Lima, the Capital City lies on the west coast of Peru, roughly half way up the country. It’s a large, sprawling metropolis, and unfortunately like many large cities in South America it is known as a place to avoid exploring alone or by night. Saying that, we actually found it a very pleasant city to wander around by day, and had no problems at all with criminals… save using our usual avoidance techniques for pickpockets of course.
The historic centre of Lima is based around a few Spanish Colonial Squares – pretty, colourful buildings with lots of wooden balconies, nice fountains, green parks, and the usual elegant churches. The ‘historic’ buildings are very much mixed in with the functional commercial centre of Lima, giving the pleasant impression of a bustling hub rather than a tourist attraction. Admittedly, the ‘historic’ buildings aren’t exactly that ‘historic’ by our standards in the UK – every 50 years or so a cracker of an earthquake seems to come along and demolish half the city, meaning each beautiful church or hall has been reconstructed a number of times!
We actually stayed quite a long way from the old town centre, in the very pleasant cliff-side district of Miraflores. This affluent suburb with lively streets, parks and shopping centres had the advantage of being safe to wander around in the evenings which we thought would lead to a more relaxed stay. The central triangular park of Miraflores is a particularly nice place for an evening stroll on the weekend as a lively mobile market is set up. It was great on Valentines Day, when crowds of couples (and plenty of girl or boy groups hoping to couple up) bustled in all directions, fending off hordes of flower sellers and balloonists!
Our Valentines Day wasn’t particularly romantic – my fault I admit (although Gary’s not exactly romantic at the best of times!). The 14th of February this year marked the 6 Nations clash between Wales and England… and despite being in Peru we managed to find an English Pub in Miraflores that showed the match! Being a Welsh girl of course, I always enjoy it when Wales beat England at rugby! After the match we did have a pleasant meal out on the cliff-top complex of Larco Mar – a new development full of swish shops and restaurants with great views down over the beaches of Lima – before a nice stroll back along the cliffs to our hotel at sunset via the Parque Del Amor. Perhaps it wasn’t such an unromantic day after all!
Anyway, we are now leaving the Southern Hemisphere for Mexico and the last stage of our trip. We’ll arrive in Mexico City and then travel westwards for a month to the coastal town of Cancun and our flight back to the UK. And of course en route we plan to visit a few Aztec and Maya pyramids – apparently their appetites for human sacrifice was far greater than the Incas, and as a result the temples often have carvings of beheadings and the like all over the walls! Great!
December 2008 - Feburay 2009
Route: Tahiti --- Easter Island (more paradise in the middle of the ocean). Easter Island --- Santiago (then travel overland - don't ask me how - to Lima in Peru, seeing the Inca trail of course). Lima --- Mexico City (have fun in Mexico for a few weeks - including my 30th birthday party). Mexico City --- London
17 February 2009
Lima
Lima Pictures
The coastal cliffs of Miraflores, Lima, taken at dusk just as the lights started to glow! Very pretty for the most part - we weren't so sure about the giant luminous cross you can see on the headland at the right side of the picture...
Gary in a pretty Avenue in Miraflores, very clean, lots of trees, oodles of security guards everywhere...
Sunset on Valentines Day after Wales beat England. Nice evening!
This busy street was in the middle of the Historic Centre of Lima - every buildingin this area seems to be painted some bright coour or other, making the region very festive.
Our last glimpse of the Pacific ocean for the trip (not including the views from the airoplane of course). Lima does have some very pretty sunsets.10 February 2009
Paracas
Despite being reasonably adventurous and genuinely enjoying exploring the world, I’ve never really imagined myself as the sort of person to be found wandering through an isolated desert with vultures circling overhead. It’s too clichéd – the sort of scene you see in films but not real life. Well…
Our first few weeks in Peru were all spent high in the Andean mountain ranges, mostly greater than 2800m above sea level. But similar to neighbouring Chile, as you move to the west coast of Peru you rapidly descend towards the Pacific Ocean, where the country becomes increasingly barren and dry. Actually it takes a reasonable amount of time to descend from the Andes – we caught the night bus from Cusco down to Nazca, and spent the entire 14 hour trip being hurled from one side to another as the (very comfy) coach sped around a never-ending series of hairpin bends in the mountains. This didn’t exactly make it very easy to sleep (and if you did drop off for a few moments you’d be in danger of waking up with severe car-sickness!).
Anyway, we stopped off briefly at Nazca to recover, but soon fled the little desert town due to its incredibly high number of pestering tourist touts. And here we hit a snag. We had planned to make our way to Lima via Pisco, a small coastal town with access to incredibly diverse wildlife in the neighbouring Paracas Peninsular and Ballestas Islands. We even got as far as buying bus tickets to Pisco – except that when we were actually handed the tickets the destination typed on the front was Paracas, not Pisco. The bus ticket lady assured us that the major buses only stopped in Paracas, which was a short way from Pisco. Slightly perturbed we wandered to an internet café to do some research, and found that Pisco had been devastated by an earthquake measuring 8.6 on the Richter scale in 2007 – a year after our Rough Guide to Peru was published! The town was now more or less rubble, with variable reports as to whether any hotels were left standing, and numerous rumours of a dramatic increase in crime. Great.
Luckily with a bit more digging around we managed to find some reports that a small port called El Chaco just south of Pisco and right next to the Paracas reserve was now the best place to stay in the area. So we shrugged, found the telephone number of a the small Hostal Santa Maria and booked a room. This turned out to be one of the best make-shift choices we’ve made in South America. We were met in El Chaco when the bus arrived by a man from the Hostal, who gave us a fun lift in a dune buggy! And the actual Hostal itself was one of the nicest we’ve seen in this part of the world – very clean, constant hot water, and it even had a restaurant attached serving delicious fish or chicken dishes. Better still, El Chaco (or Paracas as it is now sometimes called) turned out to be a lovely lively little coastal town with a pretty beach and good access to the Paracas Peninsular, although I suspect it will be a much bigger place in a few years time looking at the amount of construction work underway just inland or along the coast.
