Lame Llama Lima

It's funny how different two areas of the same city can give you a totally different perspective. The day we spent in Lima a couple of weeks ago was in Downtown. Even though this area has the main buildings and museums it's run down and gritty. It's not a nice place to walk around and judging by the lack of other tourists and what a local told us it's not the safest area either.
This time round we have 5 days in the more affluent Miraflores area. I wasn't looking forward to returning to Lima but Miraflores is a totally different prospect. It's only down the road from the dirty streets and fallen down blocks of buildings but has tree lined streets with various styles of large colonial houses and modern designs. Guards are all over the place protecting the rich and the tourists. It's strange at first but you get used to seeing them everywhere. They even have guards designated with certain streets, in their own small booth at one end of the street. Residents all pay part of the wages for 24 hour security. It seems paranoid but when you see the massive difference of living quality in Lima it makes sense.
It also seems that money isn't spread very equally between the more indigenous Peruvians and the Spanish descended Peruvians. In other words, most people round Miraflores look white and far less Peruvian looking and more European. That does have a knock on effect for me though, I'm less of a standout blonde freak here. Yes!
Our hostel is also pretty flash, it's an old colonial style sprawling house with a grassed sun trap of a courtyard in the middle. Unfortunately it's also popular which means we end up changing into different rooms almost every day. Our first is probably the biggest room we've had on the trip, it even has a sofa and a hammock!
Lima is the capital of Peru, in my opinion this shouldn't be the case at all. It's not really representative of the rest of Peru and certainly hasn't got the style and atmosphere of Cusco. Lima is also on the coast, which also means it's the end of high altitude living for us, now I've got used to it. The coast is moderately attractive and has some surf. Plenty of guys are braving the cold water to ride some waves but from the look of the water, and what I read about the pollution in it, I didn't fancy a go at all. It's no Australia that's for sure.
Cut into the rock shoreline is a new shopping arcade and restaurant area which is a bit crappy but rammed with tourists. It's funny because generally we walk everywhere taking in life on the street and don't see too many tourists. Clearly a lot walk out of their hotels straight into a taxi to this place. The food in Larco Mar, the name of the shopping arcade, touts itself as being a bit gourmet but in reality it's overpriced and dire. Much like the rest of our eating experiences here. In fact we only find one decent place during our stay, whereas Cusco and Arequipa could've kept us in quality living for a long while for a lot less money.
So we are paying more for the room, more for the dire food and there's a lot less to see here. Why do people even bother? If you came to Peru and only visited Lima you'd have a strange and substandard impression of Peru.
We do visit a couple of ancient ruins here though. In the middle of a housing estate is a Pre-Inca pyramid. It's not like a pyramid in Egypt as it's not totally triangle but it's still fairly large. Thing is it took to the 1960's for the government to realise this was a valuable asset for tourism. Then it became protected, only after a road had been built through the site and houses had been built. The site is large but only a third of the original site. Which is why across the road you can see someone still has part of the pyramid in their back garden! Crazy.
For a site that was built around 400AD you'd have thought there would be more importance placed on it's preservation, but no. Still, like Macchu Picchu, it's now being rebuilt. The pyramid itself is built out of mud bricks, Lima is a fairly dry place, that have survived for over one and a half thousand years through earthquakes and invasion. This is because of the clever construction, a library book style. These are small book shape bricks lined up like a library shelf which can move around in Earthquakes but not collapse.
Sacrifices where also made here, a few decapitated bodies have been found and there are probably a couple in that blokes garden over the road.
We're shown around by a guide with an extremely annoying Australian and a couple of Americans. The Australian seemed to be slightly mental but then I remembered what Australia was actually like. Not quite right.
Lima also gives us our first experience of a large supermarket in South America. It's quite upmarket, more so than anything Australia has for instance. The booze isle is an odd affair. Around 6 wine 'guides' await you to walk down the isle. They ask what type of wine you're looking for and explain the differing virtues of each one. Funnily enough they always seem to say the most expensive one is the best. Odd that. But as the most expensive wines are around £6 I can afford to splash out on the next to dearest.
At this point I'd had pretty bad stomach ache for a fair few days and the food here wasn't helping. Luckily we found a couple, literally, of decent places to eat. Whilst in one cafe late on a Sunday night a Peruvian couple came in who clearly had money to throw about. They were very well travelled and got chatting to us. They then invited us to a local club that isn't widely publicised. That's because it's a gay bar. Up until this point I hadn't thought about it much but it suddenly occurred to me what was going on. Most South American countries are very Catholic and that means being gay is really frowned upon. It's also a very macho society so this is also considered a weakness. But the gay scene is huge nonetheless. You just have to know about it. We went along and the club was packed out. No tourists here and it seemed that the blonde haired Englishman was an interesting prospect for the young Peruvian male. Either way it was a good laugh and we danced around like loons with a couple of the friends of our newly acquired hosts. I was still confused with the bar situation, having to buy a ticket for a drink at a counter and then take that to the bar, but still it was an interesting side to an uninteresting city.
The day after we lazily watched a marathon being held through the streets, one girl was running in flips flops.......flip flops!!! I mean come on! All of a sudden a couple we'd met in Arequipa came walking up to us with their backpacks on! They'd been to Pisco, briefly. If you don't know, and we didn't, Pisco was hit by a massive earthquake last year that flattened the city. 70% of the city was destroyed and 430 people were killed. This was a big deal. Once they'd arrived at Pisco they soon realised the magnitude of the destruction and the huge amount of rebuilding still needed. The hostel they'd booked was just rubble. So that meant a short time sandboarding, sounds ace, and a rest in Lima. We arrange to meet up later but one was ill so we put it off. It turns out that was when we found the best eating place in town.
Another pyramid in a far flasher area of town was another brief visit. It wasn't as interesting as the other and mainly just gave a good view of the classy buildings and nearby restaurants around.
On our last evening in Lima, and South America, we visit another area of the city. Barranco is touted as a classy part of town but seemed gritty and fallen down other than one square and part of a street. We eat great food and then visit a local drinking spot. This place was full of shelves with strange coloured bottles with odd labels on such as,'Cat's nails' and 'bark'. It turns out we'd walked into a natural alcohol bar. All ingredients were derived from plants, and seemingly, bark and the such! It blows your bloody head off. Along with the constantly made fresh popcorn given to you and the odd tasting booze I was off my face. It's a shame my bad stomach never quite left me though.
Lima, disappointing but not indicative of Peru. Good bits but hard to find. Not a place I'd want to go back to, there's no point. In fact, if I'd started in Lima and travelled around Peru after it would have only have been better for it. Unfortunately most flights go through Lima so my advice is to get out after 3 days maximum and see the real Peru!
On a side note, as we were having our last breakfast in the hostel we met a French guy and his Peruvian girlfriend. This quickly turned sour when he tried to make her say 'key' in English rather than Spanish. She didn't like this much and after a brief period of shouting from their room she left with her backpack, after giving him a few clouts first. And all because we were there, if we had not been there the French guy wouldn't have tried the language lesson with her. Ah well.

