So the bus to Arequipa took 13 hours instead of the advertised 10, but the scenery was lovely, and the bus very comfy so I didn't mind. We arrived kinda late at night so we shared a taxi into the centre with a couple from South Africa (that Sarah had met while panicking about the fact that the bus had disappeared when she came back from the station toilet at the waypoint of Puno - the bus had to change a tyre but took over an hour to do it, with me still onboard).
So we took a nice place for our first night, but the next morning Sarah went to investigate other cheaper options, and found a nice place. So we packed up and moved across the town, only to find the guy Sarah had talked to was gone, and his assistant wouldn't give us the same price. We came back 2 hours later, still no boss, so we just moved 2 doors up the road to an even cheaper place (Hotel Florentina, not quite as nice but still lovely).
We spent the next 3 days strolling around the lovely town exploring the various museums (including the mad 500-year old frozen mummy of Juanita who was sacrificed by the Inca on top of a nearby mountain) and the cool huge convent that the city is also famous for. We've eaten really well too, in fact we had one of the trips better meals last night in the very fancy hotel of Casa de la Moneda.
But today we're off to explore one of the other things Arequipa is famous for, the Colca Canyon (famous for being twice as deep as the Grand Canyon). I didn't bother to get an organised tour, instead we're just hopping on the local bus to the town at the end of the canyon (Cabanaconde), and we'll just take it from there...
Friday, September 19, 2008
Sunday, September 14, 2008
The journey home (home being Cusco now of course)
Alex was very keen on walking all the way back to the town of Ollantaytambo, from where local buses head straight back to Cusco (most of them via the town of Urubamba). This hike is 30km or something along train tracks, and the main reason for walking was to avoid the high cost of just hopping on the comfy train that travels the very same tracks. I had considered walking (being keen as always to avoid being ripped-off), and Sarah was quite keen to walk too, but on the way down from Machu Picchu I had felt a slight twinge in my knee, and at dinner that night it was quite painful. So I decided not to chance damaging my knee, and instead to see if we could get the train the next day, or if not (as we'd heard that seats sell out very quickly), just wait another night in Agus Caliente and maybe walk the following day.
So Sarah gets up the following morning around 9am and strolls down to the train station (we weren't in any particular rush and didn't have any idea of the train times or seat availability as the station was closed the night before). She arrives back at the hostel 10 minutes later breathless and in a bit of a panic, telling me to get packed immediately as she's just bought tickets for the 9:30 train - the time of the only cheap train each day. I have a quick shower and hobble down to the nearby train station (my knee is still a little sore, but much improved from the evening before).
The station is all a confusion of arriving and departing passengers, but after a bit of running around we find the right train and get seated in the lovely comfy seats with just a few minutes to spare. The journey is only 2 hours by train to Ollantaytambo, but after an hour I spot Alex walking alone along the tracks. It's 10:30 and he's only halfway, so either he started much, much later than he'd expected or he was really struggling with the hike. It turned out that the hike was all uphill too, and not downhill as he'd told us (the tracks follow the Urubamba river all the way, and the river was raging the wrong direction for poor Alex I'm afraid!).
Yet again on this trip I felt really 'lucky' that I'd made the right choice. Even though I couldn't have tackled that hike with my knee anyway, I intuitively felt that the hike would be a bit of a nightmare regardless, since walking along train tracks doesn't allow easy appreciation of your surroundings. This is because you need to concentrate on your feet most of the time, as there are small, misshapen rocks everywhere on which you can easily twist an ankle. So it wouldn't have been a particularly enjoyable hike even though the mountain landscapes were beautiful - I reckon I got to enjoy the views better from the train itself (again we just happened to get seats on the correct side of the train to enjoy those views).
So we effortlessly made it to Ollantaytambo, where we'd been before to visit the town's famous ruins. After a nice lunch there by the river we strolled though the small village to the waiting local minivans and within 3 minutes we were off to the town of Urubamba. There we had to get a connecting local bus back to Cusco, and yet again we were waiting literally only a couple of minutes before heading off (I don't want to jinx anything of course, but it continues to be uncanny how we never have to wait for local buses, having caught what seems like hundreds now on this trip).
We arrived back in Cusco early in the afternoon and walked back to our original hostel where we'd left our rucksacks. Of course they had a room available, in fact the very same one we'd had before, so it felt very much like coming home. So much so in fact that we decided to just hang around for another couple of days just relaxing.
It meant we had time to use Glen's computer to burn a load of photos onto DVD (although I can't read either copy of one set of photos, so hopefully I can recover them when I get home somehow!). We went to McCoy's bar for lunch and Sarah used Glen's computer and the free wi-fi there to upload hundreds of our photos onto her Facebook account (I think this link should get you there if your interested).
So this afternoon while I used the internet Sarah bought our bus tickets to Arequipa, our next destination in Peru, and we leave tomorrow morning. Cusco has been a great place to spend the past couple of weeks (Glen's been here for 3 months, and he leaves tomorrow too), but it's finally time to move on. Arequipa is famous for it's colonial archecture and also a mad huge canyon famous for condor spotting, so no doubt we'll end up spending ages there too...
So Sarah gets up the following morning around 9am and strolls down to the train station (we weren't in any particular rush and didn't have any idea of the train times or seat availability as the station was closed the night before). She arrives back at the hostel 10 minutes later breathless and in a bit of a panic, telling me to get packed immediately as she's just bought tickets for the 9:30 train - the time of the only cheap train each day. I have a quick shower and hobble down to the nearby train station (my knee is still a little sore, but much improved from the evening before).
The station is all a confusion of arriving and departing passengers, but after a bit of running around we find the right train and get seated in the lovely comfy seats with just a few minutes to spare. The journey is only 2 hours by train to Ollantaytambo, but after an hour I spot Alex walking alone along the tracks. It's 10:30 and he's only halfway, so either he started much, much later than he'd expected or he was really struggling with the hike. It turned out that the hike was all uphill too, and not downhill as he'd told us (the tracks follow the Urubamba river all the way, and the river was raging the wrong direction for poor Alex I'm afraid!).
Yet again on this trip I felt really 'lucky' that I'd made the right choice. Even though I couldn't have tackled that hike with my knee anyway, I intuitively felt that the hike would be a bit of a nightmare regardless, since walking along train tracks doesn't allow easy appreciation of your surroundings. This is because you need to concentrate on your feet most of the time, as there are small, misshapen rocks everywhere on which you can easily twist an ankle. So it wouldn't have been a particularly enjoyable hike even though the mountain landscapes were beautiful - I reckon I got to enjoy the views better from the train itself (again we just happened to get seats on the correct side of the train to enjoy those views).