We were pretty pleased with finding an El Chaco that had recovered well from the earthquake, but we felt even luckier when we discovered that we had arrived on the day of the Annual Pisco Sour Festival! This effectively meant that a large hotel / apartment complex was given over to festivities for the entire afternoon… so you were welcome to wander in free of charge to listen to local music, watch weird dances, and sample the delicious national drink of Peru free of charge. As Gary and I both like Pisco Sours a lot, and the ones available were the best we’ve had in Peru, it was a very pleasant afternoon!
The next day we visited the Ballestas Islands by catching a small boat from the El Chaco harbour. This was truly amazing. These islands are hyped as being second only to the Galapagos in terms of density of wildlife in South America. As you approached the dramatically arched and cave-ridden lumps of white rock the entire surface seemed to be crawling with insects. Move a little closer and you realise there are no insects – just hundreds of thousands of birds! Pelicans, turns, vultures, gulls, and even sweet penguins! The perch everywhere, no ledge or outcrop is left unoccupied… unless a sealion has taken it for a resting place of course. The small beaches and caves of the islands were absolutely teaming with South American sealions, some of which swam out to meet the boat! One beach was particularly fascinating, as the mother sealions used it as a nursery. In between the adult monsters were hundreds of tiny sweet pups, many obviously trying to avoid having swimming lessons with Mum!
Our last day was spent exploring the Paracas reserve. We hired bicycles from another Hostal in El Chico and cycled 6km to the edge of the desert peninsula reserve where we took a brief break to watch a flock of flamingos in the bay before heading on into the desert. It took a reasonably energetic ride through the dramatic landscape to reach the tiny fishing village of Lagunallas on the far side of the peninsula. Here we rewarded ourselves with cold drinks and lunch (very fresh fish of course) before wandering along the coastline, gazing a flocks of pelicans and gulls, sealions playing around the boats, and at the vultures circling overhead! It is a magical place.
Anyway, now we must move on to our last stop in Peru, the capital city of Lima. From there we fly to Mexico, where we hope to swap Inca ruins for Maya pyramids for our last month of our trip around the world.
Our first few weeks in Peru were all spent high in the Andean mountain ranges, mostly greater than 2800m above sea level. But similar to neighbouring Chile, as you move to the west coast of Peru you rapidly descend towards the Pacific Ocean, where the country becomes increasingly barren and dry. Actually it takes a reasonable amount of time to descend from the Andes – we caught the night bus from Cusco down to Nazca, and spent the entire 14 hour trip being hurled from one side to another as the (very comfy) coach sped around a never-ending series of hairpin bends in the mountains. This didn’t exactly make it very easy to sleep (and if you did drop off for a few moments you’d be in danger of waking up with severe car-sickness!).
Anyway, we stopped off briefly at Nazca to recover, but soon fled the little desert town due to its incredibly high number of pestering tourist touts. And here we hit a snag. We had planned to make our way to Lima via Pisco, a small coastal town with access to incredibly diverse wildlife in the neighbouring Paracas Peninsular and Ballestas Islands. We even got as far as buying bus tickets to Pisco – except that when we were actually handed the tickets the destination typed on the front was Paracas, not Pisco. The bus ticket lady assured us that the major buses only stopped in Paracas, which was a short way from Pisco. Slightly perturbed we wandered to an internet café to do some research, and found that Pisco had been devastated by an earthquake measuring 8.6 on the Richter scale in 2007 – a year after our Rough Guide to Peru was published! The town was now more or less rubble, with variable reports as to whether any hotels were left standing, and numerous rumours of a dramatic increase in crime. Great.
Luckily with a bit more digging around we managed to find some reports that a small port called El Chaco just south of Pisco and right next to the Paracas reserve was now the best place to stay in the area. So we shrugged, found the telephone number of a the small Hostal Santa Maria and booked a room. This turned out to be one of the best make-shift choices we’ve made in South America. We were met in El Chaco when the bus arrived by a man from the Hostal, who gave us a fun lift in a dune buggy! And the actual Hostal itself was one of the nicest we’ve seen in this part of the world – very clean, constant hot water, and it even had a restaurant attached serving delicious fish or chicken dishes. Better still, El Chaco (or Paracas as it is now sometimes called) turned out to be a lovely lively little coastal town with a pretty beach and good access to the Paracas Peninsular, although I suspect it will be a much bigger place in a few years time looking at the amount of construction work underway just inland or along the coast.
We were pretty pleased with finding an El Chaco that had recovered well from the earthquake, but we felt even luckier when we discovered that we had arrived on the day of the Annual Pisco Sour Festival! This effectively meant that a large hotel / apartment complex was given over to festivities for the entire afternoon… so you were welcome to wander in free of charge to listen to local music, watch weird dances, and sample the delicious national drink of Peru free of charge. As Gary and I both like Pisco Sours a lot, and the ones available were the best we’ve had in Peru, it was a very pleasant afternoon!
The next day we visited the Ballestas Islands by catching a small boat from the El Chaco harbour. This was truly amazing. These islands are hyped as being second only to the Galapagos in terms of density of wildlife in South America. As you approached the dramatically arched and cave-ridden lumps of white rock the entire surface seemed to be crawling with insects. Move a little closer and you realise there are no insects – just hundreds of thousands of birds! Pelicans, turns, vultures, gulls, and even sweet penguins! The perch everywhere, no ledge or outcrop is left unoccupied… unless a sealion has taken it for a resting place of course. The small beaches and caves of the islands were absolutely teaming with South American sealions, some of which swam out to meet the boat! One beach was particularly fascinating, as the mother sealions used it as a nursery. In between the adult monsters were hundreds of tiny sweet pups, many obviously trying to avoid having swimming lessons with Mum!
Our last day was spent exploring the Paracas reserve. We hired bicycles from another Hostal in El Chico and cycled 6km to the edge of the desert peninsula reserve where we took a brief break to watch a flock of flamingos in the bay before heading on into the desert. It took a reasonably energetic ride through the dramatic landscape to reach the tiny fishing village of Lagunallas on the far side of the peninsula. Here we rewarded ourselves with cold drinks and lunch (very fresh fish of course) before wandering along the coastline, gazing a flocks of pelicans and gulls, sealions playing around the boats, and at the vultures circling overhead! It is a magical place.