Arequipena vs Cusquena

Peru isn't supposed to be like this. Full of fancy bars and rustic restaurants. They were nice places and we could easily afford to eat and drink in them. I like Peru.
Back to the job at hand, more eating and drinking. The evening of our return from Colca Canyon some of our group decided to meet up at the excellent French creperie opposite our hostel. We gasp at the Japanese guy who told us he'd been travelling around the world on his own, involving hitch hiking from Senegal to Mozambique, or some other far apart African destinations that sound similar. He went to see the Sahara dessert and then realised the public transport isn't what it should be. Imagine driving through the dessert and spotting a young Japanese guy stood at the side of the road, I'd pull over immediately. I asked him if he thought the Sahara was good, 'No, not really.'. Okay then.
We drunk into the early hours at another flash bar that really could've been anywhere in the Western world.
Next day we went searching for the mummy of Juanita. Not like a mountainous search involving trekking and digging holes in the snow but just trying to find the museum was a task enough for me.
Juanita the Ice Princess is the name give to a mummy found on one of the surrounding peaks of Arequipa. It was an accident find by an American climber who was trying to get a better view of a near by mountain. The mummy is considered important as it's not really a mummy. In fact it's a frozen body with organs and skin intact. Lovely. Juanita was a sacrifice to the gods by the Incas. The amazing thing about this is that not only did the body survive for over 500 years in a frozen state but also that the Incas even climbed the giant peak without any of today's modern equipment and supplies. These guys were true climbers. They were also partakers in the sacrificing of young children on top of mountains. Evidence suggests that the sacrifices were never enemies or adults. Incas choose young children from their tribes that had royal blood. The children were chosen as babies to be sacrificed later in life. Some had to be pure, i.e. to be virgins, and others had to have had a child depending on what god they were worshipping at the time.
At over 19,000 ft the Incas took the young Juanita to be given a bit of booze and whacked in the skull with a heavy club and left there for the gods. More bodies were found further down the mountain but non in as good a condition as Juanita. After seeing various artefacts we get to see the body itself. It's not preserved in a temperature controlled glass box. She's damn small, apparently shrunken once exposed to the air, and freaky looking. I suppose you would be after 500 hundred years stuck on a mountain. The descriptions mentions 'beautiful Princess' somewhere in the museum bumf. I disagree but still it's quite interesting, if not a little morbid.
Tests are still being carried out on the body, already they've found out what her last meal was and tested dna to find family lineage. They'd also found an umbilical wrapped in cloth with the body. These were used as healing agents during life. The Incas believed that your umbilical cord could cure you from ills further in life so they broke a bit off and ate it once in a while. This sounds grim but a lot of modern medicines derive from chemicals within umbilical cords.
After all that body part action we headed into one of the many churches here to have a nosey at the interior. Very elaborate stuff but a service was on and I was a bit churched out.
For our last night in Arequipa we ate excellent new Turkish cuisine. Strange on the combinations though very tasty, anyone for figs, mozzarella and ice cream? How about pasta with duck and strawberries?
And with that it all ended. Back we flew to Lima and after our previous visit we really weren't looking forward to it. We'd already moved a flight around as we'd somehow originally figured 2 weeks for the stay in Lima, no idea how that slipped through the net. We had stayed longer in Cusco and Arequipa and less time in Lima. But still we had 5 days ahead in a place that we originally found dirty and uninviting.
Arequipa had been good, a beautiful place in parts with fantastic scenery. Food was great and the people were friendly. Not a huge amount of things to do but enough to warrant the 6 or so days we stayed. Cusco beats it hands down and even saying that I'd return, but only to stuff my face with quality food!

Canyon of the condors....sort of

Thinking we'd not really been up to much lately we decided to do a two day tour of the second biggest canyon in the world. Like ya do. Apparently the main reason for a visit here is to sit at the edge of the canyon and watch condors circle up from the canyon below and over head. Sounded alright, kind of. Really I just wanted to get out and see some more of the country that didn't involve Peruvian/French creperies serving the finest pancake and milkshakes known to man. Hmm. Canyon shmanyon, give me crepes damn it!
Anyway. The small tour bus and our guide would be our company for the next couple of days. The canyon is a couple of hours outside of Arequipa but we make a couple of stops on the way to break up the journey. Just outside of Arequipa the houses are clearly less upmarket. In fact the neighbourhood is very poor. Most places don't have running water or electricity but these people moved here to escape the terrorism of their areas in the previous decade. The land round here is dusty and dry and baron to say the least. This turns out to be profitable in another way further up the road. A huge ugly cement factory produces vast amounts of the stuff for export to the US. It's difficult to see where the profit is going as it's certainly not apparent anywhere nearby.
Up we head into the mountains and we reach our highest point on the road at 4800 metres above sea level. Thankfully by now we are used to the altitude but others, namely 2 Italian brothers, seem to sleep a hell of a lot. Maybe that's just the norm.
We pass open plains with herds of Vicunas trotting around. They kind of look like deer. These animals have the worlds finest hair and therefore most expensive material available for fine garments. Again it seems Peru has various resources that are worldly marketable, tourism definitely another, but where all the money goes is unclear. It does become more apparent as we learn just how corrupt the previous government was, not that it seems the current is vastly better but at least the terrorism has abated.
We are now surrounded by high snow tipped peaks and golden flat plains with the sun beating down. It's beautiful I'll give it that.
We dip down into the town we'll be spending the night, Chivay. It's a small town with next to nothing of interest other than the close proximity to the Colca Canyon. One small square and a church is about the long and short of it. Oh, and an Irish bar. Those things are frickin everywhere! The wind whistles down the streets blowing grit into my eyes so we quickly head to the hotel. Even the most broken down looking dust ridden places can have stunning sunsets and fantastic mountain scenery. I couldn't be further from home.
After settling in at the hotel we meet up with the tour group again for a visit to some nearby hot springs. After visiting New Zealand we knew what to expect, slightly whiffy water, but the views from the outdoor hot spring here were tremendous. It's not a common thing to have a dip in a hot spring opposite mountains and Inca ruins. Invigorating. Life is pretty damn good.
After chatting with a couple of American and South African backgrounds, the two Italian brothers and a Japanese guy we head back to the hotel to prepare for an evening meal including traditional dance and music.
Some decent food and a good Peruvian band made for a good evening, and then out came the dancers. A male and female combo performing different styles of traditional Peruvian moves which on the whole seemed to involve a lot of bouncing and twirling around.
This was fine until the young Peruvian woman went around asking all the men to get up and dance with her. I could sense what was coming. She asked a table full of what looked like Germans and was denied by them all. I knew I'd be put on the spot and after one Italian brother turned her down I felt I had to do the manly thing and get up to dance. As you may or may not know my dancing skills are somewhat offbeat. Yes, I'm crap. I don't even particularly enjoy it either but I just thought of England and got on with it. It turns out that this traditional dance had some nifty moves. The dance sequence went like this. First I let the Peruvian twirl beneath my arm a couple of times, then I pretend to eat some odd fruit given to me whilst bouncing around. I then have to fall to the ground as if I'd been poisoned. Everyone in the restaurant was already highly amused by this and this increased as I next had to pretend to have a fit whilst she whipped me (pretty hard I may add) repeatedly with a thin strip of material with a ball in the end. 'Excellent', I thought. At least I was over my initial embarrassment by this point. To revive me after the whipping she then straddled my face and wafted her skirt back and forth. This seemed to go down very well in the place, fits of laughter abound from our table and pure looks of bemusement from the others. After this the floodgates opened and most people from our table took their turn for a good whipping and wafting. No other table joined in, even when a conga line formed which took us out on the street and back inside. It seemed we had a pretty good group and it was a cracking night. Not too sure about the traditional Peruvian hot booze though, or my dancing skills. But still, worth the money and we hadn't even seen any condors or canyons yet!
Next morning a very early start as it was still a further 2 hours until we reached the canyon. We stopped off at a couple of noteworthy places along the way. The first a small village, not much to that either other than a nice looking but closed church. The main thing that does spring to mind was that a couple of locals had large birds of prey on show, money for photos really. One woman had taken it one step further and decided to wear traditional dress and have the large bird rest on her head. Hilarious I thought. 'And what is it you do for a living?', 'Well, I look after birds and I'm a model.'. Classic.
Further down the road we stopped to look at old pre-Inca burial sites. This were left by the Incas as they respected burial and worship sites of previous civilisations, one major difference between them and the Spanish conquerors. The tombs were small bee-hive looking mounds perched high up on cliff faces. The bodies inside where placed in baskets and tied up, explaining some mummies we'd seen the week before in Cusco bound in a similar way.
Right, the Cruz del condor. The point of the canyon where lots of people sit and wait for condors to come our of their nests within the valley and ride the air thermals up and out of the canyon. Did we see any? Did we bollocks. But then I wasn't that bothered anyway so I can't complain. The canyon was pretty good looking too, nothing mightily spectacular but still a decent sight at 9am of any morning. Further down the road the canyon is 4 times deeper and that's when it's officially the second deepest in the world. Problem is that's another 4 hours away and we weren't going to see it. The deepest canyon in the world is further on still, another 15 hours on rough roads. Our guide told us there's talk of making a decent road so that it can be marketed for tourism. We didn't even see any photos of the deep canyon and considering it's over 4 times deeper than the Grand Canyon in the US it must be some sight. But that's Peru again. It's not over ravaged by commercialism, tourism or a great deal else. There's still plenty of this huge country left to be opened up for the everyman of international travel.
Down in the valley, a 4 hour trek(not that we'll be doing that), are a couple of villages. These people live in almost darkness year round and have much whiter skin than the average Peruvian. From one of these villages a new road had been forged into the cliff opposite where we stood. This could also be seen coming from the opposite direction but not meeting up in the middle. The road would save hours in getting supplies from Chivay and would mean the use of vehicles other than the traditional donkeys to navigate up and down the steep canyon. The road was stopped as concerns grew that it would affect the habitat of the Condors and they may move on, thus affecting the amount of tourists visiting the region. The villagers replied by saying that it made no difference to them whether tourists came or not. Clearly they'd not been informed of the 35 soles ticket that every single tourist has to buy to some here. This money is supposed to go to local communities but they'd never heard a whisper. 35 soles is a lot of dosh to these guys and when you consider how many people come every day here the money must be piling up. But where? Again the politics of the country is holding it back, a shame in many ways but the people still seem happy enough, for now.
We walk along the canyon's edge for a while before heading back to Chivay for lunch and the 4 hour drive back to Arequipa. We stop off on the way to Chivay to take a 'National Geographic' shot. From the same spot a photographer took a shot into the valley overlooking the green terracing used for crop growth, dating back to Pre-Inca times. Again the altitude here and the steepness of the area makes farming difficult so the terracing system makes growth possible. It's a stunning view even if my photos aren't up to the standard of the National Geographic.
Back to the white city of Arequipa!