So we effortlessly made it to Ollantaytambo, where we'd been before to visit the town's famous ruins. After a nice lunch there by the river we strolled though the small village to the waiting local minivans and within 3 minutes we were off to the town of Urubamba. There we had to get a connecting local bus back to Cusco, and yet again we were waiting literally only a couple of minutes before heading off (I don't want to jinx anything of course, but it continues to be uncanny how we never have to wait for local buses, having caught what seems like hundreds now on this trip).
We arrived back in Cusco early in the afternoon and walked back to our original hostel where we'd left our rucksacks. Of course they had a room available, in fact the very same one we'd had before, so it felt very much like coming home. So much so in fact that we decided to just hang around for another couple of days just relaxing.
It meant we had time to use Glen's computer to burn a load of photos onto DVD (although I can't read either copy of one set of photos, so hopefully I can recover them when I get home somehow!). We went to McCoy's bar for lunch and Sarah used Glen's computer and the free wi-fi there to upload hundreds of our photos onto her Facebook account (I think this link should get you there if your interested).
So this afternoon while I used the internet Sarah bought our bus tickets to Arequipa, our next destination in Peru, and we leave tomorrow morning. Cusco has been a great place to spend the past couple of weeks (Glen's been here for 3 months, and he leaves tomorrow too), but it's finally time to move on. Arequipa is famous for it's colonial archecture and also a mad huge canyon famous for condor spotting, so no doubt we'll end up spending ages there too...
Machu Picchu
So up at 03:50 and we meet Alex right on time at 04:00 and start strolling to the start of the trail up the mountain. It's pitch dark of course, but all three of us have torches, but as we walk along we meet an American and a Canadian guy, neither of whom have torches! I know it's a terribly unfair cliche about Americans being a bit dim, but how on earth these guys thought they'd have any chance of hiking up a mountain at 4am without torches I'll never know.
Anyway, they were nice guys and so we let them tag along with us and all was going well until my torch suddenly turned itself off! This wouldn't have been a problem but at this stage we'd broken into two groups, with Sarah and the Canadian guy hiking at their own slower pace. This meant me, Alex and the American had only one torch between us, and it became awkward for me to see the light from Alex's torch if I was behind both him and the American guy. Anyway, we all managed well enough, and daylight was breaking as we all got to the top of the climb.
It turned out we'd seriously overestimated the time it would take us to hike up the mountain, and we arrived after only about an hour, at around 5am. The gates to the site don't open until 6am, so we had to wait around, but at least we could have a nice rest and we knew we'd be amongst the very first people into the site (a gang of 5 others were ahead of us as they'd actually camped half-way up the mountain the previous night). So just minutes before the gates opened the first tourist buses arrived from the town below, and it was funny to watch them all clambering to get into the queue behind us.
There is a famous hike within Machu Picchu itself that takes you up the stretched-dome-shaped mountain that you see in the background of the ruins in all the famous postcards, but they limit the number of people per day to 400. This was why it was important for us to get ahead of the queue, so that we could be sure of a ticket for this hike to Wayna Picchu.
So once the main gate opened we quickly made our way straight through all the famous ruins to the start of that hike, which is at the far side of the site. Here there is another gate, and this one doesn't open until 7am. So again we had to wait around, but again we were right at the top of the queue. Over the following hour the queue grew and grew, but we just relaxed and waited. The few people ahead of us in the queue all chose to get their tickets, but to hike the trail later in the morning (I don't really know why), but that meant that me, Sarah and Alex were literally the first three people through the gate and onto the trail. Every person has to register their details in a book at the gate, which must have meant lots more waiting around for the ones at the back of the queue, poor sods. For us it was simply a case of gates opening, signing the book and starting the hike.
It also meant that when we got to the top of the hike we had the entire place completely to ourselves for about 10 minutes before anyone else showed up (one other guy got ahead of us, as we thought we'd reached the top before I discovered a very narrow tunnel that lead further up the mountain). The peace and quite at the top was fantastic, and we could easily see the entire Machu Picchu site far below us, and the huge queue of people still waiting to get through the gate.
So we just relaxed on the rocks on the top of this climb for a couple of hours, gazing idly at the truly magnificent setting. We decided to hike down a different trail that lead right around the mountain to the Temple of the Moon, an Inca temple set into a natural cave. Not many people choose to do this extra hike, being the lazy sods they are, so again we had this place pretty much to ourselves, although we met a nice Australian girl (Michelle) and her boyfriend Roberto.
So then we hiked back to the main ruins themselves (myself and Sarah having lunch back at the gate while we waited for Alex, Michelle and Roberto), and then made our way to the spot where all those famous postcards are shot. We spent the next few hours strolling around the ruins themselves, which are in incredibly good shape, and far more extensive than I'd imagined. We also had a bit of a tour and an explanation from one of the officials who just wanted to practice his English, before making our way to the exit just before closing time at 5pm.
During the entire day there was a Bollywood film crew shooting scenes for a movie called 'Robot', and it was interesting to watch all the dancing and singing, although it looked really boring for all the crew and cast just sitting around most of the time.
So at closing time we hung around for a bit before heading back down the mountain trail, only taking us 25 minutes or so to get back down. The buses up and down the mountain charge a relative fortune for the 20 minute journey, it's a complete rip-off, as is pretty much everything to do with Machu Picchu, a complaint we heard from many backpackers. But of course if you bother your arse to check things out properly and are prepared to put a bit of work in you can pretty much avoid all the rip-offs - interestingly enough it was us who paid nothing beyond the fixed entrance price who were the first ones into the site and had the hike up the peak, and the peak itself of Wayna Picchu all to ourselves for a while, while it was the Epsilons who'd paid a fortune with tour groups who were the ones queuing for ages for a crowded hike to a crowded peak.
All in all we'd spent 11 hours on the site of Machu Picchu and it was a great day. Of course Machu Picchu is one of the most hyped tourist destinations on the planet (it's one of the 'New 7 Wonders of the World' of course), but like Iguasu Falls in Argentina I reckon that in reality it actually surpasses all that hype. Again for me, it's just a place that no description, nor any photo or video can ever do justice - you simply have to experience it in person yourself.
