BARBARA’S SOUTH AMERICAN ODYSSEY PT 2

Monday April 26^th

When I last wrote, we were in Buenos Aires. That was day nine of our travels. On the morning of day ten we had to be up fairly early in time to breakfast, pack and transfer back to the airport for our next flight, this time with LAN airways to Lima, capital of Peru. After a three hour flight we arrived and checked into a hotel. Although we would be in Peru for several days, we had only one afternoon in Lima so we had to make the most of it, via an organized tour.

This was conducted by a very cute looking young guide.

Lima lies on the Pacific coast. It was founded back in the sixteenth century and eventually became the centre of all Spanish trade and culture in the New World. So as you can imagine it abounds with colonial architecture, and old Spanish style churches as well as modern residential areas.

Our tour focused very much on the colonial aspects of the city.

And while we were looking at these buildings our guide brought us up to date on life in modern day Peru. It seems that the President is none too popular, as is the case in Argentina. Quite a few South American countries point to Chile’s former president Michelle Bachelet as a model president.

There are apparently no social services here. You either have a job or you starve unless your family can support you. Hospitals have long waiting lists and the education system provides only the teacher and the building. The rest is up to the parents.

There’s very little rain in Lima but the city gets its water from the melting snow in the Andes.

There's a history, geography and politics lesson in two minutes.

Our tour took us to some of those typically Spanish style churches filled with statues and mosaics and with so much gold leaf it was almost obscene, especially in such a poor country.

We visited the Cathedral, and a beautiful cream colored colonial building called the Convento or Monastery of San Francisco, the main city square

“Plaza Mayor”, and then on to the Rafael Larco Herrera Museum for our first taste of Inca and pre-Inca culture. 

This museum has one of the largest collections of gold and silver produced in ancient Peru, as well as a fascinating array of ceramic pottery. 

Some of this comes from the Moche culture which pre-dates the Incas. 

Incan art

Moche carving

Incan art

Tuesday April 27^th

The next morning saw us back at the airport and boarding a flight to Cuzco, a city in the mountains about an hour away. 

Over the Andes to Cuzco

Landing at Cuzco airport, reminded me of coming into Cairns. You have to fly around the city which is surrounded by mountains, until you line-up with the runway, then close your eyes and pray.

Cuzco was once the centre of Incan civilization. That culture only lasted 300 years but there is plenty of evidence of it still around.

Many of the streets are lined with Inca stonework, still serving as foundations for more modern buildings.

You need a bit of time to acclimatize here, because you are 3,300 metres above sea level and the air is quite a bit thinner. Visitors do get altitude sickness and we were told that most hotels provide oxygen on request if you are really sick.

Fortunately I didn’t get altitude sickness although one or two of my fellow travellers weren’t so lucky.

Once rested we spent the afternoon exploring this beautiful old city. Of course there is the obligatory Plaza and Cathedral but there were also Inca ruins and we would explore these on the following day.

Wednesday April 28^th

Giant basalt blocks

The Spaniards knocked a lot of things down when they first arrived. Incan temples were demolished and replaced with Christian churches. But you can still see enough of the ruins to realize that the Incas were great engineers. They used huge basalt blocks  and built enormous structure without ever using mortar. They simply built everything at a slight angle, so each block leant on the next to keep upright. 

Incan architecture

They also employed a sort of jigsaw pattern of building. They were so accurate that even today you could not slip a razor blade between the blocks.

Once again a visit to the cathedral is like a visit to an Aladdin’s cave of precious jewels and gold and silver. We were told that the owner of a silver mine actually donated silver by the tonne for the construction of altars.

Thursday April 29^th

Every June in Cuzco on the feast of Corpus Christi They take one of these altars out in procession. They used to carry it but now it sits on an army jeep in the church and they drive it about the city on the jeep.

They love processions here. 

Another procession

Every day we were there, there something going on in the city square.  Also almost everywhere you walked you would be accosted by someone trying to sell you something. Mostly it’s folklore artifacts but others sell cigarettes, and chewing gum etc.

We were sitting in the park having lunch when this young boy came up trying to sell us crocheted llamas and other finger puppet animals. His English was pretty good so I asked him why he wasn't at school. He told me his teacher (Australian or English called Pedro,) was absent. The boy’s name was Alfredo.

Just as Malcolm, one of our group was about to buy something, Alfredo hid his the article under his bag, saying something about “the policia”.

When the policeman moved away, it was back to business.I asked Alfredo if he would be going back to school on the next day but he thought it was Saturday and he would return on Monday.

Given that his English was so good; his education seemed to be doing him some good.

In Cuzco we visited lots of Inca sites, and museums, as well as the factory where they produce llama jumpers. When they sell llama jumpers or hats in the street they tell you it is “baby llama”, but what they are actually saying is “maybe llama”.

A few of us bought stuff from street vendors. It was so cheap that it was worth it even if it only lasted a day or two.

I bought some good quality things but I also bought a jumper from a street seller because I was freezing.

Just like Melbourne, Cuzco weather can be hot one minute and cold the next.

Street vendors

Friday April 30^th

From Cuzco were travelled out of the city. This meant firstly a bus ride to the town of Piscacucho, a short walk to a makeshift railway station built after the mudslides, and then by train to a place called Aguas Calientes.

