve been but close enough that we were starting to feel a little wobbly from the altitude. We quickly headed back down to the town of Chivay at around 3500m and headed to our third hot springs of the trip where we got chatting once again to Rachel and Stu about life, the universe, and everything. They were going to spend ~2 years travelling all around the world before probably heading back to New Zealand. Apparently 10 is the perfect age to do it because children still like their parents at this age, are old enough to appreciate it all, and haven’t turned into horrible teenagers yet, so that gave us some food for thought with regards to future plans.

After the hot springs our guide told us that during dinner we’d be treated to some more examples of local traditional dances and songs. ‘Oh goody’ we thought. It’s not that we’re heathens and can’t appreciate the subtleties of tradition and local culture but dear reader please understand that at this point this was about the 15th time we’d been ‘treated’ to these dances, and often they’re by bored looking teenagers who have obviously been bribed into it by the prospect of tips from the gringos. However, I have to say that on this occasion we were pleasantly mistaken. The couple performing the dances seemed to be genuinely enjoying themselves, or at least doing a very good job of faking it. The food was also really nice, especially as it was evident that this place exists solely for tourists. I even got to hit Stu with a bit of rope so I can’t complain. Isabelle was adamant that we get involved at every single opportunity but unfortunately as we are boring grown ups and would rather have a conversation she was often left to her own devices, twirling around the dance floor and generally having a jolly good time. After this we headed to our hotel which, given that we’d only paid £20 each for the whole thing, was better than expected. There was the usual 1 pillow, twin beds, no TV remote situation and Dave did manage to leave his fantastic flamingo swimming trunks behind (add that to the list of ‘things Dave has left in South America’) but it was clean and warm which is all you want really.

 

Up bright and early the next morning for our 5am departure, we were finally off to see the thing we’d come all this way to see: the condors. There’s a particular point along the Colca Canyon called the Condor Cross which is the best place to see them as they sit lower down in the Canyon waiting for the thermal currents to be warm enough to lift their huge 3m wingspan 15kg bodies up into the air. Before arriving to the cross, we took a short hike to a point slightly lower down to appreciate the full depth of the canyon, we also saw some dead cows which I thought was exceptionally cool but which Isabelle thought was gross. and was much more interested in asking us what our favourite brand of sock was, or what our favourite mythical creature was, or what our favourite colour was, or if we were a dog what breed of dog we would be, (Marks and Spencer, Dragon, Green, German Shepherd, in case you were wondering) before promptly dismissing our response and telling us what hers was. Kids are great. We then finally headed up to the Condor Cross where we only had to wait a short while before the flight of the concords (not the band) began. We saw about 10/12 in total which is really good luck as some people come all that way and don’t see any of them. In fact several groups arrived about an hour after we did and didn’t see a single one. It’s really very impressive to watch these huge great birds fly around and we were completely mesmerised as they flew incredibly close straight over our heads. They didn’t seemed to be fazed by the tourists at all and it’s clear why they attract so many visitors. After about an hour we made our way slowly back to the bus, but not before stopping to introduce Rachel and Isabelle to the wonders of the Granadilla, and managing to convince Isabelle that the seeds inside are in fact frogspawn and that we were eating baby frogs. I’m now starting to understanding why my older siblings and parents (ok, my Dad) spent all that time winding me up when I was younger, it really is quite fun. And so began our long drive back to Arequipa, we stopped in various places to take more pictures and look at more of the same jumpers/scarves/condor keyrings/penis masks that you see everywhere else in Peru but after the Condors, nothing really came close.

Arriving back in Arequipa we said our farewells to our Kiwi friends. We were going to be getting the same bus to Huacachina in a few days time so it wasn’t goodbye forever and Dave and I were particularly looking forward to more opportunities to answer Isabelle’s relentless questions. Our final day in Arequipa was fairly uneventful, apart from some particularly good pasta and a cracking pizza, there isn’t much that stands out as being particularly memorable. There was also a cat that looked remarkably like my brother’s cat Spock so I called him Spocky Dos (Spocky Two)  and also a lovely ginger cat. Yes ladies and gentlemen I did come all the way to South America just to talk about the cats I’ve seen. You should think yourself lucky, I think Dave’s going to strangle me if I stop to pet another dog in the street. Anyway, on to Huacachina…

Don’t be a (Expletive Redacted) Idiot: La Paz Part 2

(SPOILER ALERT: We survived)

‘Trust me’ said Omar, the rep at Gravity Mountain Biking who booked us on to the Death Road tour, ‘there’s nothing worse than trying to ride a mountain bike with a runny stomach’.

Good advice.

Heeding it, the evening before our tour we opted for the very safe bet of Tuna Pasta to cap off what had been a rather lazy day, save for heading across the street to pay through the nose to get our clothes laundered. Machine washing isn’t really be a thing here, many of the locals believing that it doesn’t get clothes as clean as hand washing, so the few laundrettes that exist can charge something a premium to travellers in need of the service. Some you lose, I guess.

We begrudgingly got up at the crack of dawn the day of the tour to head over to Higher Ground Café in Belen district, the meeting point for our tour and an opportunity for a spot of breakfast at western prices and some much-needed caffeine. 20 minutes or so after we arrived, a young American with a wide, warm smile, a blonde ponytail, Gravity branded hat and jacket and a clipboard (the universal symbol of competent authority) came in and introduced himself as Nate, our guide for the day. Once the final few bits of paperwork were sorted out, he rounded up our group and took us down to the waiting minibus with racks of mountain bikes on the roof. In we all climbed to head to the starting point for the tour, on the way getting to know the rest of the group; an Irish couple from North London, an American from Georgia, a couple from Belgium and a Frenchman.

Just over an hour later we arrived at La Cumbre Lake about 60km north-east of La Paz, the starting point for our ride. At 4,700m the altitude here is even higher than Salkantay Pass, but our short stay at this altitude meant the low oxygen levels had little impact. Pulling over in to a large dirt car park by the side of the lake the Gravity crew unloaded the bikes, gloves, helmets and overalls and handed them out. We were given 10 minutes or so to get comfortable with the gear and a feel for our bikes; high-spec and highly tuned mountain bikes with wide tyres, highly absorbent suspension and ultra-responsive disc brakes.

We soon got a feel for the bikes and Nate gathered us around to give the first of the many safety talks of the day; all of which essentially boiled down to the same message: ‘Don’t be a (expletive redacted) idiot’. Following this we gathered our group by the lake for a photo op and each of us made an offering to Pachamama for good luck by pouring a small amount of stupidly potent alcohol on to the ground, on to our bikes and then in to our mouths (Yes dear reader, the wisdom of the combination of high strength alcohol and ‘Death Road’ crossed our minds as well). Along with Nate we had a second guide called Luis who rode around the group taking pictures and ensuring that nobody fell too far behind unaccompanied. Over the course of the day Luis took the best part of 250 pictures, saving us having to worry about stopping to take photos ourselves. Apparently, Gravity offer this service so that their customers aren’t tempted to try to take photos whilst riding along and winding up on the wrong side of a cliff. According to Nate this is not unprecedented. Remember ‘Don’t be a (Expletive Redacted) Idiot’.