Anyway, now we must move on to our last stop in Peru, the capital city of Lima. From there we fly to Mexico, where we hope to swap Inca ruins for Maya pyramids for our last month of our trip around the world.
Paracas Photographs
Our limousine! This dune buggy gave us the most fun transportation we´ve had in a long time – and the best hotel transfer ever. You sit really low in the vehicle, and so it feels really fast...
At the Pisco Sour festival in Paracas (the nearest functional place to Pisco town after the 2007 earthquake) the afternoon was celebrated with a number of curious songs and dances. This particular dance that we photographed seemed to involve a flamenco-like girl constantly circled by a man on a horse... strange! Nice drinks available though!
Feeding time for the pelicans near the jetty in El Chico. This man attracted quite a crowd, all clacking their beaks viciously at him as he wandered around the sand with his bag of fish.The pelicans weren´t exactly phased by humans – they let you come right up to them as they beg for fish. But thern again, their beaks are nearly as long as my arm...
The wonderful arches of one of the Ballestas Islands – lots of birds in the air, sealions in the water, and of course the rocks were black with aminal life of one sort or another.
This bold sealion came all the way out to our boat to greet us (or to fight us off more likely). They make a very loud impressive barking noise – and with thousands of the creatures near the boat at times the din was amazing!
A cave full of sealions – Mums and pups. Not very many Dads were in this area – apparently they believe their job is over after conception, and that looking after little ones is a job for girls! Sounds a little like humans really, don´t you think?
This rock was typically heaving with birds – in this case some very hyperactive pelicans and slightly quieter penguins below. The whole series of islands was literally crawling with avian life just like this (meaning the rock was white with bird droppings of course – harvested every few years for a lucrative fertillser industary!)
Penguins! These lovely little birds were actually quite common here, although admittedly not as common as the gulls, pelicans or sealions. I never realised that penguins lived this far from the South Pole.
The beautiful Paracas peninsula seen from the water en route to the fascinating Ballastas islands. It a pretty bleak place!
Cycling into the middle of nowhere? Gary tackes the desert on his mountain bike (probably stalked by hopeful vultures in the clouds above). The cliffs and ocean behind set off the peninsula pretty well.This dramatic red beach was only one of the many small coves lying on the south shore of the Paracas Peninsula, constantly battered by waves and the occasional sealion!
And finally, we couldn´t resist including this beautiful sunset scene from the beach at El Chico towards the Paracas Peninsula – wonderful colours as the sun goes down over the Pacific.5 February 2009
Machu Picchu
Hyped as one of the modern ’Seven Wonders of the World’ and the ‘Premier Attraction in South America’, Machu Picchu has a lot to live up to! The most famous Inca Citadel of all is situated in the midst of the Andes north of Cusco, at the lower end of the Sacred Valley. Due to all the hype we deliberately left visiting until the end of our time in the area… it seemed only appropriate to keep the most spectacular Inca structure for the grand finale.
Getting to Machu Picchu is interesting - below Ollantaytambo the Sacred Valley becomes too narrow for a road to be built, meaning that you can only arrive on foot (by hiking the Inca Trail) or by train along the narrow track squeezed in by the side of the turbulent River Urambamba. We opted to visit by train as we wouldn’t have had the time to see all the interesting places in the Sacred Valley otherwise - and as the Inca trail is closed in February we didn’t have much choice anyway! We were pleased to find that booking tickets a few days in advance at the main Cusco train station was simple (all staff even spoke perfect English), if a tad expensive $92 US return for the basic ‘backpacker ticket’. Booking everything was so easy that when we turned up at a painfully early 6.30 am to board the train from Cusco’s San Pedro Station, we were slightly taken aback to find that most people were being guided aboard the rickety old train in Tour Groups. Groan.
Fortunately, we soon forgot about the groups as the train left Cusco. The line was obviously built a long time ago on a tight budget which didn’t stretch to simple things like bridges and tunnels! In order to ascend the mountain on the north edge of Cusco the train had to wind back and forth upwards in a series of zigzags. The slope was too steep for hair-pin bends in the track, so instead every few hundred yards the track would stop and reverse on itself in a switch-back, meaning the train would have to change direction for every zig and zag... After meandering back and forth upwards for nearly an hour we finally left Cusco, and the train picked up slightly more speed. Well, not much more speed – it was just as well that the scenery en route was stunning as the trip lasted 4 hours and 20 minutes!
Once we finally jumped off at Machu Picchu Pueblo (the small town that has sprung up to cater for the Inca Complex), we had to run the gauntlet past a hoard of guides and touts brandishing signs for Tour Groups and on right through a huge craft market that forms the only exit to the train station! After deftly dodging numerous sellers of woolly jumpers, shawls, woven things, silver jewellery, paintings and pan-pipes we dashed over the raging River Urambamba and swiftly caught a bus up to the Temple Complex… where of course the lovely sunny weather we had watched with delight all morning through the train windows vanished, and it started to pour down!
We weren’t exactly surprised – every picture of Machu Picchu we’ve ever seen has either had fierce clouds outlining the mountains or has been digitally manipulated to show blue sky! This Inca Temple may have been a place of Sun Worship, but it seems much more effective at summoning clouds! To be honest, the rain wasn’t necessarily a bad thing – the clouds and drizzle certainly gave a bleak sinister edge to the incredibly dramatic and beautiful Complex. And the rain brought another bonus - when we first started to wander around with our umbrellas out there were lots of Tour Groups around the place forming very obvious colourful clusters of mostly middle aged people in bright waterproof jackets or plastic ponchos. The site of the Machu Picchu is so extensive that it could easily cater for the numbers of people, but every now and then you’d get caught behind one of these very slow moving groups, and have to put up with the loud voice of the Guide ruining the tranquil beauty… until you finally escaped past! Fortunately the rain seemed to scare most of these away, so that by early afternoon when the sun emerged from the clouds we more or less had the stunning place to ourselves.