Anyway back at the town we showered and then all met up for dinner that night (me, Sarah, Alex, Michelle and Roberto). We were all so tired that we didn't stay out late, and beside Alex wanted to get up at 5am the next morning!
Anyway, they were nice guys and so we let them tag along with us and all was going well until my torch suddenly turned itself off! This wouldn't have been a problem but at this stage we'd broken into two groups, with Sarah and the Canadian guy hiking at their own slower pace. This meant me, Alex and the American had only one torch between us, and it became awkward for me to see the light from Alex's torch if I was behind both him and the American guy. Anyway, we all managed well enough, and daylight was breaking as we all got to the top of the climb.
It turned out we'd seriously overestimated the time it would take us to hike up the mountain, and we arrived after only about an hour, at around 5am. The gates to the site don't open until 6am, so we had to wait around, but at least we could have a nice rest and we knew we'd be amongst the very first people into the site (a gang of 5 others were ahead of us as they'd actually camped half-way up the mountain the previous night). So just minutes before the gates opened the first tourist buses arrived from the town below, and it was funny to watch them all clambering to get into the queue behind us.
There is a famous hike within Machu Picchu itself that takes you up the stretched-dome-shaped mountain that you see in the background of the ruins in all the famous postcards, but they limit the number of people per day to 400. This was why it was important for us to get ahead of the queue, so that we could be sure of a ticket for this hike to Wayna Picchu.
So once the main gate opened we quickly made our way straight through all the famous ruins to the start of that hike, which is at the far side of the site. Here there is another gate, and this one doesn't open until 7am. So again we had to wait around, but again we were right at the top of the queue. Over the following hour the queue grew and grew, but we just relaxed and waited. The few people ahead of us in the queue all chose to get their tickets, but to hike the trail later in the morning (I don't really know why), but that meant that me, Sarah and Alex were literally the first three people through the gate and onto the trail. Every person has to register their details in a book at the gate, which must have meant lots more waiting around for the ones at the back of the queue, poor sods. For us it was simply a case of gates opening, signing the book and starting the hike.
It also meant that when we got to the top of the hike we had the entire place completely to ourselves for about 10 minutes before anyone else showed up (one other guy got ahead of us, as we thought we'd reached the top before I discovered a very narrow tunnel that lead further up the mountain). The peace and quite at the top was fantastic, and we could easily see the entire Machu Picchu site far below us, and the huge queue of people still waiting to get through the gate.
So we just relaxed on the rocks on the top of this climb for a couple of hours, gazing idly at the truly magnificent setting. We decided to hike down a different trail that lead right around the mountain to the Temple of the Moon, an Inca temple set into a natural cave. Not many people choose to do this extra hike, being the lazy sods they are, so again we had this place pretty much to ourselves, although we met a nice Australian girl (Michelle) and her boyfriend Roberto.
So then we hiked back to the main ruins themselves (myself and Sarah having lunch back at the gate while we waited for Alex, Michelle and Roberto), and then made our way to the spot where all those famous postcards are shot. We spent the next few hours strolling around the ruins themselves, which are in incredibly good shape, and far more extensive than I'd imagined. We also had a bit of a tour and an explanation from one of the officials who just wanted to practice his English, before making our way to the exit just before closing time at 5pm.
During the entire day there was a Bollywood film crew shooting scenes for a movie called 'Robot', and it was interesting to watch all the dancing and singing, although it looked really boring for all the crew and cast just sitting around most of the time.
So at closing time we hung around for a bit before heading back down the mountain trail, only taking us 25 minutes or so to get back down. The buses up and down the mountain charge a relative fortune for the 20 minute journey, it's a complete rip-off, as is pretty much everything to do with Machu Picchu, a complaint we heard from many backpackers. But of course if you bother your arse to check things out properly and are prepared to put a bit of work in you can pretty much avoid all the rip-offs - interestingly enough it was us who paid nothing beyond the fixed entrance price who were the first ones into the site and had the hike up the peak, and the peak itself of Wayna Picchu all to ourselves for a while, while it was the Epsilons who'd paid a fortune with tour groups who were the ones queuing for ages for a crowded hike to a crowded peak.
All in all we'd spent 11 hours on the site of Machu Picchu and it was a great day. Of course Machu Picchu is one of the most hyped tourist destinations on the planet (it's one of the 'New 7 Wonders of the World' of course), but like Iguasu Falls in Argentina I reckon that in reality it actually surpasses all that hype. Again for me, it's just a place that no description, nor any photo or video can ever do justice - you simply have to experience it in person yourself.
Anyway back at the town we showered and then all met up for dinner that night (me, Sarah, Alex, Michelle and Roberto). We were all so tired that we didn't stay out late, and beside Alex wanted to get up at 5am the next morning!
Still in Cusco
So everything over the past few days has gone pretty much exactly to plan. We spent the next couple of days ticking off the remaining tourist sites in the area, all very impressive I have to say. We even managed a couple of extra sites, including the mad salt pans of Maras that have been harvested for the past 500 years and completely cover an entire mountain side, and a huge gateway across a narrow valley. The salt pan trip actually took in 4 different sites in the one day, and involved getting 6 local buses and a taxi - that of course ripped us off as there is no public transport (ggrrrr!!).
Having stayed so long in our hostel we got to know a few of the people there, especially an author and part-time Bollywood actor from Australia, Glen. We also met Eric, an American who is cycling from Alaska to Patagonia, and has been on the road for 14 months now. Eric's mate Travis arrived too, as he was joining Eric for a 3 week cycle holiday. One of the nights we went to a pub quiz and naturally enough we won (many of the questions were biased towards America, so Eric was definitely the star of our team, while Travis fumed over the True/False section!).
But we'd saved the best until last I suppose, mainly because I hadn't been sure of the best way to get to Machu Picchu (there are many options). In the end, seeing as how we'd become so accustomed to getting local buses around all the nearby sites, I just decided to go local again. This was a far more round-about route (you can just get a train straight there), but it's by far the cheapest and of course the most adventurous.
The first step was to catch a local bus to the town of Santa Maria (6 hours away), where we waited around for a minibus to fill up with people and take us to the next town of Santa Teresa. But while waiting we met a Spanish tourist, Alex, and ended up sharing a taxi with him (with his perfect Spanish he managed to negogiate a great price for us all), and a local Peruvian guy.