The white city

We'd been spoilt by Argentine buses. I'd also forgotten how bad long distance bus rides are. This overnight bus ride was uncomfortable to say the least. I should've known that getting the less pricey bus would've been a mistake. But, it got us there. After about 9 hours of viscious swerving, resulting in horrible nightmares of crashing planes, and a Harry Potter in Spanish we arrive early doors in Arequipa.
The deserted cobbled streets were no match for Cusco but still you could see the charm. You could also see the giant snow capped volcano towering over the main square, flanked by two smaller but equally snow covered mountains on either side. It's not a bad sight. The majority of buildings in Arequipa were constructed with silar rock which is volcanic and and gives the whole place the white-ish colour it's famous for in Peru. In fact the whole town centre of Arequipa is a UNESCO world heritage site. We seemed to have racked a few of these sites along the way but didn't expect a whole urban area to be one.
Our taxi driver told us, in Spanish but I got the gist, about the local delicacy. Cuy. Guinea pig. Oh good. Think I'll be going international then. Luckily in true Peruvian style there's loads of wood fired pizza places but as it turns out Arequipa matches Cusco for exquisite food in atmospheric places for little cash.
The driver insisted on taking us to some hovel of a hostel instead of the one we'd been recommended by a couple in Aquas Calientes a few days earlier. So what if it's 20 soles a night, 3 pounds, it was dirty dark and dank. The next place was much better, definitely worth double the amount of the first. Still we changed hostels for somewhere better for an extra 80 pence a night. Heady days my friend, heady days.
The great looking Plaza de Armas, again the same name as every other main square in South America, with it's white colonial style buildings and shiny cobbled roads and multiple arches and churches and the large volcano behind makes for a great scene. Outside of the main square there isn't much else. Cusco went on and on with narrow gorgeous streets with quirky bits of colour and Inca stonework. But then that was the capital of the Inca Empire. Arequipa was not. But Arequipa is affluent non the less and has a more Westernised slant than Cusco. Long streets full of banks and men selling watches and sunglasses. But also we saw mobile phone shops and clothes shops that didn't seem prevalent in Cusco.
This also means one of my favourite daily phrases was missing too. On the street in Cusco and Puno everyday were Peruvians clasping a handful of phones and a stopwatch. All day they stand on street corners declaring,"Llamadas llamadas llamadas", in quick succession. All this means is, 'Calls calls calls'. They basically sell usage time on their mobile phones. All day, everyday. I'm sure they must dream about llamadas llamadas llamadas. People do use them though. As a side note, ice-cream sellers use the same tactic with the same rhythm and speed and sound but with, "heladas heladas heladas". At this speed they sound the same, trust me.
After walking the town and eating the food we decide to book a tour to the nearby Colca Canyon, one of the deepest in the world. But first we try and get a bit culturised before we end up eating ourselves into a stupor. We visit the stunning Monastery of Saint Catherine, 'Monastario de Santa Catalina'. This place is like a little town within the city, high walls protect it and the nuns from the outside world. It's still inhabited but now it's open to the public for extra funds I presume. Within are a maze of small streets with blue or red painted walls that give the whole place a Spanish feel. Nuns have lived here for years and have actually been reigned in for living it up a bit. Eventually a minister came to crack down on the good living nuns and enforced various rules on them, such as the damning only one servant per nun rule. It seems like they had it good too. While outside of the high walls people struggled with poverty and the odd political struggle. Now and again the nuns took in the unfortunate and the monastery was also a sanctuary for various ill fated individuals.
It's a beautiful place, that also includes numerous lookouts over the city. This seems rather curious of the nuns, they could see out but no-one was able to peer in. Must have been hard either way, especially seeing some of the barb wire knickers they were forced to wear at some points. Photogenic it certainly was but there's no way I could live there until my dying days, barb wire digs in you know.

Return to the navel

Back to Cusco and it's still as good looking as ever. We spend a couple of days finishing off seeing the local sights. To see the Inca ruins on the outskirts of town you have to buy a boletto touristico, a tourist ticket. This ticket also includes loads of museums within Cusco itself so we thought we'd make use of it and have a nosey around, after eating more cracking food of course.
We visited a dire underground museum, a dire museum in a church with oodles of god(excuse the pun) awful Spanish religious art, a decent modern museum and another moderate popular art place.
Back in the day when the Spaniards were trying to convert everyone to become a Catholic they clearly had a language barrier, the locals of Cusco spoke a language called Quecha(some Peruvians still speak it as well as another called Aymar), so to overcome this reams of abysmal art was produced to tell the story of Jesus and the bible and all that tosh. Worshipping the sun to get a good harvest made much more sense. Anyway, this means that now there's plenty of pitiful museums claiming to have wonderful historical art that is really just pure garbage.