The countryside surrounding Cuzco is very mountainous and many of the houses we passed looked very unstable. Our guide told us these places were around 70 years old, but we think they fall down every 70 years and they just rebuild them each time. 

The road was very rough in the wake of the landslides they had recently endured. The railway station was only just rebuilt too.

All along the railway line we could see evidence of the landslides and they must have worked really hard to get things going again. Tourism is obviously very important to them.

Wild river & mudslide

We reached Aguas Calientes  and stopped for the night and had dinner in our hotel which was just as well as I was feeling pretty crook with a cold that wouldn’t go away. Tomorrow we would set off by bus for Machu Picchu. No-one was prepared to take the trek which would have meant getting up at 4.30 am.

Saturday May 1st

 Up at 8 am to travel to Machu Picchu by bus. There was a line of them waiting for us and all the other tourists. Our bus was tenth in the queue. Three thousand people visit Machu Picchu every day so you can imagine how hectic it is.

Machu Picchu is only a short distance away as the crow flies, but the place is quite high up and access is along a tortuous narrow road with a series of elbow bends. From above it must look like a kids’ set of toy buses winding its way up the mountain. But then the first buses in line start to come down again and there are very few places to pass. So follows much reversing and breath holding while our bus gets perilously close to the edge of the road. And all the time you can see the river winding away below as it rushes down the mountainside.

But in the end we reached Machu Picchu itself and the journey was well worth it.

Machu Picchu

Once off the bus we walk slowly up the terraces of this amazing place.

How the Incas managed to construct this enormous space beggars belief. It lies spread out beneath a gigantic thrusting peak of almost bare rock shrouded in mist. Looking down you can see deep green and misty valleys dropping hundreds of metres to a boiling river torrent. 

For centuries this place was buried in the Peruvian jungle until an American historian, Hiram Bingham accidentally discovered it in 1911.  You can only marvel at the remains of temples and ornamental sites which seem to go on for ever.The whole archeological complex covers about 5 square kilometres.

Inca ruins

The word Picchu means mountain, and Machu - old. While the real purpose of the site is not fully understood it is obvious that it was a communal living area.  The terraces were used to grow crops and the buildings were for living and worship. They even had a sewerage system in which dirty water was separated from drinking water. The whole complex took a hundred years to build and it is still standing four centuries later. There are lots of hiking options here but none of us were very adventurous. Some went as far as the Sun Gate higher up the mountain.

There were only a couple of unpleasant incidents during our visit. One of our group, Jill, had been suffering from the altitude, but was determined to make the journey. Half an hour after we arrived on the site, she became really ill and had to be stretchered out. It gave us all a nasty shock to see Jill looking so deathly pale.

But we pushed on up the terraces as cloud was starting to close in on us.

It was then that I took my eye off the path and stumbled and fell. As I lay on the ground a rather spunky bloke in an Arsenal tracksuit came to my aid and checked me out. He gave me the all clear and then another spunky bloke, an Italian, helped me down the rest of the steps. All I had was a grazed shin and some bruises, but all that attention made it all worthwhile.

Then followed that long bus line back to our hotel!  By the time we reached it, the rain was pouring down.

After dinner we headed off up the hill to the railway station at Aguas Calientes and on to the Vistadome train for the journey back to Piscacucho. From there we took a bus to a place called Ollantaytambo, which is in the Sacred Valley. 

Finally in the dark we arrived at the Pakaritampu Hotel. Even in the dark it looked interesting but we couldn't see much and were too tired anyway.
Sunday May 2nd

Pakaritampu Hotel, Ollantaytambo

When we awoke the next morning we could see how beautiful our hotel was.   It was a real hacienda with a lovely garden, and to my great surprise, there on the lawn in front of me were three llamas having their breakfast. After our own breakfast we set out for the Sacred Valley to inspect yet more brilliantly built Inca ruins. To the west of the city is a mountain scattered with houses and innumerable pre-Hispanic temples and terraces.

Handicraft shop

From there we visited a South American Indian town called Chinchero and another called Pisac. Here there were marketplaces where local Indians from different communities trade their goods either for money or by bartering. Lots of local handicrafts! 

From our bus we also observed something of the local sanitary practices. Basically it was a matter of doing it in the street. I saw one man using both hands in case he splashed his shoes. And there was an old lady who squatted on the roadside, simply walking away from the evidence when she’d finished.

At the end of the day we arrived back in Cuzco and another night in my small hotel room.

 Monday May  3rd

Next day and we were heading south from Cuzco to Puno on a great train journey. One of the highlights of the trip is to watch one of our group, Rod, who is the original train buff. He was as excited as a three year old, running up and down the station taking photos of every aspect of the R Class or STJ or whatever the engines, carriages or rail lines are called.

Children by the railway track 

Waving to the tourists

The train, The Andean Explorer is delightful. All the tables have two benches, old fashioned lamp shades and a small vase of flowers, Afternoon tea is served at the table, and pre dinner drinks. This is the sort of luxury I could get used to.  At the end of the train is a glass walled observation car.
Along the way again we saw a variety of landscapes and small villages. The train stopped for a short time at La Raya which is 4317 metres above sea level. There is a market there, and of course a little chapel. I walked about 50 metres along the station but that was enough as I was puffing and panting in that short distance.As we came into Puno we saw loads of stalls selling every sort of car part imagineable, like a sort of auto swap meet. Puno lies on the shores of Lake Titicaca. But I'll tell you about that in my next report.