So we flew along in our little taxi along a dirt road that literally hugged the edge of a mountain side. The road afforded great views of the valley we passed through of course, but also of the shear drops just inches away (and of our driver narrowly avoiding a head-on collision, followed by some shouting). From Santa Teresa Alex got us another cheap taxi to take us the next leg of the trip to a hydro-electric station, and from there it was a 2.5 hour hike along the train tracks to the tourist town of Agus Caliente at the base of the Machu Picchu mountain. We arrived just as darkness set in, and it had been a long day, but Agus Caliente seemed like a nice town (the guidebook criticises it terribly for some reason). After checking a few hostels we got a lovely cheap place with ensuite, had a shower and met Alex again for dinner.
We decided to meet up again the next morning at 4am so that the three of us could hike up the mountain and arrive before the hordes of lazy, fat-ass tourists aboard the tour buses, so it was an early night.
Having stayed so long in our hostel we got to know a few of the people there, especially an author and part-time Bollywood actor from Australia, Glen. We also met Eric, an American who is cycling from Alaska to Patagonia, and has been on the road for 14 months now. Eric's mate Travis arrived too, as he was joining Eric for a 3 week cycle holiday. One of the nights we went to a pub quiz and naturally enough we won (many of the questions were biased towards America, so Eric was definitely the star of our team, while Travis fumed over the True/False section!).
But we'd saved the best until last I suppose, mainly because I hadn't been sure of the best way to get to Machu Picchu (there are many options). In the end, seeing as how we'd become so accustomed to getting local buses around all the nearby sites, I just decided to go local again. This was a far more round-about route (you can just get a train straight there), but it's by far the cheapest and of course the most adventurous.
The first step was to catch a local bus to the town of Santa Maria (6 hours away), where we waited around for a minibus to fill up with people and take us to the next town of Santa Teresa. But while waiting we met a Spanish tourist, Alex, and ended up sharing a taxi with him (with his perfect Spanish he managed to negogiate a great price for us all), and a local Peruvian guy.
So we flew along in our little taxi along a dirt road that literally hugged the edge of a mountain side. The road afforded great views of the valley we passed through of course, but also of the shear drops just inches away (and of our driver narrowly avoiding a head-on collision, followed by some shouting). From Santa Teresa Alex got us another cheap taxi to take us the next leg of the trip to a hydro-electric station, and from there it was a 2.5 hour hike along the train tracks to the tourist town of Agus Caliente at the base of the Machu Picchu mountain. We arrived just as darkness set in, and it had been a long day, but Agus Caliente seemed like a nice town (the guidebook criticises it terribly for some reason). After checking a few hostels we got a lovely cheap place with ensuite, had a shower and met Alex again for dinner.
We decided to meet up again the next morning at 4am so that the three of us could hike up the mountain and arrive before the hordes of lazy, fat-ass tourists aboard the tour buses, so it was an early night.
Friday, September 5, 2008
Cusco
After a fair bit of wandering around trying to get my bearings from the bus station (street name signs are few and far between in the town outskirts), I finally gave up and got a taxi to the first hostel recommended by our guidebook. It turned out to be a lovely wee place, and surprisingly cheap too - it's still supposed to be high season here so I was expecting the prices to be quite high, but I reckon the place we have is just another really lucky find, and we get a nice breakfast included every morning too.
So for the past week or so we've been mostly relaxing here in Cusco, with the odd excursion to Inca sites. It really is a lovely town, worthy of all the hype I've heard about it. The first day we bought the tourist ticket you need to visit 16 of the local sights that includes a number of city museums, a cultural dance show (that was really good), and a number of Inca sights scattered around the general area (some are over an hour away on local buses).
The first day we got an early local bus to the site of Pisac, which had it's weekly market that day. It's supposed to be a big impressive market, but in fact all they sold were the usual tourist tat like traditional weavings, hats and general crafts, so we didn't spend long wandering around there (and it wasn't that big anyway). The main attraction in Pisac is the very impressive collection of fortress ruins on top of the mountain looking down over the town.
So we spent a good few hours hiking through all those ruins, all the time surround by fantastic views of the mountains, valleys and the town down below. It was a very impressive introduction to all the Inca and pre-Inca ruins of Peru, the most famous thing being the incredible stone masonry where huge stone blocks fit perfectly together without any cement or filler.
A couple of days ago we were about to get a bus out to another site when the nice owner of the hostel (Francisco) told us there was a big strike and no buses were running. Instead he suggested we rent bikes from across the road and visit some other, more local sites instead, like the temple fortress site of Saqsaywaman. This was a great idea, and something I was planning on doing on another day anyway (although I'd already checked with bike places in the centre I hadn't realised there was a great bike place just down the road). Anyway with Francisco's help knocking on the shop door (they were closed due to the strike), we got the bikes sorted and headed off.
Turned out we couldn't have timed our bike ride any better, as the strike meant there was practically no traffic on the roads at all - normally there would have been endless trucks, vans and tour buses flying around the place belching out huge plumes of dirty black exhaust fumes. The ride out of the city was up a constant hill, not steep just relentless. Sarah did great though, just found a good rhythm and kept going. It was funny for me though of course, as years ago after I bought her a bicycle for her birthday, I told her she'd be well able to cycle up Howth head (with a bit of practice to find a suitable riding rhythm of course). Naturally enough, she completely denied that she'd EVER be able to cycle up that hill, and in fact she had absolutely no intention of ever even attempting to do such a thing. She claimed to hate hills and was never going to cycle anywhere with me if it involved a hill!
She's slowly over the years gotten more and more confident in her own ability though (with only little bits of encouragement now and again from me), and has gradually discovered more and more about herself and what she's actually capable of. After the climb up to Saqsaywaman, she now confidently claims that she could easily ride up Howth hill, which of course she was always capable of. Finally she sees what I always knew all those years ago, but it still seems so strange to me how long it can take someone to get through even a small piece of their own fear, self-doubt and paranoia, and what terrible life-inhibitors they can be for most people.
So anyway it was a brilliant day out. We got to see four different sites, and having the bikes was the perfect way to get to them all. We saw a good few people walking between the four sites (spread out over about 8km), since there were no buses running, but having the bikes made it far more enjoyable I reckon, and gave us much more time at each site to stroll around. We also saw a couple of small groups cycyling but with a local guides. For the life of me I have no idea why they needed a guide, as all four sites are on the same main road, and the only slightly tricky thing was getting out of the city centre, but with a basic map and directions it was easy-peasy.
