Andy & Gillie's Big Adventure!: Hola de Perú!

Same shit different day, I hear you mutter. But no – this is an entirely new post from an entirely new continent. South America to be precise. It may get a bit rambling as I am writing it in bits so as not to forget anything. Also, we’ve been asked to add in a bit of history and proper, like Information in the South America Chronicles, as a loyal reader may be using some of it for her school’s South America project that is going on this term. [Term – what’s that? – ed]

Having shed a small tear at the departure of Molly Too, we set off for the next part of our Big Adventure: Peru, Chile and Argentina. A drive across Florida to our Airbnb in Fort Lauderdale, then a short hop to an airport hotel for our last night in the USA. All very calm and easy, some waiting about, but the next big test was Airport Check-In! Surprisingly, despite looking like we are carrying our homes, snail-like, on our backs (which we kind of are), we got through baggage drop and a very laidback security check and onto our departure gate. The flight was delayed, so we didn’t arrive in Lima until about 11.45 pm and another easy transition through departures and customs, stopping long enough to get another country stamp in our passports.

We had arranged to have a taxi from the hotel meet us at the airport, so weren’t too concerned about negotiating the streets of Lima at midnight. Sounds grand, but it only cost us $10!

A word – or lots – about Lima. To start with our taxi, along with every other ‘vehicle’ we saw, had more dents and knocks than unblemished areas and the driving was, shall we say, exhilarating. These guys know, to within a centimeter, how wide their cars are and just how much they need to accelerate to get a few feet ahead of the next car. Indicators? Pah! Give way? No chance, mate. Stop signs? You’re ‘avin’ a giraffe. Let’s say we were both sweating considerably by the time we reached our ‘hotel’.

And not just from the driving. Lima is a city of 10 million souls in a huge country of 30 million and sprawls across several square miles. When we arrived it was nearly 30 degrees with extreme humidity. Our hostel room had a window, but we didn’t dare open it as we didn’t know what was outside, so we spent a very sticky night in a – for us – very narrow bed.

Culturally Peru has a real wealth of experiences to offer, but they are still in the Dark Ages about some things. Litter is widespread and horrible. Dogs roam in feral packs and they (the population) eat Guinea Pigs! Also, they still use pictures of nubile, well-endowed (is that the same thing?), nearly-naked young ladies to advertise such things as tyres and oil-change centres. Or are they making some clever subliminal links with rubber and lubrication?!

The next day, we were ‘treated’ to a taxi ride that gave us a chance to see much more of the city. It’s surrounded on three sides by mountains, but there’s so much smog in the summer that you simply can’t see them. It’s a vast sprawling, filthy, smog-bound, noisy, dangerous (apparently), city and we’re not sad about leaving it for six days to go see the wonders of Cusco and, of course Machu Picchu.

The apartment where we are bookending our trip to Machu Picchu is in San Isidro - one of the better districts of Lima and has a sea-view from the rooftop balcony. On a clear day. But it’s very nice and we have been able to leave lots of our stuff here while we go on a couple of 20-hour bus rides and four nights at the Inca attractions.

After little sleep, travelling over very bumpy and winding roads for what seemed like about 12 hours, we arrived at Cusco, 3,310 metres (10,860 ft) above sea level and were promptly whisked off by our tour company for a city tour. Because our bus was 1½ hours late arriving, we only had time to dump our bags and get on with it. But it was all quite stunning. Cusco, by the way, means ‘navel of the world’ apparently, in the ancient Quechua (Ketchwa) language, which is still spoken today, but sadly dying out as it’s not taught in schools – except for a trial project – and the younger people don’t want to learn it.

Caveat time now. Most of the information that follows was delivered to us by our various tour guides – native Andinos all – with some re-interpretation, or editorial orientation from your humble writer. It was quite hard to get a true sense of their feelings about the tragic stories they were unfolding, but sometimes, as we understood they were all native Quechua, it seemed like they didn’t follow the One True Religion as ardently as perhaps the priests might like.

Our first stop was the Cathedral of the Sagrada Familia in the city centre, a great place to start as it showed, possibly unintentionally, how the Spanish invaders, led originally by Francisco Pizarro in 1533 proceeded to destroy the Inca civilization and culture by systematically knocking down their great temples and sacred buildings and building their Catholic cathedrals and churches over the top, using the billions of $$/££ worth of gold and silver looted from the ancient sites. Francis Drake and the rest of them merit a mention here as they did go some way to preventing all the loot from swelling the coffers of the Spanish invaders (good lads). We couldn’t take photos inside but it’s worth looking up the depictions of the Last Supper and the 1650 earthquake.

Qoricancha was our next stop and excellent examples of the building skills of the Inca are still apparent, despite the attempts by the Spanish to conceal them. These ruins show how the massive stones were laid to fit perfectly with smoothly-planed sides, so that the sun shines through three sets of windows during the winter solstice on June 21^st the shortest day in the southern hemisphere.