It was reassuring how safety focused Gravity were compared to the service offered by other tour operators also departing from La Cumbre lake, and you could clearly see where the extra money was going. Where we were riding as a group of 8 with 2 guides and a support vehicle, other groups had a single guide for groups of 20 or more and provided far less suitable looking bikes. Nate also told us that all Gravity staff are rope rescue trained up to 100 meters. Not hugely reassuring since the drops in many places are 400m, but he assured us that if we fall more than 100m it wouldn’t matter… Good to know…

Equipment readied, bikes tested, safety briefing complete and Pachamama appeased, we got under way. The first stretch, about 22 kilometres, a steady downward section along a wide, smooth tarmacked road. This was an opportunity to get comfortable with the bikes handling at speed, getting a sense of who are the faster and slower riders and, most importantly, to get used to how the brakes react. 99% of all accidents, according to Nate, occur when riders come up to a corner too fast, panic, hit the brakes way too hard and go flying.

After a short ride through La Combre Pass, the road turned a corner round the side of a mountain and the vista opened up overlooking a huge valley stretching off in to the distance. The view from here was stunning, the black and grey volcanic mountains flanked a wide, half-pipe shaped valley peppered with thin patches of vegetation. The meandering river in the valley basin caught the sun at just the right angle to make the whole thing glisten and the road ahead snaked down the northerly mountain side roughly parallel to the river. The morning cloud layer was breaking up under the heat of the sun and what was left of it was clinging to the tops of the mountains and casting patchy shadows on to the slopes below accentuating the slopes and the overall scale of the scene before us.

One of Nates points during the safety briefing was to not get distracted by the scenery. ‘The bike will follow your eyes’ he said, ‘so if you stare at the scenery for too long, you’ll end up joining it’. To not miss out on the view, Nate stopped us at the side of the road near the entrance to this valley for a photo opportunity and to give us a bit of history lesson.

Death Road is in fact known by 3 names; Death Road, North Yungas Road and The World’s most Dangerous Road. North Yungas Road is the roads formal name and until 2005 when the new road was built bypassing the most dangerous sections, it was one of only a few routes (and by far the shortest) connecting the Yungas, the name for the heavily forested region of the lower-Andes that border the Amazon Rainforest, with La Paz and the rest of Central Bolivia. The original road was about 55 kilometres long and ran from La Combre Pass to Coroica, descending about 3,600m in the process. Built in the 1930’s by Paraguayan prisoners of war, it was from the high death rate amongst the workforce that the road got the moniker ‘Death Road’. Through the 80’s and 90’s and in to the early 2000’s, the road started to see much more traffic and much larger vehicles than it was ever intended to deal with. For much of its length it was only single-track dirt road and had numerous sharp, blind corners. By the time the new road was completed in 2005 the original road was seeing 200-300 fatalities a year, earning itself the title of ‘world’s most dangerous road’.

Today, the new road follows the path of the original road for the first half, the section we were currently riding on, before heading north away from the original road, by-passing the most dangerous section; a narrow 15km descent winding along mountain sides complete with waterfalls, tight turns and sheer drops with no barriers. Nowadays this section specifically is the one generally referred to as Death Road, omitting the upgraded sections and the new bypass.

Before heading on our way, Nate invited us to peer over the edge of the cliff from which we were admiring the valley. About 100 meters below was the wreckage of a bus that had met its fate some 15 years earlier, apparently the driver had fallen asleep at the wheel. A poignant reminder, if one were needed, that we whilst we were here to have fun, this road was not to be (expletive redacted) with.

We continued down the new road for another 10km or so, enjoying the thrill of the speed that the descent allowed for as we wound our way down the valley to a drugs checkpoint. Not really aimed at traffic headed in our direction, the checkpoint was there to prevent (or more likely to take a cut of) cocaine being smuggled from the jungle up to La Paz. Here Nate stopped us for one of his frequent head counts and to check how everybody was getting along and to give us a warning that the section ahead was a little bumpier and to take it easy round corners. Along the way I caught a bump unseen which knocked my right foot off the pedal and made the back end step out. The tyres and suspension did their jobs though and what would have been a nasty accident on a road bike was taken in stride by the mountain bike. A bit of a hairy moment, but It was actually pretty reassuring to feel the stability and understand how the bike would react and correct itself from a momentary loss of control.

Stopping to regroup before a short tunnel we got our first opportunity to try the bikes out off-road. Following a rather nasty accident a few years ago inside the tunnel involving a group of cyclists and foggy weather, the local authority had built a small gravel track by-passing the tunnel for cyclists to use. According to Nate this would be one of the most technically challenging parts of the day; the gravel track is only about 200m long, but as it isn’t used by vehicles the gravel isn’t as packed down and present more of a challenge that dirt roads used by vehicles.

Shortly after re-joining the main road we arrived at a checkpoint where we each were required to pay 50 Bolivianos (£5.50), ostensibly as a tax to help maintain the road. Bolivia, like Peru, forbids tour companies from including taxes in the ticket prices, obliging them to be paid individually by the tourists, so this is something that we’d got used to now. We’d been cycling now for about an hour and a half and covered the best part of 20km. We took a short break to use the toilets and have a quick snack and Nate gave us the option of either cycling the next few kilometres, all uphill, or loading up the minibus and driving to the top. Nobody wanted to be the first to say that they wanted to take the van, but as soon as someone said they didn’t want to cycle, the rest of the group quickly fell in line.

So on to the bus we all hopped for the 10-minute ride up to the start of Death Road proper. After a few photos with the ‘Welcome to Death Road’ sign we gathered around Nate for another re-iteration of ‘don’t be an (expletive redacted) idiot’ and a briefing on what to expect, what to look out for and techniques for riding downhill on Gravel. Death Road is still a public road, although since the construction of the by-pass the volume is nothing close to what it used to be and is now only really used by locals to access the handful of villages along the route. Nate also said that, owing to a landslide about half way down, he didn’t expect us to see any traffic at all, but that we should be vigilant nonetheless. A rule on Death Road that dates back to before the by-pass was built is that traffic has to drive on the left, rather than on the right as in the rest of Bolivia. The reason for this being that it puts the downhill driver on the outside of their vehicle where they can more easily see where their wheels are in relation to the edge.

 

As ready as we’d ever be, we set off down Death Road.  Proceeding steadily at first, we quickly built confidence in the bikes handling on the gravely and rocky terrain, controlling the speed by constantly riding the brakes. The first section had a few steep drops but was quite wide and it was easy to maintain a comfortable distance from the sheer drops to our left. At several points we stopped so that we could take photos, take on water and snacks and give Nate a chance to brief us on upcoming sections which may catch out the unprepared.

About a quarter of the way down we stopped by San Pedro waterfall. If you’ve ever seen pictures of Death Road, chances are this is the where it was taken. The waterfall is about 40-50 meters wide and cascades over the top of the road which is nestled in to the cliff along a crescent-shaped curve. The final few meters of the waterfall drop straight down on to the road in a way that cannot be avoided when cycling through. The stretch of the road after the waterfall is relatively flat, but also featured the narrowest and windiest section of the road, with sheer cliffs overhead on one side and unguarded drops of near 600m on the other. Doing this on a mountain bike was unnerving enough but to think that Trucks and Busses used to drive along here (and sometimes still do) is just mind-boggling. The numerous crosses lining the road-side testament to those less fortunate souls that have passed along this route.

