Peru 2025

Peru Begins: Exploring The Splendid City Of Lima

Some cities really win you over – easy to feel part of, full of life, with an infectious vibrancy which pulses through the streets. Lima has all of this and so much more…..grand plazas, tidy green spaces, impressive and varied architecture, even a dramatic stretch of coastline. The more we wander, the more we find, and the more we love. There is so much to see, so many good things to tell, that it’s hard to know where to start. Maybe we’ll start with food…..

Any country which states that it is the birthplace of ceviche, and still boasts it as its national dish, has got to be a country worth visiting for that one fact alone, never mind the terrific itinerary we’ve pencilled in which is causing great excitement as we fly across the Atlantic headed for the capital of Peru.

It’s just over 27 hours door to door from our home in England to our digs in the Miraflores district of Lima, and the 6-hour time difference we’ve collected on the way means that it’s evening in our body clocks but only lunchtime in the streets as we check in to our first base. Lunchtime? Isn’t that when the locals eat ceviche?

It is, so we do, and it’s fantastic, chilli and lime to the fore, in a friendly little backstreet place just off Parque Kennedy. A few hours later after our first wander around the Miraflores district, our evening meal consists of aji da gallina for Michaela and lomo saltado for me, meaning that just a little over seven hours into our Peru adventure we’ve already enjoyed three of their most revered dishes. There’s no way we’re going to let this country’s, and this city’s, reputation for being one of the World’s best food destinations pass us by. 

In fact it’s nigh on impossible to miss the elevated role played by food in Lima culture. It’s in its DNA. Eateries of every type abound: upmarket jobs, plastic fast food huts, cosy corners, parillas, chifas (the local name for a Chinese), seafood havens and, probably most inviting of all, dozens of hole-in-the-wall lunch rooms in which locals fill the twenty or so covers where set menus at fixed prices give amazing value for money. The Uber driver taking us from Miraflores to Lima’s historic centre on our first full day asks us if we like Peruvian food before he’s even got into second gear. That’s how important it is.

Lima is inviting us to explore, one of those cities which immediately fills the visitor with intrigue and excitement, you kind of feel part of it straight away. It is, of course, a huge city which has seen enormous growth in a relatively short time – in 1930 the population was 300,000, today it’s 9 million. As we are to discover, the city’s different districts have distinct personalities which together make Lima a terrifically vibrant, exciting and absorbing city.

Our Uber man drops us at Plaza San Martin, but only after ducking and weaving through the heaving mass of traffic which chokes Lima’s arteries for about twenty hours a day. This elegant square connects to its even larger counterpart, Plaza Mayor aka Plaza das Armas, via Jirón de la Unión, a pedestrianised street full of character, colour and music. Unión’s corridor of retail is suddenly interrupted by the rather magnificent facade of the Iglesia de la Merced, inside which there is a never ending procession of worshippers caressing the iconic cross in pleas for divine intervention. Or maybe forgiveness. Who knows.

Each of the two plazas is home to majestic buildings – Government departments, palaces, the cathedral and imposing colonial structures featuring the oversized enclosed wooden balconies which adorn many of Lima’s grand properties. Music seems to seep from the city’s veins…. a burst of classic rock here, salsa there, then haunting folk music and, inevitably, guys with pan pipes who can’t let fifteen minutes go by without playing El Condor Pasa. Again.

The hulking cathedral looms over the square, staring across to the Palacio del Gobierno which is guarded in perpetuity by brightly uniformed sentries, soldiers in fatigues and armed police. Vast and imposing as the cathedral is, it is outdone in the remarkable story department by two other ecclesiastical sites within the Centro Historico.

Inside the Cathedral

A few blocks beyond Plaza Mayor sits a more modest church, the Iglesia de las Nazarenas, outside of which is a wall housing a detailed mosaic depicting the crucifixion. This wall, now supported by a sturdy modern surround, is said to be a site of miraculous intervention and thus has become a pilgrimage destination for Catholics across Peru and beyond. Its tale is that, not once but twice in its history, the wall, with mosaic intact, has been the only structure in the district left standing when all around it was devastated by earthquake. Divine or not, that does seem miraculous.

The second site with a tale to tell is the Convento San Francisco, a monastery formerly home to over 300 Franciscan monks. On our guided tour – you can only visit the place in that way – we see the mind blowing library with its unique and invaluable collection of over 25,000 original books, some of which date from the 16th century. Beneath the monastery lies another surprise, discovered only in relatively recent times. The catacombs down here below the ground have been found to contain enormous numbers of human remains – it is estimated that the skeletons of around 70,000 people are here, either in part or complete. Stories abound of visitors to the catacombs being freaked by a strange presence or touched by an invisible hand. Regrettably the only “presence” we feel is that of the other tour groups being ushered by chattering guides around this strange resting place. No spirit of the dead chooses to tap our shoulders. Why would the bones of 70,000 people be thrown into subterranean heaps? Simply, it seems, because the cemetery ran out of space. (No photographs allowed, unfortunately). 

Away from mass burial grounds and back in the inviting districts of this vibrant capital, Lima’s beautifully tendered green spaces are havens of peace tucked between the manic streets, well used by the city’s population taking a moment away from the verve, scoffing lunch from plastic cartons or simply sitting chatting in a convivial circle. A touch of quaintness comes in the form of elaborate cat houses where the city’s feline population live in relative splendour, comfortable in their designer abodes and fed by any number of benevolent cat lovers. Each and every cat looks serenely content.

From Parque Kennedy, the arrow-straight thoroughfare of Larco Mar runs straight to the Pacific beaches or, more accurately, to the clifftops above the waves. A new complex of upscale stores and smart bars provides yet another distinct Lima enclave: smart, polished 21st century living. Somewhat inevitably the likes of KFC and Pizza Hut have muscled in here, but the views from the clifftop restaurants are truly spectacular. 

Adjacent to this complex is a small green space, Parque Salazar, watched over by a small statue presented to the authorities by the British Embassy and proudly displaying one undeniable link between the two countries. Yep, it’s Paddington Bear, in all his cute statuesque glory.

Let’s end this first report from Lima the way we began: Food. Inside the Convento San Francisco there is a huge painting of the Last Supper which bears some features uncommon to the usual representations of this event and, it could be said, introducing elements of Peru. For a start, the table is oval, as are the family dining tables of Peruvian homes. Then there’s the numbers – sure there are still thirteen diners, but the room is otherwise filled with adults and children milling around or performing tasks, and even a stealthy Satan himself lurking in the shadows. But, most Peruvian of all, is the feast in the centre of the table, which is the much loved traditional food of the nation. Yep, Jesus and the disciples are feasting on guinea pig.

Now then. Guinea pig. Cuy, as it’s called here. We’ve seen it on the menus already. I think we’re going to have to give it a go. Would be rude not to, really.

More Of Lima: Ancient Sites, Traffic Jams And Guinea Pigs

Wednesday, 5:30am. Manuel and his driver are pretty prompt as they collect us from our base and head out into Lima’s streets which are, mercifully, free at this early hour of the traffic which clogs the city for the rest of the day. Kevin from Newcastle NSW is already on board and a few minutes later we collect the giant 6ft 7in Mario of Split who has to perform contortions to wedge his elongated body into the cramped seats of the minibus.

We’re headed out of the city today, out towards a mysterious place of ancient intrigue more than three hours north of Lima. The sprawling, seemingly endless suburbs of Lima roll by, soon grinding to a halt as the clock reaches 6:15 and the heaving mass of several billion vehicles begins the daily routine of gridlock and horn blowing. I enjoy driving abroad, but Lima is absolutely definitely not being added to my motoring wish list, simply because the whole thing is a game of barging, squeezing through gaps, blocking others and claiming inches of ground by passing within millimetres of other vehicles. Judging by the fact that virtually every car is a mass of dents and scrapes, they’re not actually very good at it, either. 

For a good part of the year Lima is blighted by what the locals call “garuá”, a coastal fog which gets trapped between the Pacific and the Andes and hangs over the city for days on end. Fortunately we’re here during one of the garuá-free months, but as the sun rises this morning and we finally leave the suburbs behind, we can see that even in its off season, the fog can still choke the views. Worse, pollution outfall from the metropolis is turning the fog a grimy shade of yellow, an unmissable reminder of the impact of modern cities. It isn’t too pretty.