Saying that, we did see some great art in the tourist information museum which also included some old photographs of Cusco. Clearly a lot of money has been pumped into the place to renovate it. It's always looked beautiful but to varying degrees, many streets in the faded pictures looked like the buildings had suffered from large earthquakes. The main church on the main square, the Plaza de Armas, was half crumbled. What we see now seems a long way from the dirt streets and half tumbled buildings but there was clearly still a charm about the place. I just couldn't help but like it. But after over a week here, longer than we'd spent in one place anywhere else, it was time to get a move on. I didn't want to leave but there were other places to see. I'd come back even though I'm not sure what was left to see, other than the many church interiors but you have to buy a separate tourist ticket for that. I'd obviously stuff my face in one of the many great eateries on offer, even though I'd had a bad stomach for days that I couldn't shake off.
Okay so you get hassled to buy some piece of art, hats, sunglasses, t-shirts and books every five minutes of various street hawkers. But, they don't pester you too badly, well not as much as the guys trying to get you into their bars and restaurants. It's also full of tourists, for the travel purist/idiot this is a bad thing. For me this doesn't bother me a jot, in fact it takes the pressure of the blond boy anyway. For me this is one of the best places we've been. The people are friendly, the place has winding cobbled narrow streets with well crafted stonework buildings, it's got history coming out of it's belly button and has good food and views a plenty. Forget Peru, this could be the best city in South America.

But onward we go. Arequipa next. This place looks great from the photos and we've heard it's stunning. Will it live up to Cusco though? It's also home to the two deepest canyons in the world. Should be interesting.

Macchu Picchu

Arriving high up in the mountain, green lushness on all sides and whisping cloud rising around, it's a spectacular place even before you figure in the large Inca site built ontop of a flatspot between rock faces.

What is Macchu Picchu? I dunno. Sounds cool though. Really, I don't know. Neither, it seems, does anybody else. No-one can agree. Some say it's an Inca place of worship to the Sun god, others say it's a royal palace or an Inca fortress. Most seem happy with the village description saying that around 1000 people lived high up here on the mountain. What ever it's purpose it's out of this world. It looks stunning but it's also one of the greatest feats of all time to build such a place soo high up in such difficult conditions.
Arriving around 7am the place is practically empty, the day tourist train arrives with throngs of happy snappers is at about 11am.

The classic Macchu Picchu photograph that you see everywhere in South America, and probably the first picture that will come up in a Google search, can be had within 5 minutes of arriving with very little effort or climbing involved. With the large curved shaped Waynu Picchu looming behind the site and the clouds constantly changing the picture we stay in awe for awhile. Okay we didn't struggle for 4 days walking the Inca trail but it's not the most accessible tourist attraction, the Peruvian government want to keep it that way because it's a great money earner.

Before Hiram Bingham was lead to this place by a local boy only one other record of a non South American visit here existed. This was from a Spaniard in 1532, although no book we read backed this up. We read it in a museum in Cusco. Bingham is the one noted down in history as discovering the place and his name adorns the plaque at the entrance. He was actually looking for a different lost city but must've been happy to have arrived here. Access to the place was ropey and hidden. The Spaniards never found their way up here, totally, and therefore didn't destroy it. When Bingham arrived in the early 20th Century it was vastly overgrown and a totally different prospect to the well kept area we see before us. A lot of the walls and even some thatched roofs have now been restored and are still in the process, how far they will go to restore it I'm not sure. You can certainly see the difference between some of the immaculate Inca work and the slap dash modern efforts. Who'd have thought that a civilisation over 500 years ago could still rule the roost in stone masonry terms.


We take a path leading away from the site along the narrow cliff edge. Arriving at a small drawbridge and part of the old Inca trail. The narrow trail is cut about half a metre into shear rock face and has now partly collapsed. Coming here seemed a dangerous and risky affair even back when the paths leading to it were new.


I was reminded of an American mother and daughter combo that we chatted to briefly on the way to Cusco. They looked at me in disgust when I said I wasn't doing any trekking in Peru. Why should I? A lot of tours are based around trekking but to be honest I can live with missing out. Again, these type of people aren't happy until they've caught malaria somewhere deep in the jungle three days walk away from the nearest village. They will probably say that their experience is better than yours and that you're not seeing the country fully. These are the exact same buffoons who say they have been to England and have only been to London. Get real.


Still, it must annoy the trekkers that after 4 days of high altitude walking they arrive at Macchu Picchu and my lazy ass beat them to it. What a shame.


Llamas and Alpacas keep the grass in check up here and it all looks very neat and tidy as a result. There are many passageways and stone buildings that take hours to walk around and investigate. Instead of hiring guides we often opt for the cheaper option of hanging around a place until a tour group arrive with a guide who fills us in. It works pretty well I must say.


Some stonework is tremendous but it's mainly less impressive than what we've seen on the outskirts of Cusco. It's the location that's the big draw here and rightly so. Previously we'd read and heard that the most impressive Inca stonework was reserved for places of vast importance so it must say something that only a few buildings here have immaculate craftsmanship.


A small carved tomb is the near the only place any bodies were found here, no bodies in the actual tomb itself. For such a large site only to have found a couple of bodies is quite odd and adds to the mystery of what really went on here. A guide said that one of the bodies was a tall female, very odd for Peru, so was possibly from the Amazon. But no-one is certain. It does add to the mystery.


It's almost impossible to see this place from ground level and even when you're on your way up you only see glimpses until you get really close. No wonder it was undiscovered for soo long. As there's now only a dirt road leading up to the place, on which only official buses travel, spotting the original paths would've been near impossible in the undergrowth. You may have been able to spot the steep terracing, used to grow crops on steep slopes, surrounding the place but you'd have to look hard.
The mountain overlooking Macchu Picchu is climbable, and people climb it up the Inca steps for 2 and a half hours there and back. I really didn't feel like doing this and as the rain began in the early afternoon the decision was made for me. The views are supposed to be amazing but I can live with not seeing them.
It's a great place that descends into another packed tourist destination at lunch time. Film crews, (one with a tall Japanese presenter chasing a Llama), school groups, big tour groups of Germans and French(all with Peruvian bilingual guides), all nations finishing the Inca trail and of course the obligatory Japanese and Koreans. But that's the way it has to be as this place has to be seen.
Before we leave for the bus down to Aguas Calientes a guy wants to be in a photograph with me, as I exit the toilet. Ok. I also go asked by two young Peruvian girls whilst in Machhu Picchu itself. Crazy but not as bad as China. The bus winds its way down many bends and upon each turn is greeted by a young boy frantically waving and then running like hell down to the next bend. After about 15 bends down the mountain we reach the bottom and the boy gets on the bus and emits some kind of loud painful squawk. Then he asks around the bus for tips, at least he had to work hard for his money.
That night Peru were playing Brazil and a local shop owner had put his tv in the main square so anybody could watch, until the rain started. The cheers later announced the excitement of a 1-1 draw, not bad for Peru.
The way back to Cusco was slightly easier and more direct, even if the bus had an overheating engine onto which the ticket collector was pouring water most of the way.
On the whole it was a great place to visit, expensive yes, not straight forward to get to either but still it was worth all of it and more. Even when we still didn't quite know what we were looking at.

In hot waters

A couple of days before going you have to buy tickets for the train to Macchu Picchu. This is really the only feasible ways of getting there when not doing the 4 day Inca Trek. That in itself is between $300-400. I didn't fancy it. Most people who do it don't even walk to the pub so why they feel the need to do this I don't know. Yes I do. It's because it sounds good. Balls to that, I'll get the train. Still, not easy. I did ask at the tourist office if it was possible to ride there on a hired motorbike, this would be considerably cheaper. They laughed.
There are no roads into the last town at the foot of Macchu Picchu so you have to take the tourist train. It's pretty expensive too and only an hour and half from the small village of Ollantaytambo. We wanted to take the train from there because it was considerably cheaper and we heard the village is worth a visit due to it's large Inca ruins. Ok.
To see Macchu Picchu before all the tourists arrive along with the walkers on the Inca trail you have to stop overnight at Aguas Calientes, the last town, to get an early bus to the top of the mountain. Again ok.
Right let's go. We take a taxi for half an hour to get to the bus station. Once the confusion of ticket buying is over we get on a bus to Urambamba for 2 hours. This stops randomly all over the middle of no-where to let people on an off on the rutted dirt road. Arriving in Urambamba we change immediately into a small combi mini-van with 18 other passengers crammed in. 30 more minutes on rough roads to get to Ollantaytambo. And still we've a way to go yet.
The village of Ollantaytambo is tiny but has a huge terraced set of walls rising above it in the mountainside. This is the site of an Inca victory over the Spanish. The Incas stood atop the terracing raining rocks, fire sticks and flooding the plateau below. It's an intricately carved set of terraces, mainly to enable the growing of crops on the steep cliffside, and walls which included houses and storage buildings as well as the obligatory temple thingy. A narrow path cut into the mountainside meanders precariously to a couple more huts before we take the steep steps down to the exit. It's hard work scaling hugely steep areas like this normally but we keep having to remind ourselves that it's much harder at this altitude.