As we descended further down the mountain the temperature quickly rose so the numerous encounters with waterfalls and streams posed little concern. The road also widened out a little and Katy and I continued to get more confident in the handling of the bikes. In a refreshing change from the Salkantay Trek, we found ourselves routinely at the front of the pack following Nate down and waiting for the others to catch up at our various stopping points. With the adrenaline pumping and the wind rushing past us, not to mention the perfect weather, we were now thoroughly enjoy ourselves. The confidence got the better of me at one point though; carrying too much speed off the exit of a left-hand hairpin I drifted out wide from the flattened dirt groves left by passing vehicles and onto a patch of larger stones and rocks. Before I could slow down enough to get the bike under control the front wheel bounced out from under me and tipped me on to my side. The fall left me with a nice gash square in the centre of my left shin and a broken pair of sunglasses, but otherwise I was OK and able to carry on after a quick dusting off.

Shortly thereafter we came across the landslide Nate had mentioned earlier, in the process of being cleared by a JCB. The mangled terrain could only be traversed on foot pushing our bikes over the rocks and through the thick mud that we quickly realised we stood no chance of avoiding getting covered it. On the far side of the landslide an ambulance waited for a rider from another group who had had an off much worse than mine and had to be carried down by one of the guides. Good thing we have our travel insurance documents with us.

From here on out the road was much flatter and smoother and the edges much more forgiving. This was to the great relief of our group all of who were, to some extent, really struggling with the constant vibrations and riding the brakes that came with the steeper, more rocky sections. We were still descending quite rapidly, and the terrain went from black and grey rock to brown and red dirt and dried mud. Following another short stop, we encountered a second landslide near a stream which ran across the road. We were left with no choice but to wade through the ankle high mud, before then wading in to the knee-high stream which proceeded to clean us off quite nicely. After crossing this Nate assured us that we’d cleared the last of the mud and water, and were now home free with only a couple of Kilometres to go until we reached the end of the tour; La Senda Verde animal sanctuary near Yolosa, deep in the valley at the bottom of Death Road. Just as we entered Yolosa we came across another thick, muddy landslide. So much for the last of the mud eh, Nate? To be fair, this landslide had apparently only happened a few hours earlier, so he can’t have reasonably been expected to know about it, but we had to cover ourselves in mud again regardless.

The late-afternoon’s sun was really belting down on us now and the 38 km bike ride we had just completed had really taken its toll. Thoroughly exhausted, we wearily made our way in to the animal sanctuary grounds, which entailed crossing a precarious wooden bridge and then walking through a ‘human cage’, a wire mesh tunnel through the middle of the sanctuary surrounded by monkeys, parakeets, deer, capybara and all manner of other native species. We soon reached the sanctuary’s restaurant, a large open-sided wooden structure built around a central kitchen with a buffet counter and an upper terrace looking eastwards (not that a huge amount could be seen through the dense jungle). Waiting for us in the restaurant was a pasta buffet and a glass of the tastiest and most refreshing beer any of us had ever had. A good meal, an ice-cold beer and a refreshing shower later a few of us opted to go for a tour around a part of the sanctuary to see the Spectacled Bears. One of the sanctuary volunteers led us off through the jungle, over a small stream and up to a pair of enclosures constructed on to a steep cliff side filled with trees, shrubs and a small rock pool.  Each bear had about a square kilometre of space; an awful lot more appealing as a captive environment than the animal sanctuary we went to outside of Cusco. The volunteer guiding us had brought a tupperware box full of peanuts and the sound of him throwing a few in to the enclosure was enough to bring the bears out of the undergrowth and down to only a few feet away from us.

Bolivian law prevents the sanctuary from re-releasing the animals in their care back in to the wild, but as they are accustomed to humans now, for most of them re-release would be very dangerous as they would not have any compunction about wandering in to Human settlements where they would risk injury, capture or even death. It was great to see the bears in a more natural habitat and the sanctuary has about 800 animals in total, most of which have free-reign over the site (except where it would be dangerous to allow, such as the bears and the Jaguars). We had a long drive ahead of us to get back to La Paz though, so we and headed back over the dodgy bridge to the waiting minibus for our 3 hour drive back.

On the ride home it finally sunk in what the day had taken out of us, arms aching, legs numb and barely able to sit down owing to the effects of the thin, hard saddle. But also, we reflected on an absolutely phenomenal adventure which we both agree had been the most enjoyable thing we’d done since arriving in South America. To cap things off, a giant storm blew in over the valley behind us as we made our way back up the new road, past the entrance to Death Road and through La Combre Pass back to Lap Paz, finally crawling back in to our apartment with its super amazingly comfortable bed at about 10pm.

Thoroughly burned out and very saddle sore, the next day we did nothing but binge watch the Netflix F1 documentary. 1 more night left in La Paz and then we have the pleasure of the night bus to Sucre.

P-p-p-pick up a Puno

Here we are in La Paz then! Bolivia! A good 2 weeks after our final day of the Salkantay Trek and we’ve just about recovered. Our descent from Aguas Calientes was fairly uneventful, once again more beautiful vistas of mountains, rivers, and Incan ruins all seen from the train back to Ollantaytambo. The following day team TWC met up for a final team to visit Cusco’s newly opened cat café. It’s a really sweet place where you can sit and enjoy a sandwich and a coffee surrounded by kittens and older pussy cats, you can even adopt them if you’re so inclined. It definitely helped to fill the foster kitty shaped holes in our lives and was an excellent way to soothe our ever-aching muscles. Having spent a good 4 hours playing with the moggies and with the place getting a little busy, we headed off as a group to find some dinner at the excellent Maikhana Indian buffet – all you can eat for 15 soles, woohoo!  – before saying our final goodbyes and with promises to see each other again in another life.

 

 

Off we trotted to join the Bolivia Hop bus which would carry us the delightfully arduous 9-hour journey to Puno. The bus is about as comfortable as you could reasonably make it, reclining around 150° with a blanket provided and somewhat ample legroom, depending on whether you ask me or Dave. Unfortunately, being anything over around 5’7 puts you at a distinct disadvantage over here. Dave often finds himself to be too tall for beds, doorways, and public transport (female privilege strikes again!) and there have been choice words expressed on more than a few occasions when his head has met with various South American doorframes. After a bumpy overnight journey during which I managed to get some shut-eye and Dave, with what might just be the worst superpower ever, once again stayed up all night due to his inability to sleep on anything that moves. Arriving in Puno at around 5am we were dropped at a hostel where we could at least charge our phone and use their wifi to entertain ourselves while we waited to check in to our AirBnB at around 1pm. Puno is an odd little town that sits on the shore of Lake Titicaca, a short drive from the Bolivian border. Its main attractions include a large condor statue that sits a princely 700 steps above the city, the Uros floating reed islands, and a surprisingly well stocked supermarket. In our sleep deprived state, we had somewhat neglected to realise that our arrival into the city had coincided perfectly with Carnival, a festival celebrating the final week before lent. Celebrations in the larger cities range from throwing paint around to chucking water balloons at each other and in rural communities they’ll take it in turns to whack a tree until it gets chopped down – you know, normal celebratory type stuff. Puno however celebrates Carnival in a much more traditional sense, with marching bands at 5am and a little van that drives around playing an out of tune, out of time jingle, and selling juice to revellers. It was at this point that my body decided that the best thing to do would be to come down with a cold. Thanks body. As a result of this our time in Puno was decidedly uneventful, luckily our AirBnB had a big smart TV with Netflix so that was my time in Puno, being woken up every morning bright and early by marching bands, music in the streets, random air-raid sirens, oh and the random train which goes through the middle of town so has to beep to alert people to get off the tracks. Wonderful. Luckily Dr Dave was on hand to cater to my every whim and walk up and down the 6 flights of stairs to our apartment fetching various cold medicines as well as breakfast, lunch & dinner. Luckily (or not as the case may be), our journey back up to Lima will take us back through Puno so we can take the time to do all the touristy stuff we missed out on, on the way back. Phew!

bdr

After 3 days spent miserably bed bound, it was time to head to Copacabana and our first step into Bolivia! After reading horror stories about dodgy police offers, muggings, and general ineptitude, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the border crossing went smoothly. We hopped off the bus with our bag, received our exit stamp from the Peruvian side then climbed the short hill and went under the white arch marking the border between Peru and Bolivia. We were greeted by the Bolivia Hop bus guide and filled out a form before heading to Bolivian customs where the form was briefly glanced at and then added to a pile with all the others. We were then swiftly waived through and that was that! Not wanting to add myself to any sort of list, I’ll just say that if you were that way inclined, you could probably make your way through without encountering any sort of border official at all, thus avoiding any visa fees, should your country need to pay them. ANYWAY.