Saksayhuaman (pron. Saxywoman) is one of the most famous and sacred of the Inca sites in Cusco. It’s a huge fortress believed to be founded by Pachacutec – the man who essentially founded the Inca empire and was the site of the final battle to take the city of Cusco. There are various interpretations of its meaning, but we like the one offered by Herman, our guide. It means ‘satiated, or satisfied falcon’ and is a particularly grisly story, so perfect for kids!

After many days of fighting across the citadel of Saksayhuaman, with the advantage swinging backwards and forwards, the Spaniards, who had lost all their reinforcements coming from Lima in a massacre, won the day with a final push. During this battle, however, the brother of Francisco Pizarro, the general of the Conquistadors – Juan Pizarro – was killed and in an act of vengeance, or mourning, Francisco ordered that no bodies were to be cleared from the battlefield.

Now the local birds of prey – falcons and hawks etc – soon realised there were easy pickings to be had, so arrived en masse for a bit of an al fresco feast. There were so many bodies, that no birds left the table hungry that day and in fact many came back the next day for seconds. Hence the name ‘satiated falcon’. Good eh?

Our next couple of stops were Tambomachay a spiritual place for ceremonial bathing and Puka Pukara – a fortress or guard post with an underground labyrinth, once again showing the mathematical and scientific skill of the Inca architecture.

By this time we were very tired, so a quick meal in the city square and off to bed in preparation for our visit the next day to the Valle Sagrado – Scared Valley of the Incas.

It’s worth pausing here for a quick note about the Andean people. The native Quechua people are very dark skinned, due to their almost constant exposure to the elements. They are typically short and squat with sturdy legs and broad chests to accommodate their larger-than-average lungs – necessary to thrive in the rarified low-oxygen atmosphere of the High Andes. We saw many of them chewing constantly on coca leaves – a good remedy for altitude sickness – and we enjoyed many cups of coca tea, as well as dosing ourselves up with chlorophyll, which was supposed to help as well. In fact we didn’t suffer too badly from altitude, just the odd headache, occasional breathlessness and some loss of appetite – but that could all have been due to the busy schedule we were keeping.

The cosmology of the Incas is also very interesting (well we think so). It’s based on Pachamama – Mother Earth – and considers all the elements of great importance. Read further on for the most important character in the cosmology. Not sure of the detail, but there are three level or plains of significance. The first is the future – represented by air or the Andean Condor, the world’s largest bird. The second is the present, earth, represented by the Puma and the third is the past or the underworld, represented by the Snake.

Still awake?

After a restless night, we were picked up from our hotel and taken for a trip into the Urubamba Valley – or Sacred Valley of the Incas. The river Urubamba runs for several hundred miles feeding into the mighty Amazon. As a bit of ruin had fallen on someone’s head during a visit the previous day, one of our scheduled stops was cancelled for maintenance and repair, so we had some time to go and look around the market at Pisac, where we enjoyed some friendly bargaining for souvenirs.

The thing about bargaining, we found, was that if you do it with a smile on your face and don’t automatically assume they are out to cheat you, it’s quite an enjoyable experience. Walk away if you can’t get the price you want, but don’t go for the lowest price – go for the fairest price. We had lots of fun trying to persuade merchants (always with a smile on our faces) that they really wanted to take our money – usually at about 5/8-2/3 of the original asking price – for their goods.

From the market we stopped to see where they make Chicha – corn beer – which is very widespread (just a red plastic bag on a stick outside the house denotes where you can get some), very weak and not too bad, then onto a lovely spot for lunch on the balcony where we were entertained by Inca Wayra - an authentic Andean with his range of pipes. We kept expecting to hear Manuel and His Music of the Mountains, but could we? We did hear various versions of the old Julie Felix (remember her?) hit – ‘I’d Rather be a Camel than a Goat’ or something like that.

Ollantaytambo (pron. Oiyan-tye-tambo) was the penultimate stop on this day and was an amazing fortress in the valley. The story here was that Ollantay was a powerful general who won lots of wars for his emperor Pachacutec and subdued many peoples in the Andes. He fell in love with the emperor’s daughter, Cusi Coyllur, but because he was not of the aristocratic ruling class, he was not permitted to marry her, so she was sent to a convent and he declared himself an enemy of the emperor. He took up residence in a high fortress in the Valle Sagrado. In an epic tale of treachery, defeat, mercy and finally absolution, his stronghold was besieged for 10 years until it fell and Ollantay was captured and presented to the emperor for execution. Just as the axe was about to fall (our guide’s poetic embellishments here), a 10-year old girl stepped forward and declared herself the daughter of Ollantay and Cusi Coyllur, so Emperor Pachacutec pardoned his general and they all live happily ever after. Aaaah.

We had a quick photo op on our way back to Cusco at Apu Qun Tiqsi Teqsi Viracocha Pachay Achachi, or Viracocha for short – a statue of the Creator of the Whole Universe and Human Beings. Pretty important, really.