You can see other buildings on an opposite mountain that have been built right on the edge of the steep cliff. It's insane that they even wanted to build this high up let alone actually achieving it.
After an excellent traditional wood-burning oven baked pizza we head to the train station. Our train is the cheaper night train so views are out of the question. We did see the incredibly expensive Hiram Bingham train, named after the first non-South American to discover Macchu Picchu as guided by a local boy in 1920 or there abouts. It's a very flash train and clearly not for the likes of us!
We also saw the comical sight of a Volkswagon campervan converted into a mini-train roll by. It seems this acts as a line clearer, a large v-shaped metal guard on front to shift debris.
Our train arrives in Aguas Calientes(Spanish for hot waters) an hour and a half later. It arrives right in the middle of a street too. People eat in restaraunts either side, it seems the main road is also the train stop. Odd.
After avoiding the typical hostel sellers trying to get you into their flea ridden hovels we end up in a nice hostel on the main plaza. Aguas Calientes gets a complete slating in Lonely Planet for being overpriced and ugly but it didn't seem too bad.
It's pitch black away from the main streets, of which there's about 3, but we walk over a footbridge arched over very loud gushing water. It's at this moment we notice we're stood at the foot of two very large dome shadows, aka mountains. One of them is Macchu Picchu mountain itself, I reckon.
Two very early starts follow, a 5am wake-up to buy entrance tickets and catch one of the first buses up the winding dirt road to Macchu Picchu through a tropical setting. Aguas Calientes in daylight was completley different. The main square is ok but with mainly unfinished rough looking buildings. Still, there are huge lush green mountains towering over the place with a smouldering early morning mist clinging to the trees as it climbs up them. It does look magical up there.
Shall we get to what we came for?

The sexywoman of Peru

In between gourmet meals and fine wines we did manage to sneak in the odd bit of sight-seeing too. Many tourists come to Cusco for a couple of reasons. The main one is the ancient Inka site of Macchu Picchu. It's close by, sort of. The other is because there's many an Inka site a lot nearer the city. On the outskirts of town there are 4 Inka sites to visit. We got dropped off at the farthest one and walked the 8km back to town taking in the other 3 on the way.
The first was at Tambomachay. This is basically a ceremonial bathing site for the Inkas. The Inkas actually only reigned for about 200 years but what they did leave behind was quite substantial and has definitley left it's mark on the landscape and villages of Peru. Excellent stonework here also and an expert water channelling system for freshwater baths straight from the mountains. It's a shame Peruvian tap water isn't as fresh nowadays.
Nearby was another site, Q'engo. This is speculated to have been a fortress but others have said it was a rest stop for weary travellers. Either way it gives great views looking back over Cusco. Not much to it other than numurous small unroofed rooms.
It was quite a distance to the next 2 sites and not using suncream was a great error, I never seem to learn. I got absolutely frazzled. Typically.
After about 45 minutes of tramping down a hill past tourists on horseback going the other way we arrive at the 3rd and slightly more impressive site. This is largely a huge rock that has been cut into and under, producing many carved steps, altars and pitch black networks of tunnels. There's also a large round ceremonial area. It's said that many a sacrifice to the gods took place here. I was also in a photo with more Peruvians here. Another tourist sacrifice.
Last and by far the best site is Sacsayhuman, known to many tourists as 'sexywoman' as the pronunciation is quite similar. This is a huge site overlooking Cusco and is also the spot where a huge battle between the Spanish and the Inkas took place. Mammoth stones are placed and carved here forming a large jagged effect that is supposed to represent the teeth of a puma. Some of the rocks are 3 times the height of me so it must've taken some serious shifting to get them here. Without the aid of any modern machinery this is extremely impressive. There's also a large round terraced area that possibly could've been a fortress. The Inkas terraced lots of steep land areas to improve irrigation for crop growing also. Although Sacsayhuman is a massive site now it's only 20% of it's original size, the Spanish destroyed the rest. Cusco was clearly a very important place for the Inkas and therefore the Spanish needed to clearly make their mark here too. Which is probably why there's a large Christ figure right by the Inka site.
We walk back down to the city along the steep cobbled streets looking forward to the big one. These Inka sites are merely a warm up to the most famous of them all, as well as one of the most famous sights of the whole continent of South America and the world, Macchu Picchu.
But getting there isn't straight forward.

The Navel of the world

We heard a lot about Cusco, all good, but where we'd been dropped off by the bus looked much like the tumbledown buildings of Puno.
Once in a taxi and off toward a few hostels, to see if they had vacancies, we soon discover this is very different from Puno. In fact it's very different from most places we've been on this trip. In a good way.
The main square, the Plaza de Armas, is a picturesque affair with two large cathedrals and a central fountain. Wooden and and stone constructed buildings containing cafes, restaurants and shops line the other sides of the square. We've not seen soo many tourists in one place for a long time, well since Iquazu Falls.
The streets leading off the Plaza are narrow and cobbled. One car at a time mainly, I think a lot were one-way but sometimes you can't tell.
The street leading to our hostel is a steep cobbled affair. Not great at still a fairly high altitude. It doesn't get easier no matter how many times we climb it. At the top there's great views over the city and down onto the square.
Cusco is the old capital of the Inca empire and many Inca related things still remain, many have also been destroyed by the Spanish or built over which is why there's soo many churches here. It's a beautiful city either way. There are still many intact Inka walls and narrow streets lined with huge angled stones perfectly married together without the need for mortar. Some parts seem like they haven't changed for centuries.
We'd heard from a couple we'd met in Puno that there's an English cafe here that does classic English food. By this point I was missing some home fair and this place gave it to me. We ate a great Sunday roast, with vegatable bake, roast potatoes and Yorkshire puddings(although these weren't up to my standard of course). Lovely stuff. I know it's not exactly getting into the flavours of the country but I didn't care.
Not all of Cusco is beautiful of course, Avenida del Sol is one example. A long commercial street that's constantly full of noisy traffic and people trying to get you to exchange dollars. Still, we've seen worse. Along with this there's an everyday hassle of saying, 'No, gracias' to about 20 people trying to get you in restaurants, give you massages, sell you paintings, sunglasses, jewellery, hats, clothes and marijuana. I can get past that just to be here. At night the place is lit up and looks just as good. It's also a safe place to walk around at any time. The tourist police prescense see to that. We decide to stay a while. Peru has suddenly got much better.
We gorge ourselves on great food almost every night too. There's soo many good looking places to choose from that you could eat at a different place every night for a year and it'll mainly be good. Many restaurants look rustic or arty and have gone to the effort to try and get the tourists more than any other place we've seen. We also watch a couple of live bands in a strange art bar that has weird masks coming out of the walls and crazy art scattered around. I'd be happy just to be here and eat and drink for a week or so but there's plenty of sights to see damn it!
First up was the central Inka Museum. Not a bad place, set in a Spanish Colonial mansion, with someinteresting stuff inside including a dark room filled with sacrificed mummies in frightening positions. I'm not that into looking at dead bodies tied up with their hands up to their face screaming. Well not much anyway.
We seem to round off most days here in some flash funky restaurant that's pretty cheap and has outstanding food, did I say I liked this place?