Our Bolivia Hop bus this side was a single storey affair, unlike our double decker beauty in Peru but as our final leg was only around 20 minutes this wasn’t terribly inconvenient. Copacabana accompanies Puno in the “odd little town” gang and seems to exist solely to provide overpriced mediocre food to tourists as well as tours to the Isla del Sol which is currently embroiled in somewhat of a local civil war between the North of the island and the South of the island. It doesn’t seem to be anything to be concerned about, it just means if you want to go to the opposite end to the one you’re currently on, it’s a bit of a pickle. Copacabana also sits on Lake Titicaca and the lake front looks like some sort of dystopian Blackpool with grubby swan pedalos and kayaks littered about the place, surrounded by more common litter such as Inca Kola bottles and random less buoyant plastic shapes. Its saving grace was our beautiful beautiful hotel. The view over the bay and the town with the lake is breath-taking and it is surrounded with alpaca filled gardens, deckchairs and hammocks. Our room left a little to be desired with a skylight that dripped sporadically during one of the region’s many thunderstorms but at only £20 a night we couldn’t really complain. There really isn’t enough in Copacabana to spend 4 nights there but gosh darn it we did! Still suffering the after effects of the cold and with the 3821m altitude not helping, most of our time was spent lounging around in the gardens, eating too much food, reading, and catching up on podcasts – almost as if we were on holiday! The baby alpaca frolicking around also provided ample entertainment. In an effort to feel mildly active and not let all that trekking go to waste, we trotted off on a little jaunt to the headland, about a 3 hour round trip away from the touristy town centre but sadly not the litter. While us Westerners sit in our little circle jerk feeling smug about buying metal straws and canvas bags, Bolivians are over here not giving a **** (insert word that Grandma definitely wouldn’t approve of here)! We’ve seen people chucking rubbish out their car windows and just dropping litter on the floor, it’s really quite sad and my Spanish isn’t good enough nor is my sense of superiority strong enough to interject. Poor planet. I imagine like most developing nations, they’ll get there eventually. In the supermarkets there are signs encouraging you to use re-usable bags so we live in hope and along the coast (Is it called a coast when it’s a lake?) there is some sort of eco-village with signs warning people not to litter, they’ve also collected a lot of litter and repurposed it into buildings which were quite cool as well. Most importantly however we ran into a little dog half way along the path who was swiftly named John Locke which definitely has nothing to do with the fact that I’ve been re-watching LOST. He followed us to the headland and I shared a cereal bar with him before he trotted off back to the eco-village on our return journey. The following morning we had a huge great hail storm which made everything turn white which was pretty cool. The storms in general in Copacabana were some of the biggest we had seen so far, our dinner every evening was accompanied by flashes from across the bay.

I started to feel a bit more human on our last day but not quite enough to climb the big old hill just up the road so we hung around in the gardens while we waited for our bus to La Paz, around 4 hours away. There was a beautiful ginger cat who kept us company so it wasn’t a particularly arduous wait. As with Puno, we’ll be heading back through Copacabana on our way back up to Lima so we can stay in the lovely hotel again (but in a nicer room this time) and do all the touristy things then! The bus ride to La Paz is worthy of its own post so I’ll sign off for now, we’re doing Death Road tomorrow! 😀

Why do they have a dance called sauce?

Well hello again to our several readers! I’m sorry that we haven’t been keeping you up to date with our adventures more frequently, but we’ve just been too busy this week! Actually, that’s a lie, we’ve mainly been lounging around.

About 3 weeks ago, probably still suffering the slight mental impairment that comes with Altitude sickness and certainly under the influence of some form of liquid intoxicant, we decided it would be a good idea to book ourselves onto the Salkantay trek, a 5 day, 45-mile trek through the mountains peaking at 4,580 meters, with the final day bringing us to Machu Picchu. The decision to commit ourselves to this trek came about whilst we were still at Pisco and Soul, trying to work out the most cost-effective way to visit the Incan Citadel. As Peru’s premier tourist attraction and owing to its remote location, visiting Machu Picchu is very expensive. Furthermore, in order to help preserve the ruins, access to Machu Picchu is limited and there are only so many tourist entries allowed each day, serving only to hike the price even higher.

Trying to find a 1- or 2-day trip for a reasonable price was a minefield; Cusco is absolutely jam packed with tour operators attempting to cash in on the lucrative tourist trade, and whilst many of them will offer a great service, there are plenty of rogue traders out there. Reading online, you can get some great deals, if you’re lucky, but many of these businesses have review pages riddled with horror stories of being abandoned in the middle of nowhere or tour buses not turning up or not having the right tickets for the right days etc.

1-day round trips from reputable tour operators out of Cusco are expensive, starting from about £200 each. These also give you only a short time at Machu Picchu itself; the bulk of the time being taken up by the bus ride to Ollantaytambo (probably with another driver with a death wish; since our experience in Moray and Maras, we’ve concluded that tourist minivan drivers are the Peruvian equivalent of BMW drivers), the train to Aguas Calientes, and then another bus ride to Machu Picchu.

2-day trips are equally costly. Going with one of these we were looking at the best part of £600 for both of us. We looked at doing it off our own backs; using a local bus to get to Ollantaytambo, buying our own train tickets, booking ourselves in to a hostel near Machu Picchu and then hiking to the top of the mountain (skipping the short bus ride to the top which, alone, is £15 each. If there’s one thing the Peruvians know how to do, it’s exploit a captive market). However, mainly due to the cost of train ticket (see previous brackets) this worked out more expensive that going with a tour operator.

A half-day spent trawling the internet and getting ever more frustrated and exasperated, we decided to go to the other extreme. If we’re doing Machu Picchu, we’re doing it properly! Hence doing the Salkantay trek, costing about £800 for both of us after applying an early season offer. As this includes 5 days food and 4 nights accommodation, per day it works out at a much better price. I don’t know why I’m justifying this to you, we’re doing it now and you can’t stop us! Or maybe I’m still trying to sell myself on the idea…

All we had to do now was kill some time; during the height of the rainy season in February the trek doesn’t run, starting again for the new season in March. Knowing we were going somewhat over budget with our Salkantay expenditure, we booked ourselves an AirBnB with a small kitchen, allowing us to self-cater for the 11 nights to take us through from checking out of Intro hostel to the start of the trek on March 1st. The AirBnB we found is a lovely little roof-top flat near the city centre, with views of the mountains to the north and west and the tower of Santo Domingo church peeking up over the rooftops from a few blocks away. The large balcony has a covered area with sofas, table and chairs, kitchen sink, cooker and a very plush washing machine which sings a happy tune to itself when it’s finished a load. The large bedroom with one of the comfiest beds we’ve ever encountered joins off the side wall and the bathroom off the backwall, thus creating the only real downside with this flat; when you want to visit the loo in the middle of the night you have to go outside. Brrrrrr. Still, of all the places we’ve stayed in Peru so far, this has hands-down been our favourite.