We’re on the Pan-American Highway – the succession of roads which stretch an incredible 19,000 miles from Alaska to the southern tip of the continent at the foot of Argentina – heading north to keep the Pacific on our left and the desert sands on our right. This is unimaginably desolate country, the highway cutting a straight black swathe through sands and dust the colour of cement powder, isolated truck stops and industrial towns only occasionally changing the featureless, colourless view. Then, without warning, the land turns suddenly fertile, fast rivers race beneath road bridges and vast fields of maize, passion fruit and chilli peppers stretch out in verdant oases.

Flying in over this terrain when we first arrived, we could see what looked like parallel lines drawn or carved into the hillsides, and had wondered what they were. We know now: they aren’t lines at all, but the roofs of low slung chicken houses on the numerous and gigantic chicken farms spread across the province. “Peruvians eat a lot of chicken”, Manuel explains, somewhat superfluously. 

A truck-stop breakfast of chorizo sandwich and watery coffee follows, then it’s back on the highway, over mountains where the fog shrinks visibility to dangerous levels, until we’re eventually approaching Caral, today’s major destination and a place of wondrous history and intrigue. High on a hill above the Supe River which brought dwellers to the site in the first place, lie the remains of what is, so far, the earliest settlement ever discovered in the Americas.

Constructed around 5,000 years ago as the main centre for the Caral people – another 19 smaller sites have been discovered in the area – this is not only the oldest city in the Americas but one of the earliest civilisations in the entire world. The city is thought to have been occupied for around 1,000 years, serving as an early metropolis for these ancient peoples. There is great diversity among the buildings so far excavated, indicating tiers of standing where, similar to other ancient cities across the World, the leading figures of society dwelt on higher ground elevated above the main population. It’s just a little awe inspiring to stand here and really absorb precisely what it is that we are seeing. Amazing.

Caral is more than three hours’ drive from Lima, a fact which clearly prompts the tour company to find a second destination to make the trip, in their eyes, more worthwhile. This extra sortie, a trip to the coastal town of Barranca for a lunch of fresh fish and sweeping clifftop views, would probably work on sunny days, but today the sea and sky are grey and the wind on the top of the cliffs is….hmmmmm….bracing. My T shirt is insufficient protection. Mario, freshly here from the Amazon, is starting to shiver throughout the significant distance from his head to his toes. Barranca, a little strangely, boasts its own Christ The Redeemer statue, a scaled down version of its Rio counterpart, significantly less visited by humans but clearly a favourite place for seabirds to stop by and defecate.

The seaside diversion doesn’t really work and, more frustratingly, means we roll back into Lima’s suburbs with evening gridlock at its worst and a good percentage of the city’s drivers barging their metal boxes into spaces that barely exist. We make it home at 8pm, more than 14 hours after we set out. Caral was absolutely fascinating, the day a little too long.

As it happens, our Lima base, the neighbourhood of Miraflores, is itself home to another wondrous archeological site, the Huaca Pucllana pyramid. Built over a period of 300 years from around 200AD, Pucllana must have been an incredibly impressive sight – it’s huge now but is thought to have been around five times larger in its day. A temple built as a 7-tier Great Pyramid, the way the vertically mounted mud bricks have withstood the ravages of time is more than remarkable – thousands remain intact. The vertical, slightly irregular position of the bricks, together with horizontal mortar lines and vertical spacing, provided sufficient flexibility for the giant structure to withstand earthquakes and tremors – the ingenuity of ancient races never ceases to amaze.

Incidentally, the in-house guide at Pucllana tells us that the reason the mud bricks have endured so well is that, in his words, it “never rains in Lima”. According to him, the last time there was a day of sustained rain in this city was 1970, twelve years before he was born. We have no idea if he’s telling the truth.

We take a walk from Pucllana back through Miraflores, down to the cliff and along to the neighbouring district of Barranco (not to be confused with Barranca where Christ The Redeemer is), a reportedly bohemian quarter with a newly gained reputation for lively nightlife. With its neatly kept green square and pastel painted houses it has a certain charm of its own. Half way there, one of Lima’s many fabulous cevicherias calls us in for another wonderfully fresh version of this delightful dish. We can advise that there’s certainly no scrimping on content in Lima – the cerviche mixto delivers fish, prawns, squid, octopus and even a scallop with coral attached. Again it’s just fantastic. Gotta love ceviche.

For our final day in Lima we venture to two new districts, each bustling with colour and activity. First, the neighbourhood around Gamarra metro station where the streets are rammed with market stalls selling everything on Earth, traders and buyers competing to make this the noisiest, most manic and colourful of places. The decibel level has to be heard to be believed. Tucked in one unmarked building in amongst the craziness is the Mercado de Brujas – the Witches’ Market – where potions, spells and familiars mix with Tarot cards and masks. It might possibly be spooky if it wasn’t for the bored look of indifference on the faces of the stall holders.

On from here to Barrio Chino, Lima’s Chinatown, which is just as noisy, just as colourful, but this time with much more of a nod to visitors rather than the distinctly local flavour of Gamarra. Chinese came to Lima in large numbers around the late 19th century to work at the port, in the factories and on the railway, bringing with them another element to the city’s character – in fact, many of the dishes labelled “traditional Peruvian cuisine” contain soy sauce as a salty ingredient.

Our time in this exciting and vibrant city is coming to a close. Did we try the guinea pig? We did indeed. No doubt some will be horrified or nauseated by the thought of devouring a guinea pig which is presented this way, instantly identifiable as what it is, but you can take our word for it that it’s alright – the meat perhaps not amazingly tasty but the crispy skin is delicious. Give it a go if you dare.

Lima is great, even if, every now and again, the stench from the fishmeal factories turns the air into a foul smelling cloud which has us covering our mouths and running for cover. Welcoming, vibrant, exciting, colourful…a city which has so much going for it that a full week here wouldn’t be overdoing it. Oh, and then there’s the fabulous food. Did we mention the food?

Goodbye Lima. We like you a lot.

Journey To One Of The World’s Greatest Mysteries: Lima-Paracas-Nasca

The word “luxury” is often applied to buses in the same way as the word “boutique” is applied to hotels: at best meaningless and at worst downright untrue. Not so with the bus company Cruz del Sur whose genuinely luxurious seats and smooth ride bring us in real comfort from Lima to the small coastal town of Paracas, over three hours south and only for a modest fare.

Paracas is a quirky little town, a weekend getaway for city dwellers and a stopping point for tour operators, meaning that for a small place it has a disproportionate number of seafront restaurants which are either rammed full or begging for business depending on the time of day. On this sunny Sunday it’s like a mini version of a cruise port with buses instead of ships. It’s hard to keep in mind that this happy little town is a coastal oasis penned in by hundreds of miles of arid desert. Whilst being a fun little place in its own right, its popularity is largely down to it being the gateway to Islas Ballestas, a group of islands commonly known as “Peru’s Galapagos” or, less complimentary, the “poor man’s Galapagos”.

Galapagos is a bit of stretch of the imagination but nevertheless the islands are home to an impressive bird population, including Humboldt Penguins, giant gulls and pelicans amongst many other species. Sea lions chill out on an offshore buoy, huge colourful crabs scramble on the rocks, fluffy fledglings call from the island for their next fishy mouthful. One penguin, disturbed by the presence of our boat, hops and waddles up the rock as fast as he can – in other words, not very. There’s something about watching penguins: you just can’t do it without smiling.

Across the bay on the hillside of the promontory lies the intriguing Paracas Candelabra, a giant geoglyph of mostly unknown origin, though pottery in the vicinity has been carbon dated to 200BC. It isn’t entirely clear what the carving represents, but it certainly isn’t a candelabra, merely similar in shape. What it really represents, and who created it, remains an enigma, though multiple theories abound, ranging from the “tree of life” to the Holy Trinity, homage to the God of Lightning, a navigation aid for sailors and even an indicator of imminent earthquake. Looks like a cactus to us.