At this stage we only have a couple more sites to see that are bus rides away, so we'll probably do them in the next couple of days (you only have 10 days to see all 16 things on the tourist ticket), and then we'll make our way to Machu Picchu, the highlight of the entire area, or country, or continent even! There are quite a few options for getting there, nearly all involving a lot of money, but we'll probably take the one and only cheap option - getting a couple of local buses from town to town and then hiking the last part to the town at the base of the site, Aguas Caliente. From there you can overnight and then hike around Machu Picchu early the next morning. So that's the rough plan at the moment, but sure there's no rush...
So for the past week or so we've been mostly relaxing here in Cusco, with the odd excursion to Inca sites. It really is a lovely town, worthy of all the hype I've heard about it. The first day we bought the tourist ticket you need to visit 16 of the local sights that includes a number of city museums, a cultural dance show (that was really good), and a number of Inca sights scattered around the general area (some are over an hour away on local buses).
The first day we got an early local bus to the site of Pisac, which had it's weekly market that day. It's supposed to be a big impressive market, but in fact all they sold were the usual tourist tat like traditional weavings, hats and general crafts, so we didn't spend long wandering around there (and it wasn't that big anyway). The main attraction in Pisac is the very impressive collection of fortress ruins on top of the mountain looking down over the town.
So we spent a good few hours hiking through all those ruins, all the time surround by fantastic views of the mountains, valleys and the town down below. It was a very impressive introduction to all the Inca and pre-Inca ruins of Peru, the most famous thing being the incredible stone masonry where huge stone blocks fit perfectly together without any cement or filler.
A couple of days ago we were about to get a bus out to another site when the nice owner of the hostel (Francisco) told us there was a big strike and no buses were running. Instead he suggested we rent bikes from across the road and visit some other, more local sites instead, like the temple fortress site of Saqsaywaman. This was a great idea, and something I was planning on doing on another day anyway (although I'd already checked with bike places in the centre I hadn't realised there was a great bike place just down the road). Anyway with Francisco's help knocking on the shop door (they were closed due to the strike), we got the bikes sorted and headed off.
Turned out we couldn't have timed our bike ride any better, as the strike meant there was practically no traffic on the roads at all - normally there would have been endless trucks, vans and tour buses flying around the place belching out huge plumes of dirty black exhaust fumes. The ride out of the city was up a constant hill, not steep just relentless. Sarah did great though, just found a good rhythm and kept going. It was funny for me though of course, as years ago after I bought her a bicycle for her birthday, I told her she'd be well able to cycle up Howth head (with a bit of practice to find a suitable riding rhythm of course). Naturally enough, she completely denied that she'd EVER be able to cycle up that hill, and in fact she had absolutely no intention of ever even attempting to do such a thing. She claimed to hate hills and was never going to cycle anywhere with me if it involved a hill!
She's slowly over the years gotten more and more confident in her own ability though (with only little bits of encouragement now and again from me), and has gradually discovered more and more about herself and what she's actually capable of. After the climb up to Saqsaywaman, she now confidently claims that she could easily ride up Howth hill, which of course she was always capable of. Finally she sees what I always knew all those years ago, but it still seems so strange to me how long it can take someone to get through even a small piece of their own fear, self-doubt and paranoia, and what terrible life-inhibitors they can be for most people.
So anyway it was a brilliant day out. We got to see four different sites, and having the bikes was the perfect way to get to them all. We saw a good few people walking between the four sites (spread out over about 8km), since there were no buses running, but having the bikes made it far more enjoyable I reckon, and gave us much more time at each site to stroll around. We also saw a couple of small groups cycyling but with a local guides. For the life of me I have no idea why they needed a guide, as all four sites are on the same main road, and the only slightly tricky thing was getting out of the city centre, but with a basic map and directions it was easy-peasy.
At this stage we only have a couple more sites to see that are bus rides away, so we'll probably do them in the next couple of days (you only have 10 days to see all 16 things on the tourist ticket), and then we'll make our way to Machu Picchu, the highlight of the entire area, or country, or continent even! There are quite a few options for getting there, nearly all involving a lot of money, but we'll probably take the one and only cheap option - getting a couple of local buses from town to town and then hiking the last part to the town at the base of the site, Aguas Caliente. From there you can overnight and then hike around Machu Picchu early the next morning. So that's the rough plan at the moment, but sure there's no rush...
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Puno
So we left Copacabana on time and arrived just 25 minutes later at the Bolivian border. About an hour after we'd originally arrived in Bolivia we'd met an Ozzy guy who'd told us that we should have gotten an immigration card at the border, but none of us passing through were offered one. He told us we'd be fined when we left the country, and it turned out he was right! Thanks to that Ozzy guy I was kind-of expecting this at the border, so I had a few Bolivianos to pay the fine (it was only 2Euro each, not like the 100Euro fine we had to pay for overstaying our visa in South Africa). So another lesson learnt, luckily a cheap one this time.
So back on the bus and after only another 15 minutes or so the bus just stops by the side of the road, and the guy tells us the bus is broken (he's holding a new fan belt in his hands), and that we'll have to wait for a replacement bus. 10 minutes later a small minivan shows up and we all transfer to that (the big comfy tour bus we were on was mostly empty). Sarah is getting really mad at this stage, as this is clearly a bit of a scam. The company deliberately park their big modern bus outside their office to attract business, but then once over the border they transfer everyone to small minibuses. But I didn't mind - we hadn't paid any extra for the big comfy bus, the minibus arrived quickly so we weren't really delayed, and the minibus itself was really comfy and modern anyway (and we still arrived in Puno half-an-hour early), but Sarah was still fuming at the rip-off-ness of it all (I guess she was still miffed at the border fine we had to pay too, it being another wee scam).
So we arrived at the bus terminal in Puno, and in fact Sarah was fairly adamant about just getting the next bus out of the town and moving straight onto Cuzco. But luckily I managed to persuade her we should at least check out the town a bit first. So after a stroll into the town we found a lovely hotel, Hotel Don Juan.