So, for the last week or so we’ve been spending a lot of time here, relaxing on the balcony, listening to the music from the salsa classes below (and wondering why they have a style of dance called ‘sauce’), reading, playing cards, befriending the local wildlife (we have a regular visitor, a small bird that Katy has named Paco, who eats all our crumbs), being bemused by the Peruvians obsession with setting off fireworks in the middle of the day, enjoying the sun and then quickly ducking under the cover of the corrugated roof as soon as a storm rolls in. We’ve averaged about a storm a day for the last week, they roll in quickly off the mountains and can come from any direction. 10 minutes after wind, rain and flashes of lighting, it’s straight back to glorious sunshine again. The rapidly changing and unpredictable weather makes us feel right at home (As if to engage in a game of one-upmanship though, as I’m writing this a hail storm has rolled in).

Our only two major excursions in the last week have been a trip to Cusco Park on the hillside near Sacsayhuaman, and to Cochahuasi Animal Sanctuary out on the road to Pisac. Cusco Park is a kind of outdoor museum, with farm animals, a straw hut for demonstrating traditional textile production, a short bridge constructed in the Inca style with grass rope, an aquarium, a series of small buildings with various pre and post-Hispanic artefacts and a separate series of buildings with dioramas of the Inca ruins from the surrounding area. Our guide around the site was a young Peruvian man who didn’t speak a word of English. He came running over to us within about 5 minutes of our entering and, without checking that we spoke Spanish, promptly led us around starting with the huts full of dioramas. Owing to the language barrier we didn’t catch his name, but he was the spitting image of Pedro Sanchez from Napoleon Dynamite, so for the purpose of this blog he will now be referred to as Pedro. Vote for Pedro!

Although he gave us the entire tour in Spanish, we were, more often than not, able to follow the gist of what Pedro was saying. In no small part because a lot of what he was saying was stuff that we already knew: Cusco is shaped like a Puma, the Inca’s built EAT’s, they developed over 2/3/4000 varieties of potatoes (depending on who you ask) and corn, the cabinet full of money, coca leaves and bottles of alcohol are offerings to Pachamama. You know, the usual. #justIncanthings. Pedro concluded our tour with a climb to their adventure play area where we had the opportunity to go zip-lining between the trees. We didn’t partake.

It being the off-season, the park was very quiet and the small workshops around the site where presumably there would be demonstrations of wool dying and weaving were mostly unstaffed, but even so, we got the best part of 2 hours out of it and understood at least some f the things we were told. It’s a pleasant site with a lot of potential to be a really good tourist attraction and at £10 for both of us including a tip for Pedro, it was worth our while.

Our other adventure took us to Cochahuasi Animal Sanctuary, about a 25-minute drive north of Cusco. The only way to reach Cochahuasi was to take a tour on one of the many open-top tourist buses that Katy swore from the moment she saw them that she would most definitely not be getting on. Alas, this was the only way to do it, and it turned out to be a rather pleasant way to see the city. The tour guide, a cheerful and animated guy called Peter met us in the main square before rounding up a load of other tourists for the trip and walking us up to our bus. After a 30 minute pootle around Cusco enjoying the view from the top deck, the bus took us up past Sacsayhuaman and out along the road to Cochahuasi. Peter gave us a running commentary of the sites we were seeing, stringing together the sites with a little history of the city. Of the 20 or so people on the tour, we were the only non-Spanish speakers, but to his credit, Peter spoke great English, never skipped anything, and always ensured we were as well informed as everyone else on the tour. The driving was also very good. Well, it wasn’t terrifying anyway.

DSC00441

Arriving at Cochahuasi our group was split in 2 with Peter taking the Spanish speakers, and a member of the Sanctuary staff, Melissa, taking Katy and I for essentially a private tour of the sanctuary. The site isn’t huge, but the enclosures are suitably large for the animals they keep, and they aren’t overcrowded. All the animals at the site are rescues and some of them come with really tragic stories of cruelty and neglect, such as a Puma that was rescued from a nightclub in Lima where it was used as entertainment, and an aviary full of macaws rescued from smugglers trying to ship them to Europe out of Lima Airport. Where possible, the animals are released back in to the wild, but some are sadly too conditioned to captivity or permanently injured to be released.

In total there’s probably around 80 or so animals on site, ranging from Llamas, Alpacas and Vicunas to Condors, Pumas and Spectacled bears (yes, that’s the bear that Paddington is). Melissa was very knowledgeable, and she walked us around the site for about 40 minutes. The staff are clearly very caring, and the animals are well kept and cared for. Perhaps the most impressive part of the site is the large Condor enclosure which stretches from the opposite cliff face up to the near-end of the site by the road, with the visitor path straight through the middle of the enclosure. Having these huge birds swoop overhead as the staff feed them is an unforgettable experience. It’s just a shame the site is overall quite small, simply for no other reason that that more space would allow them to care for more animals, you can’t help but think that they are forced to turn animals in need away for lack of space.

Just as we finished our tour and got back on the bus the heavens opened, leading me to discover another thing in Peru that wasn’t designed with people taller than 5 foot 6 in mind, as the whole tour group squeezed itself onto the lower deck on the bus. On the return leg of our tour we stopped at a small hut overlooking Cusco where we were given traditional blessings by a Shaman. This allowed Peter to show off another of his talents as he translated from Quechua to Spanish and English on the fly. The Shaman was from a very remote community in Northern Peru largely uninfluenced by the outside world and still very committed to the Quechua religion, folklore and way of life. Whilst this was very much a show put on for the tourist, it was a charming if brief insight in to the ancient customs of this part of the world.

Our final stop was another trip to Cristo Blanco, perhaps serving to underline the fact that we really had done everything Cusco has to offer now. We finished up back in Cusco about 45 minutes later that scheduled, for which Peter was unnecessarily apologetic. All in all, this was a very enjoyable day and, as the trip had cost us just £12.50 for both of us, one of the best values for money days we’d had!

We have ventured out a few times other than that however, mainly whenever I started to get a bit of cabin-fever, we made another trek up to Cristo Blanco to get some practice in before our hike, this time choosing the longer, but considerably less steep, route up via Sacsayhuaman. We had a tasty meal at a vegetarian restaurant with the most disinterested server we’ve ever encountered. We’ve also made numerous trips to the local bakery which does absolutely fantastic pastries and seems to be permanently frequented by every French tourist in Cusco, and we went for an excursion to the market to buy essentials for the trek. For our final proper night in Cusco we went to an Indian Buffet restaurant around the corner from the main square. Sitting on the balcony overlooking Avenida El Sol and enjoying a beer, the incessant beeping of the traffic and the incomprehensible whistles and glow-stick assisted gesticulations of the traffic police, we decided that we had thoroughly enjoyed our time in Cusco.

Salkantay Trek next, so we’re going to be off the grid for a few days, we’ll be sure to do another update as soon as possible afterwards though, so watch this space.