The Candelabra is an impressive sight though, whatever it represents, measuring 160m x 70m and being visible from 12 miles out at sea. The carving itself is cut around 2ft deep into the rock. As we gaze at it from our little boat, we can only wonder how its creators were able to form such perfectly straight lines and such accurate perspective. These are questions and themes which will be magnified at our next, astonishing destination.

So a little under 48 hours after our arrival we’re moving on from Paracas, on another luxurious Cruz del Sur bus heading southwards into the dramatic scenery of the Ica Desert where gigantic desert mountains dominate the landscape. For a long stretch though, the highway follows the base of the valley where oasis greens form a colourful counterpoint to the stark mountains beyond. Either side of the town of Ica, most of the green fields turn out to be vineyards: counter intuitively there’s a thriving wine industry here, right in the heart of the arid desert.

Eventually we scale then descend the giant mountains, to reach a huge, flat plain stretching for miles on either side of the highway. We trudge from bus station to digs, it’s dusty and 29 degrees under the desert sun. We’ve arrived in the town of Nasca, home to what is seriously one of the World’s Greatest Mysteries.

Back in the 1970s as an impressionable teenager, I read and was taken in by the books of Erich von Däniken, whose theories about extra terrestrials visiting Earth and leaving their mark in ancient times have now been universally debunked. Von Däniken presented many examples of “proof” that we had been visited long ago by beings from other planets; one such place where they had supposedly left traces was the mysterious Nasca Lines. I was captivated by it all back then, never dreaming that some fifty years later I’d be seeing this amazing unexplained phenomenon with my own eyes…

Because the best way to see the Nasca Lines is from the air, a thriving mini industry of short flights on light aircraft has grown up within the town itself. Taking to the air just after breakfast, the whole incredible vista of these mysterious lines and drawings opens out on the vast plain below as we bank and curve above the scene. The images are clear: trees and flowers, a spider, a dog, a hummingbird, a condor, straight parallel lines and curling spirals. And, as clear as anything, the humanoid form which gave credence to von Däniken’s theories, looking uncannily like an astronaut in full space suit.

Some of the statistics surrounding the lines and geoglyphs take some comprehending: the total area containing the works is over 19 square miles, the number of different symbols so far discovered is more than 700, the longest individual straight line is 10km long, the total length of all lines added together is an astonishing 810 miles. Despite decades of archeological excavation of the whole area, the remains of not one tool used in creation of the Lines has ever been discovered. Maybe the aliens took them away when they finished the job.

Still completely entranced by what we are seeing, the following morning we hire a local guy, Carlos, to drive us to viewpoints – two recently constructed lookouts and one natural vantage point – to just look, listen and learn. Carlos takes us too to the Maria Reiche Museum in her former home. Reiche worked tirelessly for over twenty years studying the lines and geoglyphs, often unfunded and in spartan living conditions, to bring to the notice of the World what lay on this barren ground. She is pretty much revered here, credited with significantly contributing to putting southern Peru on the tourist map.

The Nasca (often spelt Nazca) Lines were drawn, or rather constructed, between 500BC and 500AD by people simply known now as the Nasca people, with adjoining lines at Palpa being attributed to the Paracas people. It’s simply incredible that the lines and drawings, formed only by scraping away the surface of the land, are still visible 2,000 years later – in fact, a major factor in this amazing preservation is the constant year round climate of Nasca which brings rarely changing weather ordinarily free of both rain and wind. Carlos tells us that only in “El Niño years” (once every 12-15 years) is there any significant shift in weather patterns – this year so far there has been three hours’ rain.

So unchanging is the year round climate that Nasca is nicknamed the “town of endless summer”. But there’s a flipside: the word “Nasca” in the language of indigenous people means “place of suffering” or “place of sorrow”, reflecting life in such dry, arid conditions where water is a scarcity.

Like the Candelabra, the purpose of the Nasca Lines remains shrouded in mystery. Aliens visiting Earth to leave messages, as per von Däniken? Evidence of early understanding of cosmology and astronomy, as at Stonehenge? Representations of constellations, or even the dark spaces in the Milky Way?

Were they homage to Gods, indicators of water supplies, irrigation channels, or a combination of all of these and maybe more? As we fly over, observe and absorb what we’re seeing, what really intrigues us is that these geoglyphs can only be truly seen from above – in fact, the advent of drone cameras has discovered potentially hundreds more geoglyphs beneath the surface dust just recently. So, how did those people know to construct something that can only be properly seen from above? Who were they constructed for? Who was the airborne audience who were intended to view the creations?

The logical explanation is that they were facing the heavens in order to be observed by the Gods. The intriguing explanation is that ancient people knew more than we do now about visits to Earth by alien species, and that old Erich wasn’t so far from the truth after all. 

One thing is for certain. The true reason for the construction of the Nasca Lines is a mystery which will never be solved. They are, truly, one of the Greatest Mysteries of the World.

Oasis Days: Pisco, Desert Wine And An Earthquake 

Carlos in Nasca asked us one of the funniest and most unusual questions we’ve ever been asked on our travels. The conversation went along the lines of…

“So, in England it rains a lot, yes?”

“Well, yes, on lots of days”

“And sometimes it rains at night?”

“Yes”

“And you can hear that it is raining?”

“Well….yes”

“I cannot understand. How would you be able to sleep if you can hear the rain?”

So here speaks a man whose whole life has been spent in the desert, a man who cannot even conceive of a world where you would be able to fall asleep to the sound of rain. Doesn’t travel bring out the most wonderful little exchanges?

Anyway, such was our absorption in the amazing Nasca Lines that we barely mentioned what a pleasant little town Nasca itself is, centred around its elegant small square to which half of the town’s population seem to gravitate each evening. There’s a calm, relaxed feeling about the town, maybe influenced by the never changing year round climate.

There’s a festival in town – of course there is – the Semana Turistica, ostensibly celebrating how the Nasca Lines have brought visitors, and prosperity, to the town. It’s a particularly amusing misnomer in that, firstly, “semana” means “week” and the festival lasts for fourteen days, and, secondly, the whole pageant is based around traditional dances and folk music and has naff all to do with tourists. Ah but it’s colourful, energetic and loud, and there is an endearing joy on the faces of participants and onlookers alike.

Our next link up with the comfortable, punctual and efficient Cruz del Sur bus company brings us to yet another exciting destination, the perfect oasis village of Huacachina, so perfect that it looks like a page out of a picture book or maybe even a Hollywood film set. Surrounded by gigantic sand dunes deep in the Ica Desert, the tiny village curves around three quarters of the palm tree lined water, the other side seeing the colossal dune sweep right down to the water’s edge.

The gigantic dunes are just too tempting….”climb me” they call. So we just dump our stuff and set off up the demanding ascent, rising to 520m at the top – a straight-up elevation gain of 120m in deep soft sand which is pretty tough going. It is much more than simply worth the effort, the views down to the village are seriously awesome but even they are possibly outdone by the reverse views across the top of the incredible dunes, like an Alpine vista made entirely of sand. What wonderful scenery. 

It should be said though that this movie-set picture perfect village is also a definite fixture on the gap year traveller route as young thrill seekers hit the parasailing/sand boarding/sand skiing trail. On our first night this meant extremely loud club music thumping out across the dunes until after four in the morning – we feared the worst, but then oddly both Friday and Saturday nights are full of peace and quiet.

The nearby town of Ica has something you wouldn’t expect in a desert – a thriving wine industry. In the green valley which runs between the huge arid mountains, conditions are perfect for twenty different grape varieties and the surrounding vineyards are extensive. We’ve been drinking Tacama Gran Tinto ever since our first night in Lima, not realising until now that we will get the opportunity to visit that self same winery. It’s actually a beautiful place, and the tour of the premises and, of course, the tasting, is excellent, made even better by the museum-like displays of century old wine making equipment including presses and pumps.

Now, I will have to be careful here, knowing that a very astute former sommelier is a regular reader of our posts, but I concur fully with the preface in an Encyclopaedia of World Wines which I have at home, a preface which says something like “there’s no such thing as good wine, there’s just wine that you like. If you like it, then it’s a good wine”. Or something like that. Anyway, we loved Tacama from the first bottle and it hasn’t disappointed yet.

