Dear all,

 

Hopefully, this new format is working as well as the prior ones but the new improved version shouldn’t clog up your Inboxes.

 

Anyway, off we went, out of the (over-) developed world of LA and into the continent of South America.  This, pleasingly, gave me the full set of (inhabited) continents.  Antarctica I will definitely get to some day, but for now I have neither the time, resources or cash required.  In addition, by travelling to the area between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Equator in the austral early summer we would finally escape the snow that had doggedly pursued us.  Indeed, some simple experiments involving dropping stones onto their shadows suggested that the midday sun was within a couple of degrees of vertical ascension!

 

Lima, we had heard, was a bit of a dump and so to save time we flew straight from Lima to Cusco.  This necessitated 6 hours overnight in Lima airport.  I think I managed about 45 minutes success in my sleeping bag on the floor, but overall it was not an experience I would recommend.  My only memories of Lima are that it was cloudy and achieving the not insubstantial task of managing to be quite cold despite being at sea level near the Equator.  [Geographers, please explain this.]

 

The flight to Cuzco was fairly spectacular with lots of snow-capped peaks poking through the clouds.  The landing is also fairly exciting as one flies along the valley below the hills either side prior to touchdown, which itself is noticeably more lively on account of the altitude.  The town is at 3,650m (12,000 feet) which was a new record (short-lived) for me.  The lack of air is very noticeable.  Just walking through the airport becomes quite tiring.

 

The town itself is a bizarre duality of Spanish colonial architecture on top of (often literally) Inca ruins.  Much of the Inca stonework is highly impressive with stones as heavy as 128 tons perfectly stacked together without any use of mortar.

 

 
[Sacsayhuaman, amusingly pronounced ‘sexy woman’ with Cusco in background]

 

[Sacsayhuaman up close.  Some of these stones weigh over 100 tonnes!]

 

It is also clear to see the Spanish attempts to impress upon the natives the superiority of their religion.  The inside of the cathedral is the most over-the-top decoration I have seen.  The main altar is solid silver (guess where all that silver came from) and numerous other mini-altars are highly ornate and covered with gold leaf and jewels.  There is also much intricate woodwork.

 

The central plaza of the town has a very European feel to it although outside the main square it becomes fairly run down.  Qusco (I saw at least 5 different spellings of the place) is allegedly expensive for Peru but one can find a nice hotel twin room for six pounds a night and eat well for half that.  The downside is that as an obvious gringo (foreigner) you are besieged by vendors wherever you go, and one must be generally careful with security.

 

[Cusco plaza – rainbow flag is the Inca flag, not the ‘other’ flag]

 

Around Cusco are many Inca remains of their temples etc. which we did a day tour around.  Here you can see quite how awesome their masonry skills were.  It beggars belief to then be told that many of these structures would have been gilded with solid gold and silver before the Spanish came and nicked it all back on their galleons (though thanks to Drake and co. we got our fair share as well!).

 

[Impressive Inca stonework at Pisac]

 

[Some of the mountains around the ruins are breathtaking]

 

One cannot come to cusco without doing the Inca trail so we made some enquiries and booked ourselves in with an agency called SAS who were relatively expensive but allegedly the best.  The tour didn't start for a few days so sense was actually forced upon us and we had time to acclimatize to the altitude for another couple of days chilling over the delicious local beer, Cusquena, and a few pisco sours.  This was a very nice drink although we discovered later that the magic ingredient is raw egg white.  Hmmm.

 

The Inca trail is sold as a 4 day, 3 night trek.  Our fantastic SAS service meant that we carried our own backpacks but they were responsible for tents and food.  This becomes seriously worthwhile when you arrive at the campsite in pouring rain to find your tent pitched and lunch laid out!  Our group was an excellent bunch of 16 people, mainly in their twenties and, pleasingly, all English-speaking.

 

Day one is seriously simple.  You have a pointlessly early 5am start where a bus takes you to the start and you walk in a group (and therefore mind-numbingly slowly) along a river at 2,500m for a couple of hours and then slightly uphill to day one camp (3,000m).  This is basically a couple of fields on the edge of a farm but some entrepreneurial farmer has pleasingly set up a beer shop thereby providing something to do in the evening.  One sees a few Inca ruins but the general might of the mountains is most impressive, many snow capped peaks are 5,000 or 6,000m tall.  Weather conditions are typically mountain-like with cloud, rain, sun cycling round quickly and with no warning.  In fact, some of the best sights are watching a bank of cloud come up the valley from below you and then melt away for no apparent reason.