Why is Machu Picchu so beautiful? As an estate agent might tell you – it’s all about location. To be brutally honest, the buildings and temples littered throughout the site may form an extensive and well preserved town, thankfully free of the ravishings of Colonial Spain, but they really aren’t that wonderfully constructed. The Temple of the Sun at Pisac and the fabulous fortifications of Sachsayhumuam actually have far better stone-work. The extensive network of agricultural terraces that flank the sides of Machu Picchu cling to the mountain spectacularly, but no more so than in many of the other sites we’ve seen in the Sacred Valley. No, what makes Machu Picchu stand out as one of the most spectacular places we’ve ever seen is it’s positioning on a dramatic saddle of a high sheer-sided mountain surrounded by a U-turn in the raging River Urambamba hundreds of meters below, only just visible through the drifting clouds. Add into the mix the impressively steep mountain of Huayna Picchu towering vertically behind the hillock of the Sun Temple and you have one of the most memorable scenes you’ll find anywhere on Earth. You have to admire the Incas for building here – very beautiful, but completely impractical! They must have been mad (or at least hyperactive)! Just think of all the climbing they had to do to get up out of the river valley, or even worse, to scale the peak of Huayna Picchu.
We didn’t realise before we arrived at the site that you could climb Huayna Picchu, the almost vertical mount immediately behind Machu Picchu. Once we discovered this we made a bee-line for the entrance, and were very lucky to be one of the last few people let through that day. Of course it rained heavily during the entire exhausting climb up hundreds of large stone steps hewn from the sheer rock cliff face – which were made nicely slippery by all the water! It did make you think about the vertical drop down to the river hundreds of meters below… But when we eventually reached the Inca Citadel at the top we were very pleased to have persisted, if only for the spectacular views down over Machu Picchu. We were also rewarded by the chance to explore a wonderful vertical maze-like town where you had to climb sheer walls of rock and crawl through tight caves to reach the summit. As we arrived at the very top the rain magically stopped, and we were even treated to a few rays of sunshine! It couldn’t last – Machu Picchu generated more clouds over the course of the afternoon and only let the sun show the Temple’s full glory for the occasional moment. But those moments were beautiful!
So does Machu Picchu deserve all the hype? It is a nice well preserved Inca Complex in possibly the most dramatic site we’ve ever seen anywhere. The buildings can’t compare with Angkor Wat or the Taj Mahal, but on the other hand neither of these were dangled off the top of a narrow, vertically sided mountain! Machu Picchu is truly spectacular – and well worth a trip to Peru. Try and see it before the Peruvian Government starts taking things like ‘Health and Safety’ seriously, or I doubt you’ll be able to climb the rock cliff of Huayna Picchu, whose crazy citadel and views down over Machu Picchu are possibly the highlight of the whole place – if you don’t mind heights and slippery steps above long cliff drops that is…
Machu Picchu Pictures
The magnificent Machu Picchu - vertical-cliff-sided mountains, sheer stone agricultural terraces, simple elevated temples... and the inevitable looming clouds. Spectacular place! And below you can see the rain that came from those gloomy clouds. Climbing up Huayna Picchu (the steep mount in the background of the first photo) with an umbrella in hand wasn´t the eastist thing - it made you very aware of the long drop over the edge of the cliff should you miss your footing.
The view from Huayna Picchu down towards the main Machu Piccu Complex, far, far below! As you can see, the whispy clouds were pierced by the odd ray of sunshine, making the view truly spectacular. You can appreciate the extent of the terracing in the site fro this angle too. Below you can see Machu Picchu´s circular terraces in the foreground, with Huayna Picchu towering in the background against the clouds.
Sunshine! When the ancient temple was lit up the terraces looked beautiful, but it was a rare event. Huayna Picchu behind is still dark and gloomy however.
A classic view of Machu Picchu, with a very small Vicki perched on a terrace at the right of the photo. More gloomy clouds above, but a few rays of sunshine escape to brighten up the complex below.4 February 2009
Ollantaytambo and the Sacred Valley
We’ve spent a reasonable amount of time travelling up and down the dramatic Sacred Valley over the last few days. After first visiting Pisac and spending ages admiring the upper end of the valley from the great height of the mountain-perched Inca complex, we thought we’d have a go at venturing a little further. Pisac was very easy to get to – just hop on one of the small rickety local busses that leave every 15 minutes or so from Avenida Tullumayo in central Cusco and it’s an extremely cheap 30 minute trip. Our next target, Ollantaytambo, as well as proving much more difficult to pronounce, was much trickier to reach.
The main problem is that direct busses to and from Ollantaytambo are few and far between – leaving only once or twice a day at inconvenient times. So, to get there in ‘local style’ you have to first catch one of the incredibly popular busses that leave Avenida Grau to go to another town in the Sacred valley called Urubamba every half an hour. This was sort of OK –we weren’t lucky enough to get seats and so had to stand in the isle with 15 odd other poor devils in the packed bus. We were getting the hang of keeping our balance around the tight hair-pin bends as the road wound up out of Cusco when unfortunately the bus started to warm up. This is one thing that we really can’t understand about the locals here – they wear layer upon layer upon layer of clothing ALL of the time. Yes, the evenings and nights are bitterly cold, but the days are often sunny and warm. This was a warm day and we were in a packed, overcrowded bus – so the temperature rose rapidly until Gary and I were boiling! But even though the locals seemed to be wearing more than 4 times as many clothes compared to either of us they closed all the windows and wrapped themselves up in more coats to make it even warmer! We just don’t get it, they must have been roasting, but they all kept their coats on!
Anyway, the trip to Urubamba wasn’t the most comfortable, but it did offer some wonderful vistas as we descended into the Sacred Valley. Then we had a relatively easy transfer onto a Collectivo bound for Ollantaytambo. A Collectivo is a sort of clapped-out mini bus that only leaves a bus terminal when it can’t possibly fit any more passengers on board – but of course it will stop every now and then along the way to squeeze in anyone else who hails it down! Still, out reward for successfully traversing the Sacred Valley was to have a few hours exploring the very pretty little town of Ollantaytambo with its impressive Inca Fort.