On from Tacama to two different pisco distilleries for more learning and more tasting. Peru’s favourite drink is these days available in many flavours, though we’ve come to love the pisco sour which the Peruana adore as their chosen aperitif. Incidentally, if and when you get chance to drink pisco sour, do NOT drink it through the straw which they sometimes give you. Drinking through a straw completely misses an essential sensation, that of drinking the alcohol through the fluffy egg white head on the drink. Yep, fluffy egg white, like half way to meringue. Very nice.

Of the pisco flavours, we love the algarrobina. Algarrobina is Spanish for carob, but this creamy pisco is like drinking an alcoholic Werther’s Original, if you know what that is. So after being “out on the pisco” all day we feel obliged to show our stickability and indulge in a couple of Cusqueňa beers and a bottle of Gran Tinto before our bed starts to call. We feel we’ve done complete justice to a dedicated drinking day.

I wake about 5am, sleep having been long and deep. As I lay contemplating what today might bring and Michaela starts to stir, the roof of the building starts to rumble, then rattle. Michaela wakes, startled. By now the bed is vibrating, the rumbles and rattles have spread from the roof to the whole building and the main light fitting is swinging on its chain. There’s a crash outside, then all is still. We look at each other. That had to be an earthquake.

Google quickly confirms it – the monitoring websites have recorded a 6.0 magnitude quake with its epicentre 315km from here. Well, we’ve always wondered how we’ve managed to avoid earthquakes on our previous travels, and also wondered what one would feel like. It feels quite exciting to have experienced one without suffering any damage or injury. Oh, and the crash outside? A section of masonry from the roof edge is no longer in place and now lies in pieces in the garden of the former convent which is our creaking old hotel. 

After breakfast the village is still, all is well. Nobody is talking about earthquakes, such things are evidently too commonplace around here for this one to warrant any attention.

For our last hurrah in the oasis we take a fun and exhilarating ride in one of the many buggies here, being driven at speed over the dunes and down hair raising drops as steep as roller coasters. It’s enormously enjoyable though throughout the spin part of me wishes I was allowed to drive one, they look so cool. We also take a look at the sand boarding slopes, but they are very long and very steep, so with a dodgy hip for one of us and an unreliable knee for the other, we bottle it and decide that ruining the rest of the trip would not be a great outcome for a brief moment of joy.

And so we’re done. We’re leaving the desert behind now, and moving from dry to decidedly wet. Our next call is four nights in the Amazon jungle. Plus ça change, so to speak.

The Five Day Jungle Experience: Heat, Humidity & Eating Live Termites 

It’s unmissable as soon as we step off the aeroplane. Even out here on the concrete apron of the small airport, the humid air is thick with the dank smell of the rainforest, the scent of damp earth on every inward breath. In just a little over 24 hours we’ve travelled from the desert where it never rains to the jungle where it nearly always does. Paul and his driver collect us at the airport and off we go, at first along a stretch of the highway and then for more than an hour down a bumpy dirt road to the banks of the Tambopata River. Paul – pronounced “Powl” as in Paulo – is to be with us as our guide for the first part of this Amazon jungle adventure. He is instantly likeable, an inveterate giggler who seems as excited as we are to be heading out into the wild.

The adventure gets underway with a hike which starts just before twilight and ends in darkness, deep into the atmospheric jungle filled with the sounds of insects and birds. Twilight is also mosquito hour, so we’re coated in repellent yet still batting off the damned things as they whine past our ears. As the fading light casts eerie shadows, we spy our first toucan of Peru, posing neatly but noisily on the upper branches of a giant tree.

Humidity levels are beyond extreme, drenching our clothes in sweat before we’ve walked even fifteen minutes. Darkness falls quickly in the jungle and before long we’re on the lookout for nocturnals as Paul alternates his standard beam with ultra violet. When occasionally he extinguishes all light, the darkness is total: the hand in front of the face thing is literally true.

Within this blanket of black the sounds of the jungle are thrilling, a discordant and incessant chorus of birds, insects and frogs. Indeed, night hikes are as much about what you hear as they are about what you see, but the “see” element still provides its highs – giant spiders including a tarantula, glowing caterpillars and a dangerous type of scorpion so big that it even makes Paul draw breath and go “wow”. 

This isn’t of course our first jungle experience but it’s already fantastic. As we lay in bed waiting for sleep, those wonderful jungle sounds echo around us – our cabin at this lodge has wooden walls only up to 4 feet or so high, above that there’s just fine mesh up to roof level, enabling us to really feel immersed in our surroundings. It works so well that we drift off in the midst of this cacophony of mysterious sounds, still reeking of mosquito repellent despite our ice cold showers.

Day 2. Tuesday. 4:30am. Rendezvous with Paul and a couple from Rotterdam long before daylight, join El Capitan in the river boat and head upstream for about 90 minutes. An eerie fog hides the treetops as the day dawns, the air mercifully cool with the humidity yet to kick in. Once off the boat, we clamber across the chunky shingle of the exposed riverbed and settle down armed with plastic chairs, binoculars and telescope. We’ve arrived at the clay lick.

A clay lick is a fascinating part of the ecosystem. Many species of animal and bird in this environment have a diet consisting entirely of fruit, which creates a build up of toxins in the body which if untreated could be deadly. To counteract the negative effects of these toxins, it’s necessary to seek out minerals such as magnesium and, more importantly, sodium, minerals which are found in the clay at the steep cliff-like riverbank. This particular clay lick is of increased interest due to the fact that its most regular visitors are macaws, those most colourful and spectacular of birds.

The macaws’ clay licking regime takes place in the early light of the day, hence our own early start – but what a reward we receive. Dozens of both scarlet macaws and blue and yellow macaws flock to the site, taking on board the sodium in a noisy, sociable mass. It’s one of those joyfully reliable natural scenes which unfolds every single morning of the year.

We’re not scheduled to have much rest on Day 2, just time for lunch at the lodge before we’re off again, only the two of us this time, first to kayak down the Tambopata River and then meet up with Paul to go fishing for catfish in a tributary creek. Confirming what we already know, we fare considerably better with the former than the latter – the kayaking is excellent fun, as ever, but the fishing expedition results in a catch of zero just as it did with piranha fishing in Brazil last year.

However the fishing trip isn’t entirely fruitless, providing many more animal and bird spotting events, the most amusing of which is a caracara bird busily feeding off ticks from the fur of a capybara who in turn seems blissfully happy with the service provided.

The humidity continues to astound, this is up there with the most intense we’ve ever experienced. We fear that it’ll be hard to sleep, but we soon drift off still reeking of mosquito repellent despite our ice cold showers.

Day 3. Wednesday. A positively late start at 6:20am but this time loaded with backpacks as we make the journey to our second lodge via boat then 4×4, through the attractive looking gateway town of Puerto Maldonado and on to a second boat. Now in a different section of the Tambopata National Park, we are for this second section alongside the wider Rio Madre de Dios rather than the Tambopata itself.

Paul is gone now, replaced by the less gigglesome but more informative Ronal, who is eager to teach us about many of the trees, shrubs and fruits of the jungle on a walk through the area surrounding the lodge, including tasting some fruit we’ve never even heard of. New fruit is one thing, but another food sample is a real surprise, when Ronal invites us to stick our fingers into a nest and eat a few live termites. For such tiny creatures they have quite a “pop” when you bite them, not to mention quite a pleasant herbal, almost minty, flavour. We think it’s the first time we’ve eaten anything which is actually still alive.

Next up is a boat trip to Monkey Island where at first we find the procession of tourists feeding bananas to the capuchins rather unedifying. But there’s a story which changes our view.

The monkeys left on the island are the immediate descendants, plus one original, of those illegally sold as pets, abandoned by families when they realised that having a monkey is a bit different from having a cat, and subsequently rescued by an ethical welfare organisation. When this organisation ran out of cash, the poor monkeys, over domesticated, were not capable of living in the wild. The solution was to put them on a remote island and encourage visits by tour groups whose guides bring along bags of bananas so that the poor creatures, unable to be re-wilded, can at least live their full term. The future is now limited for the troop: many died during the pandemic, unable to distinguish between food and poison due to over domestication and without the support of visiting humans and now, after crossbreeding between types, the troop is terminally sterile. When the last one dies, the cycle will be over.