A history of Coca

We splashed out on a VIP bus to Cusco that had a tour thing thrown in. Meaning that the 8 hour bus ride included 6 stops and a buffet lunch so it wouldn't be too long just sat on our arses.
The next major town North of Puno was Juliaca. This is a large market town, mainly black market, that the government turns a blind eye to. You can get anything here but the main item for sale is Bolivian fuel. It's much cheaper than Peruvian and comes in yellow cans that are outside a fair few houses. The buildings here aren't finished either and in a further tax dodge the flash new bus station is unused due to the departure tax people have to pay. This means that all the buses are crammed on the street opposite. It's crazy really. It's an ugly place in general, dusty streets with flying litter abound.
The first real stop was at a village called Pukura. This is the site of some pre-Inka artifacts and a pyramid, not of the Egyptian scale however. This village was the site of many a sacrifice, all from the village itself and all had to be of pure blood and 'unblemished'. Many young virgins in other words. We saw a frog shaped alter that was thought to be used for chopping off the heads of the sacrifices. These sacrifices took place to get good weather to produce good crops and a harvest. No Micheal Fish on the BBC weather here then! Some of the walls here were built 2000 years ago and still survive today. When the Inkas arrived they continued to use the pyramid until the Spanish came along and built a church, typically.
We went high up onto the Altiplano again and stopped off at the highest point for photos of the surrounding mountains. Up here it's a rural life, but a good one, we are told. I can't quite see it myself but each to their own. People do live longer here than in the city due to less stress, larger lungs(gained due to the thin air up here) and more red blood cells(also a bi-product of living at altitude) that helps stave off infections and diseases. The land is mainly all owned by the farmers who are actually squatters here. They still use the old Inka system of one for all and all for one, sounds familiar. Every year the families of the community club together to build a new house for a selected family. It's mainly potatoes, Alpacas and Llamas up here. Not a lot else. Huge mountains too.
We stop further up the road at a place called Raqchi. This is an old Inka temple and has some unbelievable stonework that has lasted over 500 years with an original mud wall atop. The Inkas are so renound for their excellent stone masonary and you can see why. For the most important buildings, like this one, they didn't use any mortar. Instead they hand polish each stone to fit perfectly with the next, and not in the conventional way you see on modern houses. These huge rocks are carved with many angles and the effect is stunning. An Inka god is supposed to have arrived out of a nearby volcano and this temple is believed to be where that god was worshipped. It's a large site and has straight-as-an-arrow streets still intact. Many an earthquake and eruption rocks this area, as Peru as a whole, but theses mammoth rocks still stand the test of time.
We next stopped at another elaborate church that was full of 24 carot gold. The town surrounding it was very poor and it's annoying to see all that money go to waste in somewhere like this.
The tour guide was keen to stress the importance of Coca leaves. Peru is the biggest producer of Coca in the world. Many people look down on this, especially America, as it is from this plant that cocaine is made. To make it you'd need a hell of a lot and you also need to isolate one of the many alkaloids contained within the plant. You see Coca leaves all the time and their a huge part of the culture and have been well before the Inka times of the 1500's. This is partly due to the benefits you get from chewing coca leaves or having coca tea, of which we had loads. It really helps with altitude sickness, it sorted me out many times, as well as being beneficial for teeth and including many required daily vitamins. The leaf itself is so far away from cocaine, the grape and wine is much closer. The US government has tried to impose trade sanctions and other bribes to Peru to force them to stop producing the leaves. America is the biggest consumer of cocaine and Peru does supply a hell of a lot. But Peruvians are quite offended by this as the average joe on the street uses coca for totally different reasons that don't provide the high of cocaine. Now and again I see local women carrying huge bags of leaves bigger than themselves.
You can chew the leaves but you'll need a catalyst to make them work. This catalyst is a bit of hardened ash. You wrap the leaves around the ash and chew for about 40 minutes without swallowing the leaves. It numbs your mouth briefly but after that it's fine. Once in Cusco we did hear an American girl in a cafe complaing of altitude sickness. She refused coca tea believing it was cocaine, sniggers filtered around the place. If it was cocaine I'm sure there'd be even more tourists here.

On the road to Peru

On the rocky ride to Puno in Peru the bus driver's assistant persuaded us and another couple to look at his 'excellent' hostel in Puno. He offered us free transport from the bus station so we thought we should at least take a look. Once there we soon realised this place was awful. Something akin to a horror movie. At the very least the toilet should have a seat surely! We declined, even when they reduced the room price to 4quid a night. I'd rather pay quadrouple and be in a nicer place. And a nicer place we found just round the corner.
First impressions of Puno are bad. The potholed road into town has unfinished buildings either side. In fact nearly every building in Puno has an unfinished look about. Large metal rebar poking from the top of every roof. We later discover this is a tax dodge. If you have a finished house you pay more tax, therefore no-one does and the place looks crappy because of it.
Puno is a couple of hours down the road from Copacabana in Bolivia and also beside Lake Titicaca. It's not right on the lake's edge as there's a inlet full of reeds nearer to town. It's a much bigger place than Copacabana and instantly you can tell the people are far more friendly. It's more geared up to tourists but that just means it's better for us. The saving grace of Puno is the one pedestrianised street it has and a couple of nice Plazas. There's a raft of rustic and funky looking restaurants to choose from, which at least gives us some options in the evening.
Pizzas seem to be very popular in Peru. Most places have a traditional wood burning pizza oven and they taste pretty good as a result. I had to give the local delicacy, Alpaca meat, a try. It was pretty damn fine too. Alpacas are similar to Llamas but have subtle differences. Their hair is finer and used to make blankets, scarfs, hats, jumpers and so on. Every third shop here is selling some kind of Alpaca item or multicoloured poncho.
Another food favourite is Cuy. A guy next to us at a restaurant ordered fried cuy and looked a bit set a back when it arrived. The two girls he was with seemed close to being sick. This is because Cuy is Guinea Pig. Not too bad if it comes in pieces but no. This beast is served whole, sliced down the middle and spread eagled on your plate. It took him a good hour to pick the meat off. That's one thing I think I'll avoid.
After recently celebrating Puno day the celebrations still continue a week later with the odd procession here and there. A live band also play in the square but it's absolutely freezing at night here so watching them for longer than a minute was tough.
The main attraction for tourists here is to go out by boat and visit the floating reed islands on Lake Titicaca. These are man-made islands that people live on that float around the lake. The people of the islands have to constantly replenish the reed on top as the bottom of the island disintegrates. You can even stay with a family on the island too. I didn't fancy the whole thing. We'd heard it was created mainly for the tourists and to be honest I wasn't that interested.
We do decide to stop 3 nights and do nothing but eat, drink and get on the internet. It sounds like a waste but in fact it was pretty good. To not do much for a few days is something we haven't really done on the whole trip.
Whilst sat on the square drinking a bottle of Inca Kola we were surrounded by 20 or so kids, no older than 10. They asked us loads of questions, mainly in Spanish, and just generally liked to stare at us. At one point one of them snatched my cap and every single one of them felt my hair at the same time declaring, 'Gringo!'. It was pretty funny. The people here are far more welcoming than Bolivia and it seems that they've realised how huge an industry tourism can be. It works too. I'd much rather spend my money where the people are friendly rather than a place where I don't feel welcome.
At least I feel a bit better about Peru. Time to move on to Cusco. The old Inka capital of South America. The navel of the world, as it is called. We'd heard very good things about it but we didn't want to expect too much.