The ruins here aren’t anywhere near as impressively located as those in Pisac. The main Inca Citadel is only 200m or so up the mountain above town, and so as you climb you do get nice views back over the Sacred Valley and Ollantaytambo itself, but they don’t compare to the vistas from the Pisac Temple. On the other hand it only takes a gentle 10 minute climb to reach the top rather than nearly 2 hours of hard hiking! It is for this reason we suspect that Ollantaytambo is particularly popular with tour groups. We were fortunate – we had just enough time to make a leisurely ascent to the citadel, quickly explore the small ruined Temple of the Sun, and then stroll along the top of the beautifully geometric agricultural terraces before the tours descended upon the place. As we made our way down the far side of the Inca Complex to our horror we saw hoards of tourists making their way (very very slowly) up to the Citadel we had explored only half an hour earlier. There were loads of them! At least five groups, each with 10 to 30 people… it looked like the stone terraces had sprouted a particularly virulent and colourful fungal infection! We actually felt sorry for each of the poor sods struggling upwards. Whereas we’d enjoyed the stunning temple and scenery in peace, they would be herded around the place with billions of others, never really getting the chance to appreciate it properly. And I dread to think how much more a guided tour would have cost compared to the pittance we paid for our local transport adventure!
This made us think of a conversation we’d overheard a day earlier while having a pizza for dinner in a restaurant overlooking the Plaza De Armas in Cusco. We don’t usually listen to other people’s conversations… but here we had no choice. Two couples in their late middle age sitting at adjacent tables began to chat – one from Denmark, the other from the USA. And trust me, if we’d been sitting in the restaurant next door we’d probably have still heard the North Americans clearly! They started off by saying ‘You know, we had a real adventure today – we were picked up by our guide at 8.00am and didn’t come back until 5.00! We visited the Sacred Valley’. At this point the Danish couple politely asked where in the Sacred Valley they had visited. ‘Ugh, I don’t think it has a name other than the Sacred Valley. There were some salt mines…But our Guide was really good – he’s written a book! I bought it…’ As you can imagine, this went on for some time! Eventually the Danish couple explained that they had used local buses to see the valley a few days earlier – and that they had been travelling up to Cusco from Lima by bus. The couple from the USA could barely disguise their horror: ‘Local buses? That must have been, err, interesting. Have you been to the Airport here? No? It’s really unusual…’ It was clear that the Danes had completely fallen in their estimation for not spending more money to travel in luxury – and for becoming somehow contaminated by ‘mixing’ with locals.
We listened to all this (we had no choice given the volume the North Americans shouted) with utter horror. I really hope that most people who travel have a genuine interest in the places they visit – and are willing to explore them rather than wanting bits and pieces handed to them on a 5 star platter. Having the opportunity to explore and get a real feel for a place is so much more fun than simply being bussed from point to point with crowds of other tourists. And on a practical note – independent travel is much cheaper too!
The main problem is that direct busses to and from Ollantaytambo are few and far between – leaving only once or twice a day at inconvenient times. So, to get there in ‘local style’ you have to first catch one of the incredibly popular busses that leave Avenida Grau to go to another town in the Sacred valley called Urubamba every half an hour. This was sort of OK –we weren’t lucky enough to get seats and so had to stand in the isle with 15 odd other poor devils in the packed bus. We were getting the hang of keeping our balance around the tight hair-pin bends as the road wound up out of Cusco when unfortunately the bus started to warm up. This is one thing that we really can’t understand about the locals here – they wear layer upon layer upon layer of clothing ALL of the time. Yes, the evenings and nights are bitterly cold, but the days are often sunny and warm. This was a warm day and we were in a packed, overcrowded bus – so the temperature rose rapidly until Gary and I were boiling! But even though the locals seemed to be wearing more than 4 times as many clothes compared to either of us they closed all the windows and wrapped themselves up in more coats to make it even warmer! We just don’t get it, they must have been roasting, but they all kept their coats on!
Anyway, the trip to Urubamba wasn’t the most comfortable, but it did offer some wonderful vistas as we descended into the Sacred Valley. Then we had a relatively easy transfer onto a Collectivo bound for Ollantaytambo. A Collectivo is a sort of clapped-out mini bus that only leaves a bus terminal when it can’t possibly fit any more passengers on board – but of course it will stop every now and then along the way to squeeze in anyone else who hails it down! Still, out reward for successfully traversing the Sacred Valley was to have a few hours exploring the very pretty little town of Ollantaytambo with its impressive Inca Fort.
The ruins here aren’t anywhere near as impressively located as those in Pisac. The main Inca Citadel is only 200m or so up the mountain above town, and so as you climb you do get nice views back over the Sacred Valley and Ollantaytambo itself, but they don’t compare to the vistas from the Pisac Temple. On the other hand it only takes a gentle 10 minute climb to reach the top rather than nearly 2 hours of hard hiking! It is for this reason we suspect that Ollantaytambo is particularly popular with tour groups. We were fortunate – we had just enough time to make a leisurely ascent to the citadel, quickly explore the small ruined Temple of the Sun, and then stroll along the top of the beautifully geometric agricultural terraces before the tours descended upon the place. As we made our way down the far side of the Inca Complex to our horror we saw hoards of tourists making their way (very very slowly) up to the Citadel we had explored only half an hour earlier. There were loads of them! At least five groups, each with 10 to 30 people… it looked like the stone terraces had sprouted a particularly virulent and colourful fungal infection! We actually felt sorry for each of the poor sods struggling upwards. Whereas we’d enjoyed the stunning temple and scenery in peace, they would be herded around the place with billions of others, never really getting the chance to appreciate it properly. And I dread to think how much more a guided tour would have cost compared to the pittance we paid for our local transport adventure!
This made us think of a conversation we’d overheard a day earlier while having a pizza for dinner in a restaurant overlooking the Plaza De Armas in Cusco. We don’t usually listen to other people’s conversations… but here we had no choice. Two couples in their late middle age sitting at adjacent tables began to chat – one from Denmark, the other from the USA. And trust me, if we’d been sitting in the restaurant next door we’d probably have still heard the North Americans clearly! They started off by saying ‘You know, we had a real adventure today – we were picked up by our guide at 8.00am and didn’t come back until 5.00! We visited the Sacred Valley’. At this point the Danish couple politely asked where in the Sacred Valley they had visited. ‘Ugh, I don’t think it has a name other than the Sacred Valley. There were some salt mines…But our Guide was really good – he’s written a book! I bought it…’ As you can imagine, this went on for some time! Eventually the Danish couple explained that they had used local buses to see the valley a few days earlier – and that they had been travelling up to Cusco from Lima by bus. The couple from the USA could barely disguise their horror: ‘Local buses? That must have been, err, interesting. Have you been to the Airport here? No? It’s really unusual…’ It was clear that the Danes had completely fallen in their estimation for not spending more money to travel in luxury – and for becoming somehow contaminated by ‘mixing’ with locals.