Buses, birthdays, Basil Fawlty

When one decides to a visit a foreign country, there are certain aspects that you know won’t be the same as back home. The food is different, the culture is different, the tea is different, and if you really fancy a Dairy Milk at 2am you can’t just pop to Sainsbury’s. These are all things for which you feel perfectly prepared. After all, if it wasn’t such a different way of life, there would be no point in going to experience it. Up until this point, this attitude has served us well. We’ve tried alpaca which is delicious and very low in fat and cholesterol, we’ve embraced coca tea as part of our daily routine, we’ve tuned into the Peruvian mindset and felt our shoulders descend from somewhere up in the stratosphere back to a more stress-free position. Inevitably however, Murphy’s Law will kick in at some point and you will find yourself very much wishing you were tucked up in your jimjams with a nice cup of Yorkshire Tea and a Custard Cream watching Call the Midwife (fear not dear reader, the fact that I am writing this now is testament to us having survived what it is to come!)

 

Having had a jolly good time on our Sacred Valley tour the previous day, we decided to visit some more of Cusco’s ancient offerings with the same tour company. This time we were headed to the ruins of Moray (oh yes, more experimental agricultural terraces!) and the salt mines at Maras. We were told to be ready by 8:20 and were looking forward to a bit of a lie in given that the day before, we were the first to be picked up. The same woman greeted us as she had done the day before and warmly welcomed us with a big smile as she ticked our names off her list. She told us the bus was running a bit late so we stood around and chatted with her for a while. We talked about where we were from and what Peruvian food we’d tried. It was raining for which she apologised and we said it was fine and that it rains in England all the time. When we say this to Peruvian people they seem to take it quite literally but I suppose that comes from the fact that they only have two seasons here. Oh well, at least if they ever make it to the UK they might be pleasantly surprised to see that big yellow hot thing in the sky, I forget its name. The bus ended up being about 40 minutes late but we didn’t mind too much, if the previous day was anything to go by we’d be off out having a lovely time in no time at all.

(EDIT: before going any further, I just wanted to say that after writing this blog post, we contacted our tour company and have since been offered a full refund. 10/10 customer service. Anyway, back to the story…)

As we boarded the bus we found that it was full. There were no seats. This isn’t like a city bus where standing isn’t a problem, it’s essentially my old Argos van converted into a minibus, standing is not an option. Dave was quickly directed to sit in the front next to the tour guide and the driver and the guide told a woman and her 6/7 year old daughter to move up so I could sit next to them, placing the girl on her lap. Not exactly the height of comfort but it was a short drive and we were determined to remain positive! Not long to go until the fabulous sites and tours commence. And so off we went.

 

I pause here for a moment dear reader to explain that driving in Peru and driving in the UK are two entirely different skills. In Peru, your horn is to be used more often than it is not, for example, to beep at tourists to notify them that your taxi is available, to beep at other cars for not pulling away 0.00001 seconds after the traffic light turns green, to beep at someone you know, to beep at someone you don’t know, to beep at people not crossing the road quickly enough, to beep at people crossing the road too quickly…. I think you catch my drift. Another difference is their seemingly cavalier attitude towards things like stop signs, warning signs, speed limits or indeed anything else that tells our Peruvian cousins that they MUST or SHOULD do something. Their healthy disdain for authority reaches as far as driving and is something one embraces early on. We thought we’d finally sussed it and that the mildly overeager driving style of our minibus driver the previous day was to be expected. Har har we chortled, that was a bit hairy but we never felt unsafe.

 

Our driver on the second day however seemed to have been bearing a grudge that Formula 1 hasn’t really taken off in Peru in the same way that it has in other countries and saw fit to take this out on poor unsuspecting tourists. Eek. As a child, my family and I often went skiing so I’m quite used to mountain road driving, with its sharp turns and sheer drops. I’ve also seen my fair share of broken barriers and buses half hanging off the side of the mountain, to know that roads like this are not to be messed with. Our driver seemingly had other ideas and was determined to drive as fast around these tights corners as possible, leaving us helpless tourists clinging on for dear life and desperately hoping nothing was coming the other way, as he once again took the racing line around a blind hairpin bend. I couldn’t even bury my head into Dave’s shoulder because he was up the front, presumably a lot more terrified than I was because he could see exactly how fast the driver was going and see when he answered his mobile phone as we were bombing along as well. We stopped briefly at another one of the “this is how we make alpaca stuff” workshops which was in English this time so that was at least one positive. There was also a nice kitten that we said hello to and also, rather morbidly, under the stove/fire they were keeping guinea pigs. There were even baby ones. I thought I might be able to try guinea pig while I’m here but memories of my pet Rodney from when I was a child came flooding back and now I’m not so sure. I’ll probably do what I did with Alpaca and get Dave to order it and then try a little bit, pretending it’s chicken. After trying and failing to take a picture of a hummingbird we jumped back onto the Terrifying Transport™ and on we went, hiding our eyes and praying to the flying spaghetti monster. We arrived at Moray in one piece and were quickly ferried off the bus by Eddie our tour guide. Eddie didn’t really speak very much English. His descriptions and explanations were a lot longer in Spanish than they were in English and because he did the Spanish bit first, we were left with very little time to explore. He seemed very eager to get us round Moray as quickly as possible and kept repeating “take a picture then back to the bus!”. Poor Eddie, we felt a bit sorry for him. Why they’d decided to put someone who didn’t really speak much English onto an English tour is beyond me but there we go. After our whistle stop tour around Moray (which, by the way, is actually quite impressive, I learned more from the Wikipedia article than I did from our tour though…), we were herded back into the Abominable Autobus™ and on to our next stop.

With promises from our tour guide of chocolate at our next destination, it was almost enough to forget about the awful driving. Who am I kidding, no it wasn’t, it was bloody awful. And our next stop really wasn’t much better. We exited the Terrifying Train™(ok I’m running out of these now…) to find that we’d been shipped to a tourist trap in the middle of nowhere. There were at least 10 other coaches full of people crammed inside this shop which sold everything from snacks to coffee to the generic tourist crap you can buy anywhere in Cusco for ¼ of the price. We had some tiny morsels of chocolate thrown at us (which to be fair, were quite nice), at which point Dave and I looked at each other and decided the best course of action was to spend absolutely no money here and go and stand outside, at least then we would get to spend some actual time together. Alas, this was short lived and we were once again herded back onto the Awful Automobile™. Dear reader, I am not a good flyer. Ask anyone who knows me and they will tell you I get very nervous at the prospect of being on a plane. However, during our journey down into the Maras salt mines, I can honestly say that I would rather have been on a plane or indeed anywhere else at that point in time. I once again feared for my life as we descended. At least we’ll be on the inside on the way back up I thought. The salt mines are found down inside a quarry like valley and have been there since before the Incas. In and of themselves they were quite impressive. They’re all the same depth and are fed by one salt stream via a series of aqueducts down the hillside. They’re then plugged to stop the water flowing in and left to let the water evaporate. Each pit is owned by one family and there are a series of small shops at the top before you walk down selling salt from the mines, as well as the usual tourist toot to which we have become accustomed. We were given more time at the Salineras than we needed to be perfectly honest, I’d much rather have spent more time going round Moray but it wasn’t too long before we were once again herded back on to the bus, making our way back to Cusco.