Titicacacacaca

Two and a half hours in a small combi van to Copacabana on the shore of Lake Titicaca felt like much longer. The driver constantly beeps his horn and pulls over, letting yet more people on the bus all the way there. There are some stunning views of the bluer than blue lake. The roads vary from smooth to massively rutted and most of the towns we pass are adobe(mud) bricked and uninviting. It looks like a tough life here. The altitude is bad enough but even growing things seems tough, potatoes being the main crop. In La Paz we even saw a woman in traditional dress working on a construction site with a hard hat on. The women seem to have it very tough and are hardened because of it. They always seem to be lugging something way too heavy about.
Out into the wilderness we go and it's mainly scrubland high up on the Altiplano(the high plain) with surrounding jagged mountains set aback.
Lake Titicaca is huge, we drive looking down onto it for about an hour before the road ends at a rickety jetty. Everyone gets off the bus to board a nearby small boat to cross the lake. Luckily we had some cash on us, although we did wipe the guy at the toll booth completely out of change. The bus goes on a seperate ramshackle wooden raft, later we find out this is because not to long back a whole bus load of people went down into the lake trapped inside. Anyway, the 10 minutes crossing was fine although very choppy. This lake is more like a sea.
After increasing the pace on much windier roads we drop down to the shore of the lake and the small town of Copacabana. It's about 10 blocks of houses, shops, restaurants and hostels tucked inbetween two sizeable peaks next to the lake. It sounds idillic. It isn't. The main square is nice enough, clearly all the town's money is in the church.
Our hostel is pretty good though and offers great views of the lake and down onto town. Just a shame the town isn't too great.
It's fairly expensive in comparison to La Paz and no haggling can be had. Everything is the same price from shop to shop. It's like a tourist conspiracy. Everyone's pretty miserable here and also seem to despise dealing with the many tourists who visit. The next 3 days turn out to feel like a long time.
The church is indeed where the money is. Huge golden edificies and monuments to christ adorn the interior. It's gawdy and lords it over the rest of the town, no pun intended. They're even asking for donations to build a large stone pillar outside. They need $67,000 and already have $4,000. I don't know how big the pillar will be but it seems a touch expensive and pointless.
It's mainly just catholic madness all over, including the hilarious painting of christ arising from Lake Titicaca to the welcoming Bolivians. As a side note this is also supposed to be the spot in which the great Inka gods arrived.
During the day everything stops here. Nothing much was happening anyway but what ever was going on stops. Including the electricity. You can't get hot food and if you do it's very suspect.
The main reason for visiting this end of the earth place is to get the boat to the Isla del Sol on the lake. We tried to get the ferry over one day but soon realised our clocks were wrong and had literally missed the boat. Ah well, we hang around doing nothing until the evening when we eat at the best restaurant in town, above our room. It's ok stuff with the addition of some jesus looking guitar player to add to the mood.
Before that we ascend the steep hill next to our hostel to watch the sunset. It's mighty cold once the sun dips and no where near as good looking as a lake in New Zealand, for instance. The ascent is bloody hard work too as the altitude is a real killler. Atop there's small ovens for some ceremony or other and this clearly used to be an important Inka site as it's now covered with plenty of crosses and little Spanish catholic altars. The catholics just wiped out and built atop anything relating to the Inka's somewhat pagan earth beliefs so the locals would be converted. Pretty much the same as England and most of the world really.
Next day we make it to the island after a 2 and a half hour painfully slow boat ride. We check out some crummy Inka ruins that look fake and then head from north to south to make it back to the boat in 3 hours. Walking anywhere is difficult so we knew this would be a killer. The views were tremendous and a far cry from the mainland. It's a nice looking island with little beaches and coves, although the water is freezing. The sun up here is another deadly beast. At this height even on an overcast day you get fried, and I did badly burn my face like never before. Oh good. Still, when you think of Bolivia, if you ever do, a place like this isn't what springs to mind. It does look good. Near the harbour small girls try and get you to take photos of them with the Llamas and Alpacas they're pulling about. 'Photo!', they shout. Quite funny but also a little sad. You can stay overnight here but I'd rather stick pins in my eyes. Back to the mainland we go, frazzled and still altitude bemused. I still wonder why I'm in Bolivia. Other people we chat to love it though. 'It's really cheap', they keep saying. So's Afgahnistan but there's no way I'm booking the next British Airways flight over there. Frickin loons.
In it's defence Bolivia is a diverse country. It's also massive. The same size as France and Spain combined. It has deserts, high plains, a bit of jungle, huge salt flats and the odd city. And for some reason people love visiting the gold mines too. I can't wait to leave. Maybe I hadn't given Bolivia a chance, a few days was enough I thought. Especially when there's soo many other better places. Either the locals seem to hate you or they pretend to like you for cash. Even the kids, as young as 3 or 4, are trained to say 'Propina' (tip) to you. It's annoying all round. I didn't really want to go to Peru after seeing Lima either but I knew we had to give that a proper go.
I wish I was in Argentina. But still, another day another country and everything may turn around.

The high life

In our Lonely Planet guide book the main thing they advise you against in La Paz is to share a taxi with a stranger. They could be in cahoots with the driver, take you down an alley and force you to extract cash from your person and your bank account. So, the first thing we do is get into a taxi with a stranger. Obviously. It's 3am and I'm totally disorientated. It feels like the plane hasn't fully landed yet. It's also pretty darn cold. The taxi ride turns out ok and the Bolivian with us tells us how much of a dangerous area the airport is located in, which is why he shared the taxi with us.
At night the place looks pretty strange. The airport is much higher than the city itself so you descend sharply. The lights from the city look good spread out all amongst large mountains, it does seem an odd place to inhabit though.
We get to our hostel and eventually a decrepid old guy answers the door to let us in. Our room is basic. Also, handily enough, it's right next to the tiny living room so if anybody even so much as whispers outside you can hear them. Thankfully whispering wasn't needed as at 6am the tv was on soo loud it would prove ineffective.
I have a terrible headache and my brain feels like it's bleeding internally. This was not a nice place.
Let's have a look round.
Walking the streets you instantly realise the massive difference in population here. Over 70% of people here are of indeginous descent and certainly have a different look to their Spanish conquorers. There's also I high amount of traditional dress going on. Lots of women wear multi-coloured skirts and have a black bowler hat sitting atop their heads. They're usually carrying some large swath of multi-coloured material with varying contents within. Ranging from potatoes and fruit to clothes and babies. The place is pretty dirty and run down with seemingly no redeeming features. The locals aren't too concerned about us at least. We'd been told good things about Bolivia and that it's a great experience but so far the people have been miserable and unfriendly towards us. Not my kind of experience.
The air definitely feels thinner here and it's much harder to breath and move around. I really don't want to do anything at all other than sleep. It's supposed to take at least a couple of days to acclimatise, I don't want to stay that long.
A lot of the people probably haven't changed much in thousands of years here and that's also probably due to the fact that why would the Spanish be very interested in inhabiting such a high place? It seems odd that anyone would choose to live this high up. The surrounding mountains may look good but in general the place is a hole. Unemployment is rife too. I can't understand why anyone would willing come to live here. I'm begining to think why I willingly came here.
There's one street that has a couple of cafes that look almost ok. After avoiding food poisoning we head back to our hovel. Oh great, 3 cheery looking Irish are watching the Green Mile on tv at full blast. I fall asleep to the screams of a guy being burnt alive. Oh the joy.
That's it. I give in. That morning we leave and pay up. Ok the place was incredibly cheap, around three pounds each but I rather stay somewhere I can get some rest. We check into a lovely colonial three star hotel. Far better. From the Sheraton, to a hovel, to this happy medium. Way more expensive but worth it.
The streets near our new place are slightly improved steep cobbled affairs but still it's an absolute wrench walking anywhere.
One thing that does grate walking round is th amount of tourists taking photos of cute Bolivian children. Kids hang around waiting to be photographed for the equivalent of about 15p. Quite often they never get it and no matter how intrusive some photographers were they would not part with cash. It was sad.
We hit the net as we're short of something to do and I feel ropey as hell. This is when an american I'd avoided earlier in the day came in. He asked me if I'd been in jail with him recently. He then began going into some bull story about having nowhere to stay before I stopped him dead, 'You want money don't ya?'. 'Yes', he replied. With a wad of cash in my pocket I gave him an honest looking answer,'Sorry mate but I only carry exactly what I need when I go out'. I think if they're willing to lie to me then I have no problem in returning the favour.
I need to get out of here. Next day we leave for the small town of Copacabana on the shores of one of the biggest and highest lakes in the world, Lake Titicaca. Surely that must be better than the big smoke of La Paz. What? It's actually higher in Copacabana than La Paz? What am I doing here?