We listened to all this (we had no choice given the volume the North Americans shouted) with utter horror. I really hope that most people who travel have a genuine interest in the places they visit – and are willing to explore them rather than wanting bits and pieces handed to them on a 5 star platter. Having the opportunity to explore and get a real feel for a place is so much more fun than simply being bussed from point to point with crowds of other tourists. And on a practical note – independent travel is much cheaper too!
Ollantaytambo Photographs
This is one of the spectacular views from the windows of the dodgy local bus on the way to Ollantaytambo... you can see some of the dramatic mountains of the Sacred Valley in the distance, with very lush agricultural areas closer to us. Below is the Inca Citadel at Ollantaytambo... more steps to climb, more terraces to explore - we think the Incas were totally mad for positioning all their complexes on slopes!
This view from the Inca Citadel shows the lively little town of Ollantaytambo in the Valley below. If you look at the mountain slopes in the distance you can see even more Inca Citadels - they never seemed to tire of their stonework! Below are pictures of some lovely terraces, and the mountain they ´hang´ from. In one of these photos is a very small Gary to give a sense of scale. We´ll award a prize to anyone who can spot him!
A slightly larger Gary in the Inca Citadel. With another lovely view over another lovely valley. Scenic area!2 February 2009
Pisac
The Sacred Valley of the Incas is an astonishingly beautiful place, perched high up in the midst of the Andes. It is a dramatic steep sided river valley running from the small town of Pisac down past Ollantaytambo to eventually reach Machu Picchu. This area is completely saturated by Inca remains – from glorious fortress-temples clinging to the vertical rock of mountain peaks, to extensive, meticulously organised agricultural terraces carved from the steep valley sides.
Pisac lies just 30km north west of Cusco and the fabulous Sachsayhumuan. The town is small and pretty, situated in the centre of the narrow, perfectly flat plain at the head of the Sacred Valley. Apparently the market here is one of the best in the region – but apart from briefly wandering past we weren’t too interested (by this point in our Peruvian travels we’ve been pestered to buy far too many alopecia jumpers, woolly hats, silver jewellery, colourful blankets and pan-pipes!). The main reason we spent the day here was to explore the Inca ruins that lie on the mountainside just above the town.
Perhaps saying the ancient temple lies ‘just’ above the town isn’t entirely accurate. To be honest, we didn’t expect that climbing to the Inca remains would be anything like as absolutely exhausting or rewarding as it was! The misleading thing was that mountain north of Pisac is absolutely teeming with superb stone terracing – as soon as you climb the first few steep steps from the warden’s hut at the base of the mountain you start to ascend past these wonderful terraces and several pretty waterfalls. And from here if you gaze upwards you can see a number of circular stone ruins perched only a few hundred meters above at the top of the cliff. They must be your target, no? Erm, no. The wonderful Inca site at Pisac is very extensive, meaning that there are terraces and fortifications all over the mountain, on every false summit. The actual Temple of the Sun which forms the most impressive cluster of buildings takes at least an hour and a half of hard climbing up steep stone steps to reach – and even this fails to mark the top of the complex! Climb higher up the increasingly craggy mountain and you’ll reach further stone Inca structures, and receive increasingly spectacular views down over the stunning terraces and the wonderful Sacred valley
So far of the Inca sites we’ve seen Pisac has to be the most dramatic. It was hard work to get to the top of the mountain, but with each steep step upwards you were rewarded with fantastic views, making you want to continue all the way to the top! The Temple of the Sun was particularly impressive, constructed of those perfectly fitting stone blocks that the Incas carved so well. But the most wonderful structures in the complex were without doubt the stone agricultural terraces. There were areas of impressive terracing all over the mountain, but one section on the eastern side was particularly amazing. The name ‘Pisac’ apparently means ‘partridge’, and it’s theorised that this particularly extensive terrace is supposed to represent a partridge’s wing. It certainly looked a lot like a birds’ wing stretching down the mountain… but on a truly magnificent scale. I hope the photographs we’ve included below give you some sort of an idea!
Anyway, the next town in the Sacred Valley we hope to visit is Ollantaytambo, which apparently has its own impressive temple-fortress to guard the centre of the Inca Empire. And all of these are just a warm up to visiting Machu Picchu!
Pisac lies just 30km north west of Cusco and the fabulous Sachsayhumuan. The town is small and pretty, situated in the centre of the narrow, perfectly flat plain at the head of the Sacred Valley. Apparently the market here is one of the best in the region – but apart from briefly wandering past we weren’t too interested (by this point in our Peruvian travels we’ve been pestered to buy far too many alopecia jumpers, woolly hats, silver jewellery, colourful blankets and pan-pipes!). The main reason we spent the day here was to explore the Inca ruins that lie on the mountainside just above the town.