Evening brings a night watch boat trip where the occasional caiman shows itself but little else escapes the sanctuary of the dark. It’s so humid. Our cabin, again with fine mesh for walls and windows, has no fan or air cooling of any kind, the only respite is to stand under the cold shower – somehow the absence of hot water doesn’t seem as distressing here as it would anywhere else.

It’s been full on over three days in the sapping, de-energising heat and humidity. We drift off, soaking the bed sheets in a combination of perspiration and mosquito repellent despite our ice cold showers.

Day 4. Thursday. 5:00am rendezvous with Ronal. The first couple of hours of daylight provide the only relief from the humidity; dawn brings a coolness to the air which is as refreshing as a cold drink. Each morning the fog hangs over the treetops as darkness lifts, quickly burning off as the sun rises and begins its daily ritual of burn and swelter. Before 8 o’clock every day both the heat and humidity have already rocketed up the scale.

By 5:15 we’re on the boat again, heading to a landing point from which a 3km boardwalk takes us through swamp and jungle to the shores of Lake Sandoval. The waters of the lake are unbelievably serene, flat calm and acting as the perfect mirror to the lush greenery which is alive with morning birdsong.

Red howler monkeys amble across the high canopy, yellow coated squirrel monkeys crash through lower branches, exotic and unusual birds fish in the waters, soar overhead and issue disparate and raking calls. One bird which we spy – the hoatzin (nicknamed the “stinky bird”) – is endemic to the Peruvian Amazon and displays an impressive combination of colour and crest.

Along the boardwalk Ronal points out many trees and plants with unique or unusual characteristics, none more so than the incredible matapalos, the strangler fig, which, as he demonstrates, has a weird story – it grows from the top down. Seeds left in the poo of birds and monkeys germinate at the top of the canopy, sending roots which wind themselves slowly down a host tree until close enough to the ground to grow outstretched roots which act as anchors.

The twisting roots grow in size, so forming a new trunk wrapped around that of the host tree, whilst the anchor roots expand and grow in strength. Now able to support itself, the new tree proceeds to strangle the host tree, hidden inside this parasite, to death, hence its name. Over these couple of days Ronal has taught us many more facts about the unusual properties of a whole host of jungle plants, far too many to detail here, but all of them enhancing our appreciation of the wonder of nature. He’s a very knowledgeable and interesting guy.

Thursday evening brings a second night walk for spotting nocturnal creatures, during which we find out just how many gigantic tarantulas live at this lodge and within yards of our cabin. There are, literally, dozens of them, giant females and not quite so big males in astonishing numbers. No wonder they tell you not to leave your door open, not even for a minute – bad enough with all the airborne critters which can do you harm let alone spiders and scorpions.

It’s the end of Day 4. We came to the rainforest expecting heat, humidity and rain. Remarkably, we’ve had only two of the three, and in our whole time in Amazona we haven’t felt a drop of rain. Now THAT is good luck. We fall asleep knowing we’ve got lucky. And stinking of mosquito repellent despite our ice cold showers.

Day 5. Friday. 6:15am. Time for one last activity before our Amazona adventure is finally over, a canopy walk on hanging bridges way above the jungle up in the treetops where macaws call and leaves rustle. At the final platform, Ronal asks us all to simply close our eyes, be silent for a few minutes and just absorb the sounds of the jungle. Of course we’ve already done this several times ourselves – it’s amazing just how many different creatures you can hear.

As Ronal declares the vigil finished, he is clearly thoroughly edified even though he’s probably done it a thousand times before. “The jungle”, he says with feeling, “is magical”. Maybe the perfect final judgment on our stay.

And so we leave the magical jungle, our four night five day adventure over, and return briefly to explore Puerto Maldonado. From there it’s on to Cusco, 3,400 metres above sea level. It’s no longer tarantulas, mosquitoes and humidity that’s the challenge, it’s altitude sickness and a lack of oxygen.

It’s going to be a big learning curve and a whole load of adjustment. Let’s see what this next section brings…

Cusco & The Rainbow Mountain: Life At Over 11,000 Feet

So now we enter the first part of this journey – there’s plenty more coming – where altitude sickness is a looming enemy, so as a result we have developed a strategy long before the day we arrive in Cusco. Flying in from Puerto Maldonado adds to the risk, coming straight from low lying wetlands to a city at 3,400 metres in less than an hour gives no opportunity for graduation, just a steep learning curve in which a large dose of being sensible is called for. We’re not always good at being sensible.

Consequently we hatch a plan. There’s a certain regime to follow for the first 48 hours at a level like this – we are, by the way, at more than double the level where altitude sickness can kick in – so arrival on a Friday afternoon gives us the weekend to apply that regime. To our way of thinking, there’s no better way to guarantee self discipline than to have a target, so we set ourselves probably the hardest target we can by committing to complete a challenging hike to the summit of the famous Rainbow Mountain on Monday, starting roughly 12 hours past the 48 watershed. In other words, we absolutely HAVE to do all the right things.

Those right things include: walking slowly and NEVER running, conserving energy, avoiding increasing the heart rate, following a diet which avoids red or fatty meat, instead getting protein from fish, chicken and nuts while whacking up the carbohydrate intake, absolutely no alcohol, and regular resting. And as metaphorical icing on the non existent cake, swallowing sorojchi pills and consuming the leaves of the coca plant in as many ways as possible (coca tea, coca candies, coca leaves to chew and even coca chocolate bars). 

Of course, the Sensible Regime definitely does not mean doing nothing, that would be of no help whatsoever, so, apart from wandering Cusco’s gorgeous streets at half our normal pace, we have to come up with at least a couple of options which will occupy our time without hitting any walls.

Firstly, once I’d realised there was a Peruvian Primera Liga match in Cusco on the Saturday, all I had to do was convince Michaela that sitting in a cold windy football stadium for two hours or more was a good way to both conserve energy and follow the Regime and I’d be ticking off another country on my world football list. Of course, my ploy succeeds, and we spend a happy Saturday evening watching the local club Cienciano despatch their hapless opposition in a 6-1 drubbing. Michaela nearly enjoys it.

Secondly, another way of conserving energy is to sit on a bus. Back in Huacachina some fellow travellers had advised that the Cusco tourist buses are a good ploy during acclimatisation, so we take their advice and snaffle our seats on the open deck. Its route winds around the narrow streets, then leaves the centro historico to head up the mountain road for viewings of the ancient Inca sites way up above the city.

The sites look fascinating and we vow to make a more complete visit later in the week, more to follow on that. For now, the bus tour suddenly descends into utter farce as, during a visit to a Quechua village community high up in the Andes, a mountain storm with icy winds and horizontal rain sweeps across the peaks, sending everyone scurrying for cover and leaving the llamas wishing their coat was even thicker than it already is. With the open deck of the bus now a storm battered no-go area the entire entourage of previously engaged tourists now becomes a soggy mass of grumpy humanity squeezed into a downstairs section which is designed to take only half of them. Fun this is not. 

Still, our large collection of humidity soaked clothing has been laundered back to normality so a handful of rain soaked stuff is obviously going to be no great problem. Not only that but Michaela’s nasty bee sting from the jungle is losing its ferocious scarlet tones and the Regime seems to be working. And – oh heaven – hot showers every day. All is good.

Before we know it the first 48 are done. Apart from a couple of heart-pounding-in-the-rib-cage moments on Cusco’s steep sidewalks we’ve got through it and the Regime has made a good start – but a good start is all it is for now, the real challenge is still to come.

Cusco is undeniably on the tourist map and with seriously good reason. More than once on our journey through Peru, travellers have described the city as magical….”there’s just something very special about it”, six-foot-four Mario from Split had said. Boy, every one of them was right, it’s such a lovely city. More than a nod to tourism maybe, but the extensive centro historico, all tight cobbled streets, steep hills and grand plazas, make Cusco a fabulously attractive city. Add amazing history and towering scenery and you have a rather wonderful destination.