As we strolled around it turned out to be another lovely town with a nice buzz about it, and so we checked out the small but good coca museum. As demonstrated in the coca musuem in La Paz, the history of the humble coca leaf is fascinating. Of course it's famous these days for producing cocaine, and so the United States has been trying for decades to eliminate the crop from South American countries. But in fact the leaf has extremely important cultural meaning for many of the indigenious peoples here. It seems much of the continent is going through a cultural resurgence, with much pride being taken in their respective cultural histories and coca is a primary pillar of many of those cultures (being used for centuries without any ill-effect on the people, as they only chew the leaves, and don't process them to produce cocaine or anything, so the addictive effects are minimised and the benefical effects are many and varied). Anyway, fair play to them I say, so long as they can keep the cultural aspects of coca prominent and somehow prevent it being processed into cocaine or crack or whatever, and thereby morphing into the rampant drug problems eating away at Western cultures.
Anyway, we had a lovely Chinese dinner (no Indians unfortunately!), and an early night. Next morning we strolled down to the port early and hopped on a boat heading out to the Uros Islands on Lake Titicaca. This is actually a series of floating man-made islands, each constructed by the local indigenous Uros people from reeds that grow extensively around this part of the lake. It was pretty cool just jumping from our boat onto a floating bed of reeds, all very spongy and swishy underfoot, but very confortable of course. Each island is quite small really, supporting about four or five families, and they travel around using boats also constructed from the reeds. So we visited a couple of these islands, travelling at one stage on one of the local reed boats (having to pay extra for that of course!), and had a short explanation of the Uros way of life (in Spanish though, as we were the only Westerners on our boat), and then just spent time lounging around on the reeds, much as the locals seemed to be doing really.
That night there turned out to be a small festival in the town for some reason (having little or no Spanish meant we remained pretty clueless as to the festivals meaning). It was prey cool I thought with bands and dancing around a big stage set up in the main plaza, although Sarah went back to the hotel fairly early. I was keen to wait around and see them finish the huge bamboo tower they where constructing all night. It was being wired up with fireworks, and so I wanted to see it all kick-off. I waited around for a couple of hours, watching the bands and dancers, but it was getting really cold and it seemed obvious they weren't going to light the fireworks until midnight.
So I popped back to the hotel to warm up and came back just before midnight. Turned out my watch must have be a tad slow, as when I got back to the plaza I just caught a glimpse of the last of the fireworks going off, ah well...
We had booked our bus to Cuzco that day and so the next morning we got up early and after I went out for empanadas to have for breakfast and lunch on the bus, we caught a bicycle ricksaw (Puno being the first place I've seen them in South America), to the bus station. Sarah had been adamant again about us getting a far more expensive bus company for the 6 or 7 hour journey to Cuzco, but again I trusted my own intuition and went with a company I thought would be fine and that was a lot cheaper. Luckily I was right, and the cheap bus we got turned out to be really comfortable and the company didn't scam us in any way at all (it was the same company that kinda scammed us onto the minibus from Bolivia, but which I thought was justified since the original big tour bus was mostly empty anyway).
So we had a lovely three days in Puno, and luckily hadn't just passed straight through. The trip out to the Uros islands was well worth it, the town was lovely, and the small festival was a bonus. But now we were moving on to Cuzco, generally accepted as the gringo (i.e. tourist) capital of all South America, as it's the main staging post for getting to Machu Pichu and has numerous other famous archaeological sites nearby (and it's a very nice town in it's own right too!).
So back on the bus and after only another 15 minutes or so the bus just stops by the side of the road, and the guy tells us the bus is broken (he's holding a new fan belt in his hands), and that we'll have to wait for a replacement bus. 10 minutes later a small minivan shows up and we all transfer to that (the big comfy tour bus we were on was mostly empty). Sarah is getting really mad at this stage, as this is clearly a bit of a scam. The company deliberately park their big modern bus outside their office to attract business, but then once over the border they transfer everyone to small minibuses. But I didn't mind - we hadn't paid any extra for the big comfy bus, the minibus arrived quickly so we weren't really delayed, and the minibus itself was really comfy and modern anyway (and we still arrived in Puno half-an-hour early), but Sarah was still fuming at the rip-off-ness of it all (I guess she was still miffed at the border fine we had to pay too, it being another wee scam).
So we arrived at the bus terminal in Puno, and in fact Sarah was fairly adamant about just getting the next bus out of the town and moving straight onto Cuzco. But luckily I managed to persuade her we should at least check out the town a bit first. So after a stroll into the town we found a lovely hotel, Hotel Don Juan.
As we strolled around it turned out to be another lovely town with a nice buzz about it, and so we checked out the small but good coca museum. As demonstrated in the coca musuem in La Paz, the history of the humble coca leaf is fascinating. Of course it's famous these days for producing cocaine, and so the United States has been trying for decades to eliminate the crop from South American countries. But in fact the leaf has extremely important cultural meaning for many of the indigenious peoples here. It seems much of the continent is going through a cultural resurgence, with much pride being taken in their respective cultural histories and coca is a primary pillar of many of those cultures (being used for centuries without any ill-effect on the people, as they only chew the leaves, and don't process them to produce cocaine or anything, so the addictive effects are minimised and the benefical effects are many and varied). Anyway, fair play to them I say, so long as they can keep the cultural aspects of coca prominent and somehow prevent it being processed into cocaine or crack or whatever, and thereby morphing into the rampant drug problems eating away at Western cultures.
Anyway, we had a lovely Chinese dinner (no Indians unfortunately!), and an early night. Next morning we strolled down to the port early and hopped on a boat heading out to the Uros Islands on Lake Titicaca. This is actually a series of floating man-made islands, each constructed by the local indigenous Uros people from reeds that grow extensively around this part of the lake. It was pretty cool just jumping from our boat onto a floating bed of reeds, all very spongy and swishy underfoot, but very confortable of course. Each island is quite small really, supporting about four or five families, and they travel around using boats also constructed from the reeds. So we visited a couple of these islands, travelling at one stage on one of the local reed boats (having to pay extra for that of course!), and had a short explanation of the Uros way of life (in Spanish though, as we were the only Westerners on our boat), and then just spent time lounging around on the reeds, much as the locals seemed to be doing really.
That night there turned out to be a small festival in the town for some reason (having little or no Spanish meant we remained pretty clueless as to the festivals meaning). It was prey cool I thought with bands and dancing around a big stage set up in the main plaza, although Sarah went back to the hotel fairly early. I was keen to wait around and see them finish the huge bamboo tower they where constructing all night. It was being wired up with fireworks, and so I wanted to see it all kick-off. I waited around for a couple of hours, watching the bands and dancers, but it was getting really cold and it seemed obvious they weren't going to light the fireworks until midnight.