Perhaps saying the ancient temple lies ‘just’ above the town isn’t entirely accurate. To be honest, we didn’t expect that climbing to the Inca remains would be anything like as absolutely exhausting or rewarding as it was! The misleading thing was that mountain north of Pisac is absolutely teeming with superb stone terracing – as soon as you climb the first few steep steps from the warden’s hut at the base of the mountain you start to ascend past these wonderful terraces and several pretty waterfalls. And from here if you gaze upwards you can see a number of circular stone ruins perched only a few hundred meters above at the top of the cliff. They must be your target, no? Erm, no. The wonderful Inca site at Pisac is very extensive, meaning that there are terraces and fortifications all over the mountain, on every false summit. The actual Temple of the Sun which forms the most impressive cluster of buildings takes at least an hour and a half of hard climbing up steep stone steps to reach – and even this fails to mark the top of the complex! Climb higher up the increasingly craggy mountain and you’ll reach further stone Inca structures, and receive increasingly spectacular views down over the stunning terraces and the wonderful Sacred valley
So far of the Inca sites we’ve seen Pisac has to be the most dramatic. It was hard work to get to the top of the mountain, but with each steep step upwards you were rewarded with fantastic views, making you want to continue all the way to the top! The Temple of the Sun was particularly impressive, constructed of those perfectly fitting stone blocks that the Incas carved so well. But the most wonderful structures in the complex were without doubt the stone agricultural terraces. There were areas of impressive terracing all over the mountain, but one section on the eastern side was particularly amazing. The name ‘Pisac’ apparently means ‘partridge’, and it’s theorised that this particularly extensive terrace is supposed to represent a partridge’s wing. It certainly looked a lot like a birds’ wing stretching down the mountain… but on a truly magnificent scale. I hope the photographs we’ve included below give you some sort of an idea!
Anyway, the next town in the Sacred Valley we hope to visit is Ollantaytambo, which apparently has its own impressive temple-fortress to guard the centre of the Inca Empire. And all of these are just a warm up to visiting Machu Picchu!
1 February 2009
Pisac pictures
The Sacred Valley stretches from here at Pisac all the way down to Machu Picchu. The steep sides, dramatic terraces and mystical Inca ruins make it a great place to spend an (energetic) afternoon! Below you can see a very small Gary in front of the Temple De Sol on one of the many false summits of the mountain above Pisac town where the Incas built their impressively extensive complex.
This is the Temple de Sol from another angle - we climbed well above this citadel to explore the burial sites at the top of the mountain (where you can see Gary at the bottom of a craggy cliff), and to get the most impressive views down onto the stunning stone terraces hundreds of meters below us!
Cusco
Cusco is one of the most famous cities in Peru – mainly due to it’s proximity to the magnificent Inca Citadel Machu Picchu. It is a vibrant colonial town, perched high in the Andes (meaning the evenings are cold, but thankfully not quite as evilly freezing as nights in Puno!). Of course the main reason we chose to visit here was to see Machu Picchu, along with every other traveller in Peru, but as we found there were actually a huge number of other reasons to visit Cusco we ended up staying for ages – and decided the place deserved a blog entry of it’s own (I’ll put up separate posts on Machu Picchu and other Inca ruins in the area after we visit them).
We stayed in a tiny hotel just above a small plaza in San Blas on the north side of Cusco. It turned out to be a particularly pretty and lively area, which was great – the only drawback was that San Blas is a good, steep climb from the city centre. So when we first arrived in Cusco after a long, cramped bus ride from Puno we struggled uphill for over an hour, fully laden with all our worldly goods of course! The distance from the bus station wasn’t more than 4km, which would normally be fine by us, but it was all uphill. The last section, from the elegant central Plaza de Armas to San Blas was particularly steep and evil – especially given the thin air up here at high altitude!
Even after we had recovered from our travelling we found the gradient of Cusco challenging at times. But in a way the fact that the town is built on such a steep slope is one of the nicest things about the place – there are lots of pretty winding alleyways, twisting stone staircases and narrow near vertical streets squeezed in between the old Spanish colonial houses. Many of these streets have Inca stone work too… the Spanish simply built on top of the original Inca town when they colonised Peru, leading to a weird but attractive mishmash of architectural styles throughout Cusco.
You don’t have to go far from Cusco to get to really impressive Inca stone-work either. Situated on a hilltop overlooking the city is Sacsayhuaman, a hugely impressive fortress. Sadly much of the structure was plundered by the Spanish to rebuild Cusco town, but fortunately large sections of the complex remain – including the immense zigzag stone walls that formed the perimeter of the fort. Apparently the largest block of rock in the walls weighs over 70 tonnes… yet it and all the other huge ‘bricks’ were cut with elegant precision to fit perfectly together. Really impressive stonemasonry - the entire wall structure looks so perfectly preserved that it could have been made last year rather than centuries ago!
We struggled up hundreds of steps from Cusco to explore Sacsayhuaman (or ‘Sexy Woman’ as Gary nicknamed the place after mispronouncing the name all day!), and after catching our breath decided to explore some other Inca sites nearby. We were a bit ambitious – our Rough Guide to Peru informed us that there was an important but rarely visited complex called Chacan only 5km north-west, and so we set out to look for it. What the lovely Rough Guide didn’t tell us was that the way to Chacan was all uphill (beautifully steep Andean mountain-hills), nor did it give us any remotely useful directions. But after climbing for well over an hour in what we hoped was the right direction (aided by Gary’s Spanish, a very helpful Peruvian family and a friendly llama shepherdess) we actually found the place! And it was lovely – there were no roads, only dirt paths, so no buses full of tourists venture anywhere nearby, leaving us to admire the huge stone ruins of an Imperial Inca bathing ritual site in perfect peace. The whole complex teetered on the edge of a particularly beautiful gorge with colourful striped rock walls, and stunning views back down the valley of Cusco several hundred meters below.
On our way back down to town we got a bit sidetracked playing on the Inca slides at Rodadero. Here weirdly rounded volcanic rock has been polished over hundreds of years by people sliding down it! The rock is truly slippery on the ‘slides’ – you pick up quite a lot of speed as you get towards the bottom – where you have to stop immediately or end up face down in a muddy puddle... And finally we made a brief diversion on our way home to yet another Inca complex above Cusco called Qenko (we nicknamed it ‘Kenko’ in desperate mispronunciation…). This one was based around a huge carved outcrop of rock, complete with underground caves carved into a fun labyrinth. Lots of huge rock formations to scramble around. And these were only the nearest Inca sites to Cusco!
Only a little further a field are two other Inca sites, both easily reachable by local bus from Cusco. So we were very surprised and horrified when we hopped off our 20 year old clapped-out minibus packed with locals to see that most people turned up with tour groups and guides… The local transport here is so good that we really wonder why people sign up for tours only to be stuck with an irritating guide and 40 or so other tourists all day. Anyway, after dodging the hordes we spent a nice evening wandering around the small Inca sites of Tambo Machay and Puka Pukara. Tambo Machay is really just an over-large bath, complete with nice waterfalls, fit for the Royal Incas to bathe! Puka Pukara is a little more impressive – it consists of a fortified mound overlooking a beautiful valley above Cusco, and is apparently the Inca version of a hunting lodge. Both sites are only 11km from town, so after exploring the ruins we wandered back downhill, watching the sun set above Cusco before descending into the city centre for a well-earned pizza.
