Peru: part 2 and other bits of South America

Day 84 - 87

The Inca Trail.

Let's just say that it's tough. A basic level of fitness does help of course, but altitude is a great leveller. Most of the walk is at 3,000 - 4,000 metres or about 10,000 to 13,000 feet in the old scale.

Even more humbling are the porters who carry your ENTIRE campsite for the four days. This includes and oven, tables and chairs, tents, etc. They leave each camp site after you, put on a 25 kilo pack, run past you, set up camp and then clap your later arrival. Better still, most are over 40 years of age (one was even 58!). Here's a few of them.



The landscape is magnificent if you get to see it while catching your breath.



It's a bit hard to make out, but that's the trail on the right looking down from the highest point of the trek - about 4,200 metres. The guys in red are another team of porters. We called them the red caterpillar.


Me at one of the Inca ruins doing the usual and one of our campsites.


The food was amazing. A full banquet every night which was better or equal to any restaurant food we had in all of Peru. The culmination came when they cooked me a birthday cake to have with breakfast. It was delicious and prepared fresh for a 6.30am start.

Another highlight was that we were able to take a deviation from the normal route and take in another Inca city discovered only in 1990. It has not yet been restored - it's essentially still jungle and rarely seen by tourists (our guide had only been once before in the two years he had been doing the trek).

The other benefit of the deviation was that we were able to see Machu Picchu a day early and from a high vantage point. You might be able to just make it out nestled in between the two montain tops.

The various ruins passed were magnificent.

As part of a thank you for the porters, we waited on them for an afternoon tea. I was in charge of making the pop corn. Seeing what they had to use to cook made me even more impressed with the food they managed to churn out.

Our leaders were also pretty cool: that's 'Rambo' and 'Tiger' below.

Machu Picchu itself was worth every bit of the effort. Amazing.

Day 88

Another day in Cuzco and we checked out some more of the Inca ruins. They'd be a hell of a lot more impressive if the stones weren't used as a quarry by the Spainish to help them build various churches and other public buildings and residences.

Days 89 - 90

The Amazon jungle.

It was certainly an experience getting there. A cold front moved in from the antarctic. This meant instead of balmy 30' plus weather we ended up with rainy 10' weather. It also meant instead of a pleasant 3 hour canoe ride we ended up with a mud ridden, cold, wet and thoroughly depressing 6 hour journey finishing in the dark. It was worth it when we got there. This is the place.

Unfortunately because of the cold weather we were unable to see as much wildlife as normal. We did, however, get to see a large number of birds and butterflies, do some walking and check out the children's playground.

We were also able to do a night canoe ride in search of some large caymans (a crocodile). We managed to see some babies also saw a herd of what is the world's largest rodent - I forget what they are called.

Days 91 and 92

We were back in Lima and said goodbye to our little group. That's us in matching "Inca Cola" shirts - it's popular local soft drink which smells like bubble gum and is reminiscent of golden creaming soda.

Day 93 and 94

La Paz, Bolivia

The world's highest capital city. It's located in a stunning canyon position but is otherwise a bit boring as far as south american cities go. It was pleasant enough though and the local witches market was interesting: they like to stock dried alpaca foetus which is sold to people who bury them outside the front of their house. It's meant to bring good luck. I'm lost on the link between the two...

Day 95 and 96

Santiago, Chile

A nice enough city but a little unexciting. Some good food though due to the strong Italian influence.

Days 97 - 99

Mendoza, Argentina

We took a bus over the Andes into Argentina. It was spectacular. The border crossing, on the other hand, was spectacularly inefficient.

Mendoza is a pretty little city on the foothills of the eastern chain of the Andes. It's main claim to fame is red wine and it's good.

We spent a day cycling among the vineyards doing varying wine tastings and generally enjoying ourselves. We spent another day horseriding among the foothills where I was mistaken for a gaucho by a number of English girls we rode with.

Days 100 -101

Buenos Aires

We had just the one full day in the city. It was very wet and very windy and so we saw only a quarter of what we wanted to see. In any case, what we saw was beautiful, in particular the Recoletta cemetary, below.

Day 102

Buenos Aires airport...

The dust storm in Sydney caused our flight to be delayed by 6 hours. It also meant we missed our connecting flight to Brisbane the next night. After about 4 hours sleep in a Sydney hotel we arrived back safe and sound with our bags full and our memories even more so.

We're relatively sure we've gotten the day count wrong in some places. But anyway, that's the gist of our adventure.

Ciao

Adrian and Nikki