So I popped back to the hotel to warm up and came back just before midnight. Turned out my watch must have be a tad slow, as when I got back to the plaza I just caught a glimpse of the last of the fireworks going off, ah well...
We had booked our bus to Cuzco that day and so the next morning we got up early and after I went out for empanadas to have for breakfast and lunch on the bus, we caught a bicycle ricksaw (Puno being the first place I've seen them in South America), to the bus station. Sarah had been adamant again about us getting a far more expensive bus company for the 6 or 7 hour journey to Cuzco, but again I trusted my own intuition and went with a company I thought would be fine and that was a lot cheaper. Luckily I was right, and the cheap bus we got turned out to be really comfortable and the company didn't scam us in any way at all (it was the same company that kinda scammed us onto the minibus from Bolivia, but which I thought was justified since the original big tour bus was mostly empty anyway).
So we had a lovely three days in Puno, and luckily hadn't just passed straight through. The trip out to the Uros islands was well worth it, the town was lovely, and the small festival was a bonus. But now we were moving on to Cuzco, generally accepted as the gringo (i.e. tourist) capital of all South America, as it's the main staging post for getting to Machu Pichu and has numerous other famous archaeological sites nearby (and it's a very nice town in it's own right too!).
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Lake Titicaca
D'oh! I deliberately waited around La Paz on our last day just so that we could have lunch at an Indian restaurant that was supposed to open at midday. But of course, come the appointed hour the place was all locked up. We hung around for 45 minutes in a nearby cafe, but still no sign of life. I was really disappointed as Sarah had eaten there once while I was feeling a tad dicky, so I'd only tasted her leftovers, but it was great to taste a good Indian after so long and I was really looking forward to a big proper meal there now that I was feeling tip-top again. The good Chinese place also wasn't open for lunch, so we despondently headed to an Arabic place and had a fairly good feed there instead, but it just wasn't the same...
After the disappointing lunch we grabbed our rucksacks and crammed into a local minibus to the main La Paz cementery from where local buses departed for Lake Titicaca. It was easy-peasy to organise again, just popping into the office to pay our couple of quid for the next bus, and then I walked around the interesting cementery while waiting the 45 minutes for the bus to depart. Yet again we left right on time, and arrived pretty much on time too, and the comfortable journey was through beautiful Bolivian landscapes.
We arrived at Copacabana on the shores of the lake just as it got dark, around 6pm. As we strolled toward a guidebook-recommended place we popped into a nice looking place just off the main square (Residential Sucre), and were very pleasantly surprised at the cheap price he offered us. So after a wee bit of further haggling (Sarah's certainly getting better), we took a lovely ensuite room and settled in.
The town is well known as a stopping off point between Peru and Bolivia, and a great place for trips to a couple of the islands on the huge lake. We spent 3 nights there, the first day just hiking up a couple of the hills that overlook the town and lake, and generally just wandering about soaking up the lovely weather, views of the lake and the charming town. The weather has continued to be fantastic in general, lovely and warm with clear blue skies during the day, and just a tad chilly in the evenings, but the town is lovely with loads of nice cafes and the like, so it was easy to relax. As usual we ate really well in the best restaurants we could find, fresh trout from the Lake being the speciality here of course.
So on our second day we did the obligitory island trip, just strolling down to the harbour at 8:30 and hopping on a small boat for the trip to Isla del Sol. It's a slow boat trip of about 1:45 hours to the North of the island, and then you hike back to the South of the island to get the return boat to Copacabana.
We'd checked out of our room in the hostel, but left our rucksacks in storage, as we weren't sure if we'd overnight on the island or not - turned out we didn't bother. Arriving on the island we had to buy our visitors tickets and checked out the tiny little museum (all the explainations were only in Spanish though, which is quite common), and then just strolled off to check out the local Inca ruins at the start of the island trail (I think we were supposed to wait for the guide who was explaining stuff to everyone else from our boat (about 20 people), but he only spoke Spanish and so we hadn't a clue what he was on about, so I just decided to head off in the direction I thought the ruins were in). Luckily I did too, as after walking for about 20 minutes I looked back to see the big gang being corralled along the beach all following the guide, something I would have hated having to do, waiting for the slowest person, etc.
So we were well ahead of the game, and had the impressively situated ruins pretty much all to ourselves. It also meant we had peace and tranquillity along most of the hike down the length of the island too. Basically the trail follows along a high ridge giving great views of the Lake and the surrounding mountains on all sides, the ones on the left being dramatically snow-capped.
Here again I couldn't get over the shear 'blueness' of the Bolivian daytime skies. I don't know if it's the altitude (mostly being above 4,000 metres or so about sea level), or just the atmospherics, but the deep blueness of the skies here is just mesmerising to me (the only other place I remember such deep blueness is stepping off the plane in Malawi after we'd had two months of hazy skies in Kenya and Uganda). The blueness is reflected by the Lake too, giving it it's famously gorgeous sapphire appearance. As an aside, our first copy of the Footprints guidebook we picked up in Argentina had comments on various places scribbled in it by it's previous owner (obviously a young English guy). The usually dismissive, caustic comments had for Lake Titicaca: 'It's just a big lake - waste of time!'. I wonder if he'd make the same comment if he revisits the lake when he's a bit more mature in a few years to come, probably...
Anyway, along the trail we had the irritating obstacle of local people looking for more money to pass along sections of the trail. We'd been told by other tourists that you didn't have to pay them (the ticket you get when you arrive should cover the entire island), so the first ones we just walked past after trying to explain we already had tickets, and the second ones we just paid as they were more persistent. I now think though that they were both legitimate, as we saw signs at the port that reiterated what the locals were saying. Ah well, it was still very irritating - a single ticket really should cover the whole island as having people along the way hassle you for more money is just annoying.
As we were ahead of all the other people we arrived at the South end of the island quite early and so we just relaxed with a drink outside a lovely little cafe perched on the ridge just starring at the great views. As the boat departure time approached we strolled down the cool Inca stairway to the port and hopped on a boat back to the mainland (Sarah haggling very well again as we hadn't bothered to get return tickets (in case we stayed on the island), and the cheeky buggers were trying to overcharge for the return leg - Sarah actually managed to get the return leg cheaper than the first leg).