Anyway, over the next few days we plan to venture out from Cusco by bus and train to see Inca ruins at Pisac, Ollantaytambo, and of course, Machu Picchu – and we’ll put up some posts and pictures on the blog afterwards!
We stayed in a tiny hotel just above a small plaza in San Blas on the north side of Cusco. It turned out to be a particularly pretty and lively area, which was great – the only drawback was that San Blas is a good, steep climb from the city centre. So when we first arrived in Cusco after a long, cramped bus ride from Puno we struggled uphill for over an hour, fully laden with all our worldly goods of course! The distance from the bus station wasn’t more than 4km, which would normally be fine by us, but it was all uphill. The last section, from the elegant central Plaza de Armas to San Blas was particularly steep and evil – especially given the thin air up here at high altitude!
Even after we had recovered from our travelling we found the gradient of Cusco challenging at times. But in a way the fact that the town is built on such a steep slope is one of the nicest things about the place – there are lots of pretty winding alleyways, twisting stone staircases and narrow near vertical streets squeezed in between the old Spanish colonial houses. Many of these streets have Inca stone work too… the Spanish simply built on top of the original Inca town when they colonised Peru, leading to a weird but attractive mishmash of architectural styles throughout Cusco.
You don’t have to go far from Cusco to get to really impressive Inca stone-work either. Situated on a hilltop overlooking the city is Sacsayhuaman, a hugely impressive fortress. Sadly much of the structure was plundered by the Spanish to rebuild Cusco town, but fortunately large sections of the complex remain – including the immense zigzag stone walls that formed the perimeter of the fort. Apparently the largest block of rock in the walls weighs over 70 tonnes… yet it and all the other huge ‘bricks’ were cut with elegant precision to fit perfectly together. Really impressive stonemasonry - the entire wall structure looks so perfectly preserved that it could have been made last year rather than centuries ago!
We struggled up hundreds of steps from Cusco to explore Sacsayhuaman (or ‘Sexy Woman’ as Gary nicknamed the place after mispronouncing the name all day!), and after catching our breath decided to explore some other Inca sites nearby. We were a bit ambitious – our Rough Guide to Peru informed us that there was an important but rarely visited complex called Chacan only 5km north-west, and so we set out to look for it. What the lovely Rough Guide didn’t tell us was that the way to Chacan was all uphill (beautifully steep Andean mountain-hills), nor did it give us any remotely useful directions. But after climbing for well over an hour in what we hoped was the right direction (aided by Gary’s Spanish, a very helpful Peruvian family and a friendly llama shepherdess) we actually found the place! And it was lovely – there were no roads, only dirt paths, so no buses full of tourists venture anywhere nearby, leaving us to admire the huge stone ruins of an Imperial Inca bathing ritual site in perfect peace. The whole complex teetered on the edge of a particularly beautiful gorge with colourful striped rock walls, and stunning views back down the valley of Cusco several hundred meters below.
On our way back down to town we got a bit sidetracked playing on the Inca slides at Rodadero. Here weirdly rounded volcanic rock has been polished over hundreds of years by people sliding down it! The rock is truly slippery on the ‘slides’ – you pick up quite a lot of speed as you get towards the bottom – where you have to stop immediately or end up face down in a muddy puddle... And finally we made a brief diversion on our way home to yet another Inca complex above Cusco called Qenko (we nicknamed it ‘Kenko’ in desperate mispronunciation…). This one was based around a huge carved outcrop of rock, complete with underground caves carved into a fun labyrinth. Lots of huge rock formations to scramble around. And these were only the nearest Inca sites to Cusco!
Only a little further a field are two other Inca sites, both easily reachable by local bus from Cusco. So we were very surprised and horrified when we hopped off our 20 year old clapped-out minibus packed with locals to see that most people turned up with tour groups and guides… The local transport here is so good that we really wonder why people sign up for tours only to be stuck with an irritating guide and 40 or so other tourists all day. Anyway, after dodging the hordes we spent a nice evening wandering around the small Inca sites of Tambo Machay and Puka Pukara. Tambo Machay is really just an over-large bath, complete with nice waterfalls, fit for the Royal Incas to bathe! Puka Pukara is a little more impressive – it consists of a fortified mound overlooking a beautiful valley above Cusco, and is apparently the Inca version of a hunting lodge. Both sites are only 11km from town, so after exploring the ruins we wandered back downhill, watching the sun set above Cusco before descending into the city centre for a well-earned pizza.
Anyway, over the next few days we plan to venture out from Cusco by bus and train to see Inca ruins at Pisac, Ollantaytambo, and of course, Machu Picchu – and we’ll put up some posts and pictures on the blog afterwards!
Cusco Photos
As we walk out of our hotel each morning this is the view over Cusco we see - the lively area of San Blas formed by this sweet square and the twisting alleys you see below.
Here you can see Gary standing in front of the impressive zigzag fortifications at ´Sexy Woman´. As always clouds loom over Cusco in the distance but fortunately the weather stayed clear for our Inca explorations.
More zigzags at Sachsayhumuan... and a very small gary near them to give a sense of scale!
This gorge was near the Inca site of Chacan - we followed it back down towards Cusco, getting fabulous views of the city on the way.
Rock sildes! The volcanic rock near Sachsayhumuan has been used for sliding for hundreds of years - making it very smooth! By the time you reach the bottom you´re going pretty swiftly towards that muddy puddle... Below you can see Gary in Qenko, standng in one of the labrynthine caves.
Puka Pukara looks like any ruined castle you might find in Europe, but by Inca standards it´s only a tiny hunting lodge. It does have a wonderful view over the valley to the right of this photo though, and just off to the left are some sacred bathing pools.
Cusco´s Plaza de Armas at night - very lively, nice churches and cathedrals - and of course the obligatory silly fountain in the middle.
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