I can honestly say that the best part of the tour was when we got off the bus at the end. We went and sat on some steps near the square where we had been dropped off and reflected upon how it could be possible that we were still in one piece. We think what had happened was that we’d been lumped in with another tour group, hence the lack of speaking English and the lack of any semblance of non-terrifying driving. Upon further research this seems to be quite common but it was such a diversion from the day before that it didn’t really seem fair. After our adrenaline levels had returned to normal, off we went to find some lunch, stumbling upon a tiny little café which promised sandwiches and a drink for 10 soles – wonderful. A bumbling old Peruvian chap (think Basil Fawlty but shorter and darker skinned) came out and took our orders and we were served two tuna sandwiches as well as a glass of Chicha Morada for me and a “cappuccino” (with almond?!) for Davelar. Chicha Morada is a soft drink made from purple corn which I have absolutely fallen in love with. It’s sweet and tastes nothing like anything we have back in the UK. We should have saved ourselves some money and just bought loads of that instead of fearing for our lives for half the day but you live and you learn. It was only a matter of time before something went a little bit pear-shaped and as we’ve both managed to avoid the dreaded Traveller’s Stomach so far, I suppose it was only fair that we shoulder some of the poor tourist experiences. Ho hum. It wasn’t quite how we expected to spend our 6 year anniversary but it’s certainly made for a good story and besides, tomorrow was my birthday!

 

Having realised a little while ago that we would be spending my birthday in Cusco, I already knew that I wanted to go and stuff my face with chocolate and then go for a curry. So that’s exactly what we did. After a lovely lie in we once again trundled off to Jack’s Café for a MAHUSIVE veggie breakfast and Dave had the banana pancakes. Jack’s is overpriced compared to a lot of the Peruvian family run restaurants, where you can get a full meal for 10 soles, but by English prices it’s cheap as chips and when it gives you a little taste of home, it’s worth every penny. Breakfast consumed and with our chocolate making workshop not until 1:30, we headed back to the hostel for a quick video call with my parents. Dave had also secreted away some cards from the parents and Grandma which was really lovely and made me a bit homesick. The promise of impending chocolate however soon made everything better again. The ChocoMuseo is a chain of chocolate museums/shops/workshops that spans across South America and is doing very well for itself. Not only can you buy handmade chocolate and various silly trinkets but you can also take various workshop, which is exactly what we did! Our ‘guide’ Jeremy was a 23 year old Venezuelan refugee who had moved to Cusco 2 years prior, seemingly having seen which way the wind was blowing and getting out while he could. He told us his family was still there, apart from his sister who lives in Madrid and who he is desperate to go and join. In the meantime however, he works at the ChocoMuseo, showing tourists how chocolate is made, pretending to slice their wrists in order to show the traditional Mayan way of making hot chocolate (no, he really did do this to Dave, I was terrified) and putting up with two silly Brits making stupid jokes and making a big old mess. It was such a laugh and we had such a good time, they even brought me out a little brownie with a candle in it and sang happy birthday! Leaving with our bags full of chocolate, we slipped a healthy tip to Jeremy and shook his hand, wishing him all the best. It was quite a strange contrast as we’re obviously here just to have a good time and it’s easy to forget just how lucky we are to be here, experiencing all of this, and that really a bit of a dodgy bus driver is nothing compared to having to flee your home country.

After popping back to the hostel for a nap, off we ventured to Korma Sutra – Cusco’s highest rated curry house. We weren’t really sure what to expect, what with it being Peru, and India being quite literally on the other side of the world from here (actually, it’s somewhere in Vietnam which we’ve just decided we definitely have to go to). It definitely wasn’t quite up to UK standards but it was a damn sight closer to curry than we were expecting to find in this part of the world and it was still really yummy. A little tipsy and with the raining pitter pattering away, we wandered back to our little hostel with a few extra beers and settled in to catch up on Hell’s Kitchen. A jolly lovely birthday if I do say so myself. The events of the previous day were already starting to seem a little bit funny, and with the promise of moving into an AirBnb all to ourselves on the following Monday, the path forward seemed a lot brighter.

No one expects the Spanish Interruption!

We’ve been in Cusco for a week now and have changed locations from the quaint but quiet Pisko & Soul to the considerably more uphill Intro Hostel. It’s a larger hostel located in a quiet courtyard with rooms all around an open middle section with tables, a pool table, a very sad looking fire pit, a soggy hammock and what I can only loosely refer to as a “water feature”. It has rained a lot more over the past few days, but the weather is very changeable. This morning it chucked it down but now it’s perfectly pleasant as Dave and I sit on tiny stools, not really suited for sizeable bottoms, around what appears to be a giant empty cotton reel repurposed as a table. There’s a lot that’s been upcycled here, I suspect that during the high season it’s full of the type of people we’ve been doing our best to avoid. So far so good!

The day after our walking tour we decided that we’d better get into some sort of shape (other than round) if we’re going to be doing this 5 day trek up to Machu Picchu and taking the advice of our tour guide from the day before, decided to go and visit old JC on the hill. The Cristo Blanco (or Christophe Blanc as we took to calling him after our old landlord in France), was a gift from Christian Palestinians to the city of Cusco as a thank you for harbouring them safely during the end of World War 2. We’ve tried to find out a bit more about these Palestinians as it sounds like a really interesting slice of history, but local knowledge is patchy at best. Standing a somewhat measly 8 meters high (compared to Rio’s 30-meter-high Christ the Redeemer), JC sits atop Pukamoqo Hill which, according to the locals, contains soil samples from all 4 quarters of the ancient Inka Empire. The hike to the top involved several sets of very steep, somewhat crumbly steps up through the outskirts of Cusco, winding up through local houses, plants and at one point, a basketball court. I won’t pretend it was an easy climb, especially when we eventually got to the top and discovered that we’d come the “difficult” way up and if we’d in fact bothered to check the map, we’d have found a much gentler winding slope…but we did it! And the view from the top was breathtaking. The pictures do not do it justice. We sat at the top and enjoyed a Crunchy Nature Valley Bar ™ as we watched the planes land in the valley. Having caught our breath and taken our fill of the amazing landscape (not another bloody mountain!) we decided to take our leave of old Christophe and head down to Mr Eiffel’s market for a bit of gringo toot shopping.

Putting the dried baby llama foetus’ to one side for just a mo’ and ignoring the underwhelming architecture of the place, the San Pedro market is actually really cool. One of the first sections you come across is a long strip of white stools in front of fruit-laden cabinets, behind which stand very smiley happy Peruvian ladies waving menus at you, tempting you to come and enjoy a fruit juice/smoothie at their stall. We opted for a lady called Ana. The names of the women are written in big letters on top of the prices of the juices, once again we suspect shenanigans but have not yet been back to confirm whether they are actually their names, or they just put that so the gringos can see a nice Western name as they’re being fed mystery juice. Once again the portions were sizeable and the costs minimal. We paid 10 soles (about £2.50) for both drinks which were topped up not once, not twice, but three times by the lovely Ana during our visit. Feeling suitably refreshed, we continued on our way through the market, passing a rather hench woman hacking at a large piece of mystery meat. Needless to say we decided we would probably be eating elsewhere that evening. Having been only slightly ripped off (10 soles for a notebook and a snazzy yellow over the shoulder bag), we left the market and headed back to the hostel. Our dinner that evening of fried trout & pasta was served by Fidel Castro. It is also worth mentioning a particular quirk of Peruvian etiquette here, in so far as no matter who asks for the bill or indeed who pays for it, it is always placed in front of Dave. I’ve decided this means he has to pay for everything from now on. Free trip woohoo!