I had planned on hiring bikes the next day and riding the 17km along the shore of the Lake to a wee town for lunch and then riding back again, but Copacabana doesn't have an ATM and the bank only opens in the afternoon and so it's a tad awkward getting cash advances, and I hadn't gotten enough money out the first time. So I just decided to leave the cycling this time and just hop on a bus the next day to the town of Puno in Peru, also on the shores of the Lake.
The bus didn't leave until 13:30, so we had time to kill, and so we just sat in the lovely main plaza reading our books before getting lunch and then the bus. During this time a church procession took place in the church compound,with the usual firecrackers going off all the time. I think it was part of the car-and-truck-blessing ceremony they do here every day (all very strange), but I'm not sure - interesting to watch for a bit anyway.
So after a lunch of Pique a la Macho (one of the traditional dishes here that is just chips with sausage and beef in a mildly spicy sauce) we hopped on a lovely comfy Peruivan bus. I'd heard Peruivan buses were much better than Bolivians ones, and this first impression certainly confirmed that. Yet again the bus left right on time, and we finally left Bolivia after 5 great weeks.
After the disappointing lunch we grabbed our rucksacks and crammed into a local minibus to the main La Paz cementery from where local buses departed for Lake Titicaca. It was easy-peasy to organise again, just popping into the office to pay our couple of quid for the next bus, and then I walked around the interesting cementery while waiting the 45 minutes for the bus to depart. Yet again we left right on time, and arrived pretty much on time too, and the comfortable journey was through beautiful Bolivian landscapes.
We arrived at Copacabana on the shores of the lake just as it got dark, around 6pm. As we strolled toward a guidebook-recommended place we popped into a nice looking place just off the main square (Residential Sucre), and were very pleasantly surprised at the cheap price he offered us. So after a wee bit of further haggling (Sarah's certainly getting better), we took a lovely ensuite room and settled in.
The town is well known as a stopping off point between Peru and Bolivia, and a great place for trips to a couple of the islands on the huge lake. We spent 3 nights there, the first day just hiking up a couple of the hills that overlook the town and lake, and generally just wandering about soaking up the lovely weather, views of the lake and the charming town. The weather has continued to be fantastic in general, lovely and warm with clear blue skies during the day, and just a tad chilly in the evenings, but the town is lovely with loads of nice cafes and the like, so it was easy to relax. As usual we ate really well in the best restaurants we could find, fresh trout from the Lake being the speciality here of course.
So on our second day we did the obligitory island trip, just strolling down to the harbour at 8:30 and hopping on a small boat for the trip to Isla del Sol. It's a slow boat trip of about 1:45 hours to the North of the island, and then you hike back to the South of the island to get the return boat to Copacabana.
We'd checked out of our room in the hostel, but left our rucksacks in storage, as we weren't sure if we'd overnight on the island or not - turned out we didn't bother. Arriving on the island we had to buy our visitors tickets and checked out the tiny little museum (all the explainations were only in Spanish though, which is quite common), and then just strolled off to check out the local Inca ruins at the start of the island trail (I think we were supposed to wait for the guide who was explaining stuff to everyone else from our boat (about 20 people), but he only spoke Spanish and so we hadn't a clue what he was on about, so I just decided to head off in the direction I thought the ruins were in). Luckily I did too, as after walking for about 20 minutes I looked back to see the big gang being corralled along the beach all following the guide, something I would have hated having to do, waiting for the slowest person, etc.
So we were well ahead of the game, and had the impressively situated ruins pretty much all to ourselves. It also meant we had peace and tranquillity along most of the hike down the length of the island too. Basically the trail follows along a high ridge giving great views of the Lake and the surrounding mountains on all sides, the ones on the left being dramatically snow-capped.
Here again I couldn't get over the shear 'blueness' of the Bolivian daytime skies. I don't know if it's the altitude (mostly being above 4,000 metres or so about sea level), or just the atmospherics, but the deep blueness of the skies here is just mesmerising to me (the only other place I remember such deep blueness is stepping off the plane in Malawi after we'd had two months of hazy skies in Kenya and Uganda). The blueness is reflected by the Lake too, giving it it's famously gorgeous sapphire appearance. As an aside, our first copy of the Footprints guidebook we picked up in Argentina had comments on various places scribbled in it by it's previous owner (obviously a young English guy). The usually dismissive, caustic comments had for Lake Titicaca: 'It's just a big lake - waste of time!'. I wonder if he'd make the same comment if he revisits the lake when he's a bit more mature in a few years to come, probably...
Anyway, along the trail we had the irritating obstacle of local people looking for more money to pass along sections of the trail. We'd been told by other tourists that you didn't have to pay them (the ticket you get when you arrive should cover the entire island), so the first ones we just walked past after trying to explain we already had tickets, and the second ones we just paid as they were more persistent. I now think though that they were both legitimate, as we saw signs at the port that reiterated what the locals were saying. Ah well, it was still very irritating - a single ticket really should cover the whole island as having people along the way hassle you for more money is just annoying.
As we were ahead of all the other people we arrived at the South end of the island quite early and so we just relaxed with a drink outside a lovely little cafe perched on the ridge just starring at the great views. As the boat departure time approached we strolled down the cool Inca stairway to the port and hopped on a boat back to the mainland (Sarah haggling very well again as we hadn't bothered to get return tickets (in case we stayed on the island), and the cheeky buggers were trying to overcharge for the return leg - Sarah actually managed to get the return leg cheaper than the first leg).
I had planned on hiring bikes the next day and riding the 17km along the shore of the Lake to a wee town for lunch and then riding back again, but Copacabana doesn't have an ATM and the bank only opens in the afternoon and so it's a tad awkward getting cash advances, and I hadn't gotten enough money out the first time. So I just decided to leave the cycling this time and just hop on a bus the next day to the town of Puno in Peru, also on the shores of the Lake.
The bus didn't leave until 13:30, so we had time to kill, and so we just sat in the lovely main plaza reading our books before getting lunch and then the bus. During this time a church procession took place in the church compound,with the usual firecrackers going off all the time. I think it was part of the car-and-truck-blessing ceremony they do here every day (all very strange), but I'm not sure - interesting to watch for a bit anyway.
So after a lunch of Pique a la Macho (one of the traditional dishes here that is just chips with sausage and beef in a mildly spicy sauce) we hopped on a lovely comfy Peruivan bus. I'd heard Peruivan buses were much better than Bolivians ones, and this first impression certainly confirmed that. Yet again the bus left right on time, and we finally left Bolivia after 5 great weeks.
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