 

Day two is billed as the seriously strenuous day and you are encouraged to hire a porter for your backpack.  Having already wimped out of tent and food carriage, we weren't going to be completely wussy so reckoned we'd be fine.  The path heads steadily uphill from the camp above the treeline at 3,700m to the unpleasant sounding Dead Woman's pass at a breathless 4,200m.  It turns out that this name comes from the profile of the pass allegedly resembling a woman, albeit an impressively endowed one.  Jon and I, being our keen selves, quickly found ourselves at the head of our group with a Canadian chap who had experience of the Himalayas and even Everest base camp so clearly knew what he was doing.  The allegedly strenous climb turned out to be hard work but perfectly doable and we reached the top in 2hr 15min.  Here, the Glass-Ingram curse struck again.  We may have been 13 degrees off the equator, we may have been as close to the equator as madras or bangkok and we may have had sun directly overhead but where we go, it snows and so it did.  The worst type too, wet and heavy.  This meant that the prospect of waiting for the rest of the group seemed miserable and the views weren't up to much either so we headed down the other side.  As we approached camp 2 (3,600m) the sun managed to re-appear, which did at least mean that we could put all our stuff out to dry, although it meant that everyone going at a normal pace got the nice views at the top.

 

[Camping above the cloudline!]

 

[Dead woman’s pass – use your imagination and you can just make out the ‘breast’!]

 

We had made it to our camp by 11:30 in the morning so there was little to do for the rest of the day.  Feeling a bit sticky I decided that I would brave the unheated mountain shower.  This was a bad idea.  Never in my life have I experienced such intense pain inflicted by mere cold water.  As far as I could tell, not a single one of the blokes foolhardy enough to go in managed to get through without a constant stream of gasps and expletives.  Anyway, character-building stuff and all that and at least I was no longer sticky.  After lunch in the afternoon a most tremendous rainstorm appeared which left everyone stuck in the main dining tent (SAS justifying every penny) twiddling their thumbs.  However, the guides are clearly used to such situations and a bottle of rum appeared just when spirits were beginning to flag.  And another one after that.

 

The night that night was rather cold and the downward slope meant that I was on good terms with the door of the tent by daybreak but one's mood is always improved by being woken up with a fresh mug of tea or coffee!  Day 3 was the most spectacular.  It is longer along the ground and involves another ascent to 4,000m before a trek along a ridge and then down into the valley next to Machu Picchu.  During this day you pass through cloud forest (basically rainforest) that teems with bromeliads (spiky plants that grow symbiotically on others), orchids and lots of moss.  There are also many spectacular views of the mountains and valleys.

 

[Above the cloud (and trees) again!]

 

[Final descent to camp 3 is through rainforest – note ruins in background]

 

[Camp 3 during the end of a great storm – Machu Picchu is over the ridge on the left]

 

The final campite is based spectacularly on the hillside overlooking a steep forested valley.  The river at the bottom is, remarkably, a tributary of the Amazon.  There is also a bar and it is traditional that a mini-party occurs there on the final evening, which made for a not exactly optimal feeling when we were woken at 4am to set off for the final 2 hours into Machu Picchu.

 

The theory is to see the supposedly spectacular sunrise over the place, but the reality is that the place is almost always in thick cloud as we discovered.  This did however mean that instead of a sunrise, we got the magical sudden appearance of the place as the cloud lifted.  Machu Picchu has been impressively restored, rather like Pompeii but smaller, and is a complete Inca village complete with temples, terraces and water channels.  Many of the stones and creations are allegedly perfectly aligned north-south or to cast various shadows on the equinoxes, but it is my cynical opinion that if you look hard enough then there will always be such things through statistical variations.  Anyway, it is impressive enough without the astro-mumble-jumble.

 

[Machu Picchu with Hyaunu Picchu in background.  Note authentic Peruvian headwear!]

 

In the afternoon we had the option of climbing up Hyaunu Picchu whish is a large pointy rock overlooking the place.  Our tour guide made a big thing of stressing how dangerous this was, which put almost all of the group off but I went up and, though narrow and with some interesting drops in places, it was perfectly do-able and there wasn't even any sheet ice! (a la Mt. washington.)  The 360 degree view from the top is pretty cool and worth the climb.

 

[Hyaunu Picchu in the cloud.  An interesting climb!]

 

So that was the Inca trail over and done.  A fantastic hike through great scenery and not nearly as difficult as made out.  However, rather sadly, it is becoming over-commercialised, and despite the limit on numbers now imposed, the sight of a line of brightly coloured backpacks stretching into the distance detracted a little from the experience for me.

 

One returns from Machu Picchu to Cusco by train, which was a unique experience.  The last bit into Cusco is made down a steep hill where the train zig-zags forwards and backwards in a switchback, thus effectively achieving sideways movement.  Alas, this occurs at an average of perhaps 5 kph so that the final couple of kilometres as the crow flies takes about an hour!  Back in Cusco we arrived to find a political rally occurring in the main square, for it was local elections time.  Being South America there was not a great deal of difference to a pop concert.  Expansive rhetoric it was not!

 

Having overstayed our plans in Cusco, we unfortunately didn't have any days to spend alongside the beautiful and massive Lake Titicaca but at least saw the place on our excellent bus to La Paz.  Here, we experienced South America at its best as on arriving at the border on time, we found that Manuel the border guard had had a few too many Piscos the night before and had not made it into work on time.  Two hours later after numerous other inefficiencies, including a 20 minute search of the coach that consisted of opening the hold and staring in over the course of a few fags and a coffee, we reached Bolivia and went on to La Paz.