bty

Cusco, like many large cities, offers tourists the chance to save a bit of dosh and acquire a Boleto Touristico. This gives you access to some of the smaller (read, less well funded) museums in central Cusco, as well as the plethora of ruins at varying distances outside the town, for a reduced cost than buying individual tickets. Having acquired ours the previous day and having been woken up at 2am by a taxi who decided that 2am was the perfect time to be beeping and revving his engine right outside our window, we decided to take it easy and visit some of these little museums. Who knows, we might even learn something. As a brief aside, we’ve noticed that the altitude definitely mucks with your ability to retain information and you find yourself reading things or repeating things several times before it sticks. As a brief aside, we’ve noticed that the altitude definitely mucks with your ability to retain information and you find yourself reading things or repeating things several times before it sticks. Our first stop was the Museo Historico Regional, situated inside a Ministry of Culture building which follows the style of many of the buildings in the city, having a courtyard in the centre, with various rooms around the outside on two floors. The Museum follows no discernable timeline or narrative, starting with a massive, almost complete, fossil of a Glyptodont – SO COOL – before then moving on to various cabinets filled with ancient pottery and poorly translated English descriptions. Then it skips several hundred years to a small exhibition about Tupac Amaru II, a Peruvian hero during the Spanish ‘interruption’ in the 16th Century. After this it’s just some Western style paintings of various Goddy Jesusy people. We’ve been told a few times by our various tour guides that art played an important part in the conversion of the indigenous Peruvians to Catholicism but we can’t really see why.

Tourist Ticket Map
You can’t take pics inside the museum so here’s a picture of the Tourist Ticket Map 😀

Our second museum of the day was Qurikancha, which is entirely underground and sits underneath what once was the Inca Temple of the Sun (before the Spanish built a church on it). We were warmly welcomed by an indigenous Peruvian chap who shook both our hands and welcomed us to Peru. On the whole, Cusconians are exceptionally friendly and happy to help, though we’ve found they have a rather dry sense of humour. This is all very well and good when you’re compos mentis but when you’ve just carried a very large, very heavy bag up a very big hill only to be told by the chap on reception that he only speaks English when he’s forced to isn’t ideal. Anyway, I digress. Qurikancha very much follows the same theme of the first museum with what can only be described as an omnishambles of a collection of various bits of pottery, arrowheads and poorly translated signs. It only took us about 30 minutes to go round the whole thing. We began to suspect at this point that the tourist ticket is a very good way of getting unsuspecting Gringos to visit some of the less well funded museums but we didn’t mind too much as we’d spotted a lovely French style coffee shop where we decided to stop for lunch after visiting our third and final museum of the day: Monumento Inca Pachacutec. This tower in the middle of downtown Cusco consists of a museum as you go up the tower, as well as a viewing platform at the top, crowned with a huge statue of the Inca king Pachacutec/Pachacuti. He’s a bit of a symbol round here, like Tupac Amaru II, as he grew Cusco from a small hamlet to a great ruling empire and won quite a big battle against a local tribe that tried to invade Cusco. He is also the subject of a cracking song in the BBC series Horrible Histories but again I digress. Recent historians believe that Machu Picchu was built as a summer home for him but the evidence, like a lot of the history round here, is lacking *shakes fists angrily at the Spanish*. We didn’t spend a huge amount of time here as it was very rainy and we were hungry but it was definitely the best of the 3 museums we visited that day. We ate at Amaranto Anticuchos & Café that evening where Dave had beef & chicken skewers and I had the biggest portion of egg fried vegetable rice ever. We were pleasantly smug that the woman serving us spoke to us solely in Spanish and spoke to the American chap dining in front of us solely in English. I’ve actually been really surprised by how much of the Spanish I attempted to absorb before our trip has managed to stick. The say that once you learn one language it’s much easier to learn a second and that seems to be at least in some parts true, which is good because we’ve noticed people are a lot more smiley and willing to help when you at least only partially butcher their native language, rather than just assuming they speak English; which I suppose is true of everywhere in the world (apart from Paris where everyone is grumpy all the time).

Up early the following day and upon the recommendation of Gonzalo on reception we decided our itinerary for the day would include the Inca Museum and the Santo Domingo Church. Paying 10 soles each for the privilege, our first stop was the Inca Museum; located just off the main square where, as usual, we were steadily approached by people offering walking tours, massages, commercially reproduced paintings, trinkets, and various illicit substances. As you walk through the rooms coming off the central courtyard you are treated to explanations and examples of the various tribes that existed across Peru/Bolivia/Ecuador/Chile before they were united under the Inka Empire. This was great as alongside the museums from the previous day, we were able to start to piece together some sort of timeline from pre-history up to the modern day and as much of the information is repeated between the different museums, some of it finally started to stick – hoorah! The only minor downside to this museum is that by the end they have just given up on translating anything into English so you just sort of have to muddle through on your own. BUT this was more than made up for however by the fact that there are REAL LIFE ACTUAL MUMMIES. This was worth the ticket price alone. Mummies in Incan culture were treated as part of the family and during festive periods, people often brought their Mummy to visit other Mummies as they believed they liked to socialise in death as they had done in life. It’s quite sweet really and memories of visiting the British Museum as a kid came flooding back. Everything else paled in comparison to the Mummies really, even the giant mural of ol’ Tupac being quartered in the main square didn’t quite cut it. That’s what Cusco needs, a good horror/gruesome walking tour. Dave can attest to how many of those I’ve dragged him on in various places around Europe, including one in the middle of summer on a sweltering hot day in Edinburgh. ANYWAY. On to the Santo Domingo church.

 

Ah not quite, we had lunch at what has now become a firm favourite of ours: JC’s Café. It’s cheap by English standards and the portions, as we’ve come to find is quite the norm in Cusco, are huge. A plate of nachos and a tuna sandwich with ‘french friss’ later, we carried on to see some more stuff that the Spanish ruined.

 

The Santo Domingo church was built on top of the destroyed Inca Palace of the Sun and its foundations incorporate much of the original structure. When it was occupied by the Spanish, they painted over all the Inca stonework with Catholic murals and they also removed all the gold that covered many of the walls. Before we went inside, we were approached by a local woman named Diana who asked if we had a tour group. We did not have a tour group and so paid 40 soles for a private tour of the ruins/church. We could have gone round on our own with the audio guide but Diana’s English was really good and when the monthly average wage here is about 1400 soles (£350), it’s good to support locals when you can. Diana told us she was born in Cusco and had lived there her whole life, only leaving a few times to go to Arequipa which, she told us, has a whole bunch of volcanos, which is why property is cheap there. Honestly the photos do not do justice as to just how impressive this place is. The precision of the Incan architecture is breathtaking and the stones are massive! Diana pointed out one stone which had 14 different corners. We spent a good 2.5 hours going around the whole site which include a cracking view over Cusco and Qurikancha from the day before, as well as a very charming garden where we tried, once again in vain, to capture a picture of a hummingbird.

And that just about brings you up to date! Sunday was a write off as we had a rubbish night’s sleep so we used the VPN on the laptop to watch some stuff on BBC Iplayer (thanks Daddy!), went out for a burger (alpaca/quinoa), then came back to the hostel with a few beers and watched The Emperor’s New Groove. On Monday morning we said goodbye to Pisko & Soul and lugged our heavy rucksacks up to Intro Hostel where I’m writing this now. Over to you Davelar!