Traditional skills

So, our next post will concentrate on Cusco, its character and its history, and those archeological sites up in the majestic surrounding mountains. But it’s Sunday night, and the testing hike to Rainbow Mountain is calling.

3am Monday. Even earlier than all of our jungle adventures, Christian, mountain guide, walks us to Plaza de Armas where the minibus awaits, loading slowly with our party of twelve for today’s challenge. Rainbow Mountain – traditional name Vinicunca – is a near 3-hour drive away, but even with a planned breakfast stop our very early start gets us there before the majority of today’s gallant hikers.

SIDENOTE: The notes on the booking website for this hike say ¨This activity is not suitable for persons aged over 65”. Well, red rag to a bull! Nobody – NOBODY – tells me I’m too old to do something. I and only I am going to make decisions like that. Eat your words, people..

There is, we admit, some trepidation as we exit the minibus at the first base camp and look up at the daunting heights of the Andes Mountains – we’ve never hiked at anything like this altitude before and have heard many stories of fit young hikers being struck down by the dreaded sickness without reaching the top. Mentally, we’re determined to get there. We receive our briefing: not too fast, regular pauses, and are given points at which we must regroup in order for the guides to check on everyone’s wellbeing. Christian will be with those in front, Carlos will be at the back armed with oxygen tank in case anyone is in need.

Some facts. Cusco the city sits at approximately 3,400 metres above sea level; the base camp where our hike starts is at 4,700, the summit of Vinicunca is 5,036, which is the equivalent of more than half way up Mount Everest. At these altitudes there is 30% less oxygen in the air than at sea level. An elevation gain of 336m may not seem much, but at this altitude it’s not without danger and is going to be testing.

Our route will take us up through the climbing valley side, then steeply up to the viewpoints and the summit, then round to the edge of the Red Valley. It is, indeed, hard. Not being able to inhale enough oxygen is a weird sensation, as if the body is continuously trying to breathe in without pausing to breathe out. The chest heaves, the heart pumps like it’s never pumped before. Pauses for recovery are a must.

Christian and Carlos are superb, providing the perfect mix of motivation and reassurance. We are told to move and make regular stops in whatever way our body tells us: consequently I am ahead of Michaela but never by far, and I can see that she’s doing OK. When we finally make it, the reward is absolutely beyond breathtaking.

Vinicunca, the Rainbow Mountain, is as beautiful and strikingly unusual as all the photographs we’ve seen, the striped layers of different minerals presenting a surreal multi coloured pattern of chevrons which simply astound. It isn’t actually unique, other mountains in the Andes have a similar look brought about by layers of iron oxide (red), copper carbonate (green), sulphurous sandstone (yellow), calcium (white) and manganese oxide (purple), but this one is the most famous.

As if we’re not blown away enough by this, the extra hike to the Red Valley leaves us even more spellbound. This is quite possibly one of the most beautiful natural vistas we’ve ever been lucky enough to look out on. Other than saying that I’ll let Michaela’s photographs do the talking.

We did it. We acclimatised sensibly enough to explore Cusco without the dreaded altitude sickness striking – then, to cap that, coped with climbing to 5,036 metres, and were rewarded with the most spectacular of sights. The sense of satisfaction and achievement is huge.

Later, there’s a few nasty headaches, and during the night I awake struggling to breathe and need ten minutes inhaling mountain air on the balcony. But that’s the extent of it. We haven’t been struck down, and we rose to our own challenge.

Oh, and by the way, suckers, I’m over 65.

The Wonderful City Of Cusco 

Sometime during 1993 the Peruvian Government took it upon themselves to draw up a national constitution. Within this document was a declaration that the city of Cusco should be officially recognised as Peru’s Historic And Cultural Capital, so providing this lovely city with an accolade to match its indisputable and enduring appeal. 

In truth, it really is a lovely city, especially the narrow cobbled streets which gravitate on steep hills away from Cusco’s beating heart, the bustling Plaza de Armas. The cathedral, dedicated to the Virgin of the Assumption and the almost as large Iglesia de la Compañia de Jesus dominate the two sides of the square which aren’t taken up by restaurants and cafes sporting pretty wooden balconies. The centro historico, unlike many similar smaller historical centres, spreads over a wide area, tightly packed with atmospheric streets radiating away from the main square. Many of these terrific streets are tight, cobbled affairs still evocatively flanked by towering original Inca walls. Now a UNESCO World Heritage site, the beauty of Cusco should remain unspoilt.

Some streets, like the Hatun Rumiyuq, are too tight for motor vehicles and are consequently filled with street vendors whose stalls are splashes of bright colour; others, just wide enough for one way traffic, hide courtyards and alcoves where artisan goods vie for position with fluffy llamas and Machu Picchu T-shirts. Traditional trades and the tourist economy clash in a riot of colour.

Cusco, originally Qosqo and spelt Cuzco during Spanish occupation, has long been a city of great significance. Previously occupied by the Killke people for three centuries, it was during the 13th century AD that Cusco rose to become the capital of the vast Inca empire, a city of economic, cultural and spiritual significance to the Incas right up until the Spanish invasion of 1532. The Spanish, led by one Francisco Pizarro, were reportedly blown away by the beauty of the city, which possibly explains why Cusco was only partially ransacked rather than suffering the more commonplace total destruction for which the conquistadors were renowned.

If the colonisers were impressed in the 16th century then it’s fair to say that Cusco’s appeal hasn’t diminished and continues to wow the large numbers of visitors who like us pause here for a few days en route to the Sacred Valley. It really is lovely, enhanced by sympathetic street lighting and signage to accentuate the colonial and traditional architecture and those impressive Inca walls. There’s no mistaking the fact that tourism is a major contributor to the city’s economy yet it’s also very clear that its soul is distinctly indigenous.

Plaza de Armas is often alive with dance groups rehearsing complicated choreographed routines, joy on the faces of young and old participants alike. Of course, tour operators, alpaca product vendors and shoeshine boys are constant interruptions to progress across the square, but this city is so vibrant and so attractive that nothing can stop its infectious joy filling our hearts. And if you reach the unlikely point where Cusco no longer holds your interest, just lift your gaze to take in the views of the majestic Andes Mountains which gloriously encircle the city.

The Quechua, the remaining direct descendants of the Incas, live and thrive in the suburbs of Cusco and the surrounding Andean villages. Their culture lives on, not just in the tiresomely common way of donning traditional garb and charging for photographs, but in everyday life as their independent trades, skills and markets still provide a living for the majority of the Quechua community. The Quechua language is still their mother tongue.

Having briefly caught glimpses of ancient sights on the tourist bus the other day, we return for a better and more detailed look, firstly at the sacred site of Sacsayhuamán. The name, which translates as “the fortress of the royal falcon”, is unfortunately pronounced in local tongue in a way which sounds identical to “sexy woman”, giving local guides a shoe-in opportunity for obvious jokes. The citadel was constructed by the Incas during the 15th century to afford some protection to the sacred city of Qosqo, the remains these days giving some clue as to the size of the fortress.

Indeed, some of the most important Quechua ceremonies, surviving from the Inca period, still take place at Sacsayhuamán, notably on the winter solstice June 24th when the sun and the planets align with monoliths within the fortress. We visit a couple of the other ancient Inca sites too, but Sacsayhuamán  remains the most impressive. As we overhear a guide say, no visit to Cusco is complete without a visit to the sexy woman.

Perhaps a final word on the genuinely delightful, absorbing city of Cusco: FOOD. Peru really has hit the highest notes on cuisine up to now, the burgeoning reputation of this country’s food is richly deserved and arguably overdue, but somehow Cusco has taken it to another level. Delicious meals, time and again. 

This city has won us over, the excursion to Rainbow Mountain and the Red Valley utterly memorable, our time here too short and we will pleased to be making a brief return later on in this Peruvian escapade. For now, it’s time to move on….