A day in Lima

Due to one of our flights being non-existent we get to have a look around Lima for the day whilst stopping at the 5-star Sheraton Hotel. One thing is for sure, the food here is unbelievably good. As all meals are paid for by LAN Peru we absolutely gorge ourselves on everything possible. The best buffet I've ever had. I think I was actually making myself ill by eating soo much but I soldiered on. A Peruvian favourite is Ceviche. It's raw fish in lemon and chili, very nice. I thought if I was going to have it then best to get it from somewhere I'm less likely to throw my internal organs out at. We also got a complimentary Pisco Sour, the national drink of Peru. It contains Pisco, lime and beaten raw egg white. This may sound awful but it's actually pretty good.
Lima, however, is not. The Sheraton is in the grey and faded looking downtown area of Lima. We soon realise why there's a free bus from the hotel to the more upmarket Miraflores area, and why everyone who leaves the hotel get's straight into a taxi. From the taxi to the hotel we passed many a crumbling box-like building but walking around is worse. It reminds me of China a bit as people are staring at us again. It feels a bit uneasy to walk about. Unemployment is very high here and it seems people just wander the streets in search of something to do. Almost immediately we see some mentalist shouting and attempting to chew another guy's shoulder. 'Excellent', I thought.
There are some decent looking buildings but it just feels like we're on show walking about here. We find refuge on a set of stairs for a while. A Peruvian lady begins to chat to us and for once it's not some ploy for us to buy something. She tells us how it's a bit unsafe around the center and Miraflores is a much better area. She often sees tourists bags go into the hands of Peruvians on many of the buses too. I really can't be bothered being in another dodgepot town. At least Rio had some beauty about it.
The Sheraton had a swimming pool, sauna, gym, a casino and a shopping arcade. I now see why, you wouldn't want to leave!
Just stuffing my face was enough for the day. We even ate off silver platters for lunch. Aswell as chicken that was served to us on a proper sword!
After spotting more blokes pissing against trees and the cold begin to set in we head back to stuff ourselves and prepare for the late night flight to La Paz.
This may be the capital of Peru but I sure hope it's not the best Peru has to offer or these next few weeks will be grim indeed. Miraflores is supposed to be a much improved area and we'll find that out upon our return. For now things aren't looking great.
I was not looking forward to the next part of the trip much either. La Paz, the capital of Bolivia. The highest capital in the world at 3800 metres above sea level. We land at 3am, this in itself is not something to look forward to, and the altitude is supposed to make you feel pretty awful. Just how awful I didn't know.

More sugar

After hearing about the Finnish couple getting robbed we were a bit wary the next day. Luckily for them they didn't have much taken, Hannu's glasses being the most important and most useless to the thief. Saying that I doubt a Brazilian mugger will find much use with an autobiography of Fidel Castro written in Finnish! They also told us how much of a joke the police were. They knew there was nothing they could do but it was comical nontheless. When they found out the couple were from Finland they instantly brought up pictures of Finnish chicks on the internet to show Hannu. Amusing but not greatly helpful.
That day we walked half an hour or so to the Sugar Loaf mountain with the Aussie we'd met, Kai. After the Finnish incident we were a bit spooked so left our cameras at the hostel. When we got there of course everyone had really expensive cameras out. Ah well.
Great views from the top, once we took two high cable cars to get there. Not my favourite mode of transport. Down at the bottom was a nice small beach but unfortunately the water had rubbish in it so we didn't venture in. The other day at Ipanema the water was absolutely freezing anyway.
We strolled around a nice area looking for a beach we'd seen on the map. After shortly visiting a grotty looking one we moved on and soon realised that the good looking beach was within an army base. An army base with a beach, that's Brazil for you. One thing of note about Brazilian beaches is that they're not topless like in Spain, for instance. The Brazilians seem to counter this by wearing swimsuits that resemble pieces of illuminous string and nothing more. There really should be a law in place, or somekind of judge, to determine who is allowed to wear such garments though.
Another good meal at one of the popular weigh food places was had with the Finns and Kai that night. The next day we spent mainly on the local buses. Getting to the bus station to buy Sao Paulo tickets, situated right near a favella, was a bit dodgy but ok. Some areas in Rio are plain disgusting. Most areas are just simply run down.
We'd heard about a favella tour that tourists go on, we didn't but was told about it. They have electricity and even internet cafes in the favellas, mainly because they tap into the electric cables running above. There also used to be a Macdonalds in one favella but it got looted soo badly that they pulled out. It's now a Bob's Burger, a Brazilian chain. The whole favella in question is run by one drug baron. The Police don't enter, they just sit around the edge with machine guns in hand. Inside the favella drug markets are common. A woman at our hostel told us of drug stalls selling bags of cocaine the size of pillows. Tourists instantly get busted once they leave apparently.
In the afternoon us and Kai went to a tremendously long beach an hour out from Botofogo, where we were staying. It was more upmarket and a lot tidier than Ipanema or Copacabana. The rip was ferocious though. We swam in the slightly warmer water but it was an immense struggle just to try and get back to shore, about 5 metres away. Ridiculous. Needless to say after that a life guard put up danger signs. Nice.
A caiphrinia by the beach as the sun went down finished off the day nicely. But we still had to get back. The bus driving in Rio is the worst I've ever experienced. Horrendous does't even come close. They floor it on the open road overtaking pretty much everything and yanking the bus round bends like they're driving a Mini. When we hit very heavy traffic they constantly rev the engine and lurch forward every few seconds at full pelt just to get a few metres further down the road. And gears, well, I really don't know if anyone showed these guys how they work. After about 2 and a half hours we got back feeling sick and with neck ache!
Rio was made good because of the good people we met, making it much safer to get out and about. The Brazilians are fairly friendly and the beaches are quite decent and a good respite from the grime of the city. The main centro is quite flash, mainly business and shops orientated but it's not far from the contrast of the ramshackle favellas. The gap between living standards is enormous. Where we stayed felt safe enough but other areas had an air of something bad could happen and I didn't like it at all. I don't want to feel like I need to be thinking about my posessions or cash all the time, you can't relax.
All in all Rio is a very beautiful and a very ugly place. I'm glad I've been but I can't see me being in a rush to return. There are far better places to be that are far safer and more enjoyable, Buenos Aires beats it hands down. Out of Brazil we go, after another longish bus ride to Sao Paulo. About 8 hours or so, made slower due to a couple of accidents. We had no time to visit Sao Paulo as our flight left the day after we arrived so I decided to live in comfort that evening at a Best Western near the airport. Costly but worth it now and again.
Next day we misjudged our flight time horrendously meaning we got to the airport at 13:00 for a 21:30 flight! A horrible concrete airport didn't help. Luckily we did have time to sort out a mix up which stopped our bags being moved onto a plane bound for Los Angeles. Still it was odd that there was no mention of our connecting flight to La Paz, Bolivia. After a long day of waiting around we finally flew into Lima, Peru, to get our connecting flight to La Paz. What flight? It didn't exist. Luckily LAN Peru put us on the equally late flight, to land in La Paz at 3am, the next day and put us up a hotel for the evening and next day in Lima. The five star Sheraton, all expenses paid. Lovely.