Once again a quick nosh and early night, as we had to be up at 5.30 the following day for our trip to Aguas Calientes – which is basically Machu Picchu town and the only place from whence you can reach the famous Wonder, unless you walk the Inca Trail, which is closed in February. (Phew!! Lucky!!)

Because of the vertiginous height of the mountains, requiring many switchbacks and long climbs; quality of the roads; large numbers of tourist coaches, buses, minibuses (combis), tuk-tuks, cars, and scary driving, getting anywhere takes a while. So the first part of our trip was a bus to the train station at Pachar, then a most enjoyable two hour train ride to Machu Picchu town (AC – see above). We had the rest of the day to ourselves, so explored for a bit, had an very ordinary lunch then went in search of the fabled Pisco Sour.

Made primarily of the local grape brandy, lemon juice and whisked egg white, these are served pretty much everywhere and in big bowl type glasses. We found Happy Hours in abundance, much to Gillie’s delight! Two Pisco Sours for 20 Nuevo Soles (the Peruvian currency), which sounds a lot, but at a rate of five N/S to the £, works out at £4 for two. So we had a couple. Each.

Up at five am the next day after a sleepless night (nothing to do with the Pisco Sours – honest, just some bloody festival day where kids spend all day and apparently all night chucking water and soapy stuff at each other – their joy was boundless and not very subdued, even at three am!), we boarded the bus to The Wonder.

Won’t say much about Machu Picchu itself as anyone can find out as much and more than they want on t’interweb, but it so lives up to its billing. It was low cloud and fog when we arrived at about 6.30 and we spent the first 1½ hours watching the clouds lift – quite magical in itself. Once again, there’s an awesome sight and therefore photo opportunity around every corner and we found ourselves stopping and clicking all the time.

Finally the sun cleared (I say finally – it was only about 8.30) and the mountain of Wayna Picchu – the iconic peak in every MP photo – was revealed. So we got lots of snaps (see below).

Apparently, Machu Picchu is believed to have been built as a sort of university or study centre for the aristocracy of the Incas, as there is evidence that it only housed abut 500 people when completed and none of these had arthritis – an indicator of hard physical labour – and all ate corn – reserved for the privileged classes. A bit like Britain today really – substitute money for corn and having for eating.

Anyway, enough of the politics already. We had an absolutely brilliant time in MP, then caught the bus back to more Pisco Sours before train and bus back to Cusco for our last night there. Relaxing in Cusco before our 20-hour return coach to Lima, we kept reminding ourselves where we had been and thinking about ticking off another couple of Ancient Wonders in the not-too-distant…

Back in Lima now, psyching ourselves up for The Big One – 50 hours on a bus to Santiago, leaving Friday, arriving Sunday. Pray for us. Hasta Luego. Love to all A.

PS. Hi there, I don’t think there’s much left for me to say after the long missive from Andy…However I think he’s missed a couple of things. E.g. What a small world it is! On our first tour, of Cusco, we met an Australian couple, who incidentally are building their own aeroplane from a kit (as you do) and then said goodbye, as they were on a different itinerary. The next day, as part of our next trip, we went for lunch in a beautiful converted hacienda. The waiter showed us to our table and who should be sitting at the next table but our Aussie friends. On Sunday we were strolling through the streets of Aguas Calientes, checking out the ‘happy hour’ situation with regards to Pisco Sours, when we turned the corner and who should be there…yes you guessed it, our Aussie friends whom we greeted like long lost bosom buddies!

A similar thing happened with an American couple whom we met briefly at our hotel in Cusco, we then saw them in Aguas Calientes, again at Machu Picchu and then once again at the station waiting to go back to Cusco. By this time we once again greeted them like long lost friends and had a lovely chat while waiting for the train.

Keep in mind that these places are huge with swarms of tourists, so to see someone you recognize is quite thrilling, (perhaps we’ve been away too long!!)

Another thing to mention is the brilliant organisation of our 4 night trip to Machu Picchu. Taxis, buses were all there to pick us up exactly at the times they were supposed to, even when our bus from Lima was one and a half hours late, there was a chap waiting with his placard saying JOHN ROGERS! We could have kissed him with relief.

Even though the areas we have visited in Peru are mostly touristy, not many people understand or speak English, so we have found Andy’s knowledge of Spanish such a bonus. (He’s also very pleased that people understand him and is enjoying being able to communicate and extend his vocabulary). I’m picking up a few words like ‘caliente,’ this means ‘hot’ which it is very much at the moment and in Chile it’s promising to be hotter (or mas caliente!).

One more thing, in the US when we mentioned we were going to South America, we were met with gasps and amazement…It’s so dangerous there, why are you going? Even the Peruvian couple I sat next to on the flight here, said to be VERY careful and to take my rings off and hide everything away. Of course you have to be careful in any big city and we may have just been lucky, but everyone here has been so kind and helpful, so far we’ve felt very safe. Fingers crossed it continues!!

Time for bed, big day tomorrow, 50+ hours on a bus, are we mad or what? We’ll let you know in the next blog.

Take care, loads of love

Gillie xx