Just before 7am Tuesday we wander into Estacion San Pedro, go through the ticket and passport check, and wait to board. Across the tracks at Platform 2 sits the smart blue Peru Rail train to Machu Picchu, waiting to take us on a fantastic, unforgettable journey up through the Sacred Valley towards one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. Half an hour later the train pulls slowly out of the station and into the morning sun, and we begin what is widely recognised as one of the World’s greatest train journeys…

And So To Machu Picchu

I always think there’s something supremely auspicious about train travel, especially pulling out of or in to a great city, it just feels so momentous. This is particularly true today as the Peru Rail train hauls slowly up the steep inclines out of Cusco, headed for one of the World’s most spectacular rail journeys through the Sacred Valley to Machu Picchu, a wonder of the modern world. And all this on a significant birthday for Michaela, too.

It takes a full half hour for the train to be free of Cusco, the rail track repeatedly switchbacking as it climbs its way up and over the mountains surrounding the city. Once clear of the steep slopes, we drop down through Poroy, then out into the agricultural plains the other side of the mountain barrier, where the fertile fields yield a multitude of differing crops. (Note: Peru grows more than 3,500 varieties of potato. We didn’t even know that so many varieties existed. Did you?).

With a maximum speed of only 55kph it takes almost five hours to reach our destination, but it is five hours of the most unbelievably breathtaking scenery – no wonder this is always included in any list of the top ten rail journeys of the world. As we enter the Sacred Valley and begin to follow the Urubamba River, the scenery becomes more than sublime, towering mountains forming colossal sides to the gorge, greenery lining the river but snow capping the highest of the peaks. It is truly sensational scenery. This is big country.

The train itself isn’t half bad either, panoramic windows, complimentary snacks, a classy pay bar and an open air viewing platform just some of the frills provided by Peru Rail. (There is also a high class option, the Hiram Bingham train, but it’s way, way, way out of our budget. Google the prices if you dare). Towards the end of this magnificent journey the flora begins to evolve, with a subtropical look taking over from farmland as we near the point where the Andes meet the Amazon rainforest.

If it wasn’t for what’s coming next on this journey through Peru it would be a disappointment to be ending this marvellous train journey, but nevertheless we are full of excitement and anticipation as we finally pull in to the small town of Aguas Calientes. These days, Aguas Calientes has an alternative name – Machu Picchu Pueblo – and the fact that it has what you might call a marketing name tells you a lot about its character. We’ve no idea what used to be here before the great site became such a destination for tourists, but it’s now basically a dormitory for those eager to see Machu Picchu.

For all that, the little town is a delight. Its setting is of course spectacular, the Andes dominating every view, soaring straight to the sky from the town’s backyards. A tributary to the Urubamba races downwards through the steep centre, crashing its white water through town, while every now and again a train rumbles right along the High Street between restaurants and shops. In addition, the growth of the tourist dormitory town has been completed with good taste: the banks of the river’s torrents attractively finished, statues of Inca idols decorating streets and squares. It feels as if it’s built entirely for tourism, yet hundreds of kids spill out of its schools daily: evidently the advent of tourism has given birth to an entirely new and thriving community. 

And so to Machu Picchu, giving for Michaela in particular the thrill of a major bucket list item. She has coveted seeing this place for many more years than we’ve been together, and here she is, poised to walk its pathways one day after a significant birthday. It’s almost too perfect. The weather is almost too perfect too. On so many days the cloud drifts across Machu Picchu and the famous views are obscured from sight, but today – in fact on both of our days here – the weather could not be more kind. Climbing the steep terraces, wandering amongst the ancient walls and temples, gazing upon these iconic world views, is as fabulous as we hoped it would be. 

It’s hard to fathom the sheer effort, enterprise and engineering which went into the 15th century construction of Machu Picchu, right up here at the top of these colossal mountains way above the Urubamba below. Unanswered questions just hang in the air: how did they haul these huge boulders into place, how did they turn almost vertical mountainsides into agricultural terraces, why put so much effort into constructing such a major site which was never intended to be a citadel or a fortress?

You see, Machu Picchu was never a city. Cusco and the Sacred Valley (Valle Sagrada) in which the site lies were admittedly the epicentre of the Inca empire, but examination by archeologists has revealed that a maximum of 750 people resided in Machu Picchu and there is scant evidence of permanent habitation. Thus, the thinking is that Machu Picchu was constructed simply as a getaway for the Inca ruler of the time, Pachacutec. This incredible, vast site, so far above the valley below, 750 workers servicing the complex….all for purposes of getaway….that is some level of privileged indulgence!

Rather like Petra and Tutankhamun’s tomb, the story of rediscovery is almost as fascinating as the history. Although evidence suggests earlier partial discovery by others, full exploration and introduction to the world stage, as it were, is credited to Hiram Bingham, he whom the luxury train is named after, who finally set eyes on his prize in 1911. Having heard of a lost Inca city, Bingham and his team fought their way along the Urubamba basin, gleaning whatever information they could from farmers en route, until eventually being led to the actual site by the 11-year old son of one of those farmers. 

Today of course Machu Picchu is a very heavily visited location with visitor numbers restricted to 4,500 per day in order to limit wear and tear on the site. A highly efficient system operates to control these hordes, starting with queuing in the streets of Aguas Calientes in order to catch one of the many shuttle buses which climb the winding road to the top. The entry time on your ticket is strictly adhered to, so it’s necessary to join those bus queues at least an hour before your designated time.

Once there, the majesty of Machu Picchu is spellbinding. This incredible Andean scenery is a fantastic and awesome place to visit regardless of the presence of one of the seven wonders of the modern world, the soaring terrain of the mountains really is breathtaking. 

In further attempts to balance visitor numbers with wear and tear, there are four designated and ever shifting planned circuits around the vast site, all cleverly thought out and well managed. We complete two of the circuits, one on each of our two full days here. Each of them provides great opportunities to both walk amongst the ancient walls and pass rewarding viewpoints of the most important structures. We will examine Inca philosophies a little more at our next destination but, as with most major Inca sites, there is a temple dedicated to the sun and one to the moon; the Temple of The Condor, the Temple of Three Windows, and others, yet the eye is continually drawn to the terraces.

It’s impossible to imagine the construction methods required to create agriculturally rich terraces on such steep, unforgiving terrain, at altitudes such as these. Scientific examination has shown that the topsoil for these massively extensive terraces was hauled all the way up from the valley hundreds of feet below, and that cultivation of foodstuffs was extremely successful. Rainfall on Machu Picchu was (still is) sufficient to alleviate the need for water storage, in fact the terraces are designed to drain rather than retain.

The condor, subject of one of the major temples, is one of three creatures held as sacred by the Incas, along with the puma and the serpent, the three often being represented in sculptures and drawings from the era of Inca rule. Condors still live, and hunt, around Machu Picchu today, but we don’t get lucky enough to spy one on either of our visits. As we near the end of our second circuit, we turn and take one last lingering gaze at this amazing place – not just the wonder of the modern world itself, but also the incredible setting in which Machu Picchu lies. It is almost unreal. 

It’s been a wonderful couple of days exploring this amazing place, enjoying Aguas Calientes and seeing Michaela take such pleasure in exploring a place she has long dreamed of visiting, than drifting off to sleep to the sound of the rushing river crashing its way downhill. The sun shone on both days, the notorious Andes mist staying away and granting us clear views of the marvel which is Machu Picchu. Unforgettable.

In The Land Of The Incas: The Secrets Of The Sacred Valley

There’s no way we want to rush through El Valle Sagrada, the Sacred Valley, in the way that many seem to do. Some call in briefly if opting for the bus/train combo rather than the full length train journey in order to speed up the journey to Machu Picchu, and, much worse, it’s even possible to do a one-day excursion from Cusco which, given the distances and the number of sites involved, must be both a long day and a rushed agenda. 

Rather than either of these, we decide that after first embracing Machu Picchu we will take a few days to explore this magnificent valley which was the spiritual core of the giant Inca empire. So it is that we leave Aguas Calientes on another Peru Rail train but this time travel for only ninety minutes or so before disembarking in the village of Ollantaytambo. It’s thought provoking to reflect on how popularity has changed Aguas Calientes, and indeed Machu Picchu itself, as the horns of the trains echo from the mountain walls regularly throughout the day, hauling more visitors to and from the world famous site.

Ollantaytambo on the other hand is a much more modest place even if still a significant stopping point. Only a relatively small village, it is so ridiculously attractive that it’s a little hard to comprehend that virtually all of its charming features were built not for tourism but for practical reasons, from the agricultural style buildings on unmade roads to the narrow gulleys which channel waters from the mountainsides down to the Urubamba.

Water is everywhere in Ollantaytambo, cascading through the archeological site, through the village centre, down the middle of cobbled streets and beneath and between houses. Multiple channels race with fast flowing water, bringing the sweet voice of babbling brook and the crashing guitars of white water together in perfect harmony. The largest and loudest of them all tumbles noisily down the hillside right outside our window.

Once again the Andes Mountains surrounding us are colossal, soaring above the village and the valley in a place where Mother Nature dominates mankind. As we stand high up on a mountainside mirador looking down to where the village fills a space granted by the Andes, the equation between mankind’s influence and the power of nature casts a wholly different perspective from the norm. Mankind doesn’t rule here. Little wonder the Incas declared this their Sacred Valley.

But Ollantaytambo is more than a village, it is home to another cluster of the Sacred Valley’s major Inca sites – in fact, the village predates the Incas by a significant period, thought to have been occupied for 3,500 years. Exploring the temples, terraces and grain storage houses on the surrounding mountainsides is almost as thrilling as Machu Picchu itself, a stirring and spellbinding set of relics in its own right – yet, as we are to discover, the Sacred Valley has still more to offer beyond the confines of Ollantaytambo.

Rene, our host in the house beside the river, doubles (trebles?) up as host, driver and guide, and our exploration of the Sacred Valley continues in the company of someone who has lived here all his life, who as a Quechua by birth is a direct descendant of the Incas and who still holds many of the Inca beliefs close to his heart. He is keen to take us to the most sacred places.

During the time we spend with Rene and the time we spend exploring alone, we see so many historic and sacred places that there are too many to record in this text, so we’ll limit this post to the absolute highlights, those that took our breath away even more than the rest. We’ll start with the remarkable circular terraces of Moray. Built into a succession of deep depressions within the earth – it’s unclear whether these depressions were natural or manmade – the terraces form stepped circles which, due to the angle of the sun and the graduating altitude of the terraces, created individual micro climates within which different crops thrived at different levels. 

The sweeping curves of the terrace walls are remarkably symmetrical, and the cascading irrigation system is a commendable feat of engineering. Each slope has seven tiers, which Rene states invokes the seven colours of the rainbow, the story behind which is seriously intriguing and a real insight into the Inca mindset. The Incas held Pachamama – Mother Earth – to be as sacred as a God, leading to a set of behaviours, rituals and beliefs designed to appease and revere Pachamama. Within this doctrine, rain was believed to be the sperm by which Mother Earth would be impregnated, the rainbow in turn was confirmation that impregnation had been successful. With Pachamama now pregnant as confirmed by the rainbow, the resulting child would be the growth of a successful harvest. The Inca flag (and, for that matter, the flag of the Cusco province) sports the colours of the rainbow, such is the enduring importance of this metaphorical sexual liaison.

The Incas also believed strongly in the afterlife and that people existed in three worlds: one in the sky, one on Earth and one below ground in the underworld. A life obeying the principles of Inca faith would lead to an afterlife in the warmth of the sun; failure to do so would lead to an afterlife in the dank, cold soil below ground. In reverence to Pachamama, rocks in the shape of beasts became temples, soaring mountains became places of sanctuary, their Gods lay within the land. Pachamama needed to be revered, respected, obeyed and cherished. Three creatures were sacred, and revered in temples: the condor (representing love), the puma (power) and the serpent (knowledge), three pinnacles of Inca philosophy.

Of course, respective Gods of the Sun, the Moon and the Rain, to name but three, held a place in Inca religion, as did, intriguingly (remember Nasca?) the dark shapes between the streaks of the Milky Way, and the dark shapes within constellations. One can only wonder at the significance of dark shapes rather than bright stars. What did they know? Each Inca temple houses at least one construction which aligns with the positions of the sun and the planets at the winter solstice: how often we find that in depth knowledge of astronomy is a key point in the customs and rituals of ancient races.

As if the temples and terraces of Machu Picchu, Ollantaytambo and Moray aren’t enough, we then climb the mountains above the village of Maras to grasp our first view of – no exaggeration – one of the most incredible ancient manmade creations we’ve ever seen. These are the scarcely believable salt mines of the Andes, 3,200 metres above sea level: salt mines at this altitude is remarkable in its own right.

But these salt mines have a long, long history, having been in operation for over two thousand years even before the Incas arrived and took control. Approaching the salt mines valley from the top of the adjoining mountain leaves us completely spellbound. Below us are nearly five thousand separate pools, each one supporting a slowly evaporating pond of spring water, turning pinky white as the salt crystals are left to gleam in the sun.

Closer inspection reveals just what an incredibly ingenious process this is. The heavily salty water emanates from a spring just above the valley and enters this ancient complex via a modest flow, but what follows is nothing short of brilliant. Narrow channels take the waters to different sections of the hillside, after which a network of multiple sluices allows just the right quantity of water into each pool to enable evaporation. But – and here’s the bit which really impresses – the sluice system is merely loose rocks placed in shallow walls around each pool and each channel. Remove just one rock and the adjoining pool will be filled.

Imagine balancing that process, inspecting the 5,000 pools to ensure that no pool has too much, or too little, water, and no evaporation process is interrupted by flooding at any time. It’s an amazing place. This basic but brilliant process is mostly unchanged since salt mining began here something like 3,000 years ago. It’s hard to tear ourselves away from this ancient mining system which produces around 85,000 tonnes of salt per year, such is the level of ancient ingenuity. Amazing sight.

The Sacred Valley tells a million stories – with Rene we visited other remarkable places, simply too many to recount all of them here. These powerful mountains have seen it all, from the ingenuity of different races to the widespread slaughter of the Incas as the Spanish imposed the Catholic faith and plundered their sacred lands. As we listen to the passionate words of Rene, a Quechua and thus a direct descendant of the Incas, it’s impossible not to feel the power of the World beneath our feet. There’s just so much knowledge that humanity seems to have lost.

Back in Ollantaytambo village, darkness falls around the small central plaza and, as on our previous nights here, the villagers gather outside the church to watch tonight’s display of traditional dancing. There’s a handful of other travellers like us looking on, but we are really intruders into the villagers’ daily life when evening falls, this is their nightly joy. During the day, hundreds of minibuses call in, disgorge those doing the Sacred Valley in a hurried tour from Cusco and wait while their clients visit the temple, but when darkness descends and the chill winds blow through the square, Ollantaytambo relaxes and once again becomes a quiet mountain village. To the Quechua, onlookers like us are from a different, faithless world.

We can scarcely believe what we have seen so far in the Sacred Valley. Machu Picchu, sacred Inca temples, remnants of towns long predating the Incas, those incredible salt mines and, the most spellbinding of all, some of the most spectacular scenery we have ever had the joy of seeing.

And yet, as it turns out, the Sacred Valley is not finished with us just yet….

Sex And Empanadas: Farewell To The Sacred Valley

Mystique surrounds our village of Ollantaytambo. We wake each morning to the sound of rushing water and the sight of the Inca terraces looking down from the towering mountain, the early morning sun creeps over the summits and, although we can’t see it, we know that just a short distance away the sundial obelisk erected by the Incas centuries ago is still announcing the dawn of another day just as it did back then. 

Ollantaytambo stirs. Guides for those on the Inca Trail pack up their tents on the green next to the ancient Punku Punku gateway ready for the next leg; cafe owners clean the dust from windows; souvenir sellers at the entrance to the Inca site begin the daily chore of laying out their displays of fluffy llamas and gaudy ponchos and hats. The minibuses will be here soon.

The day unfolds. Feeling absorbed by the mystique and all that Rene has taught us, there is a sense of wonder as we amble just out of the village to the site of Qelloraquay, the remains of a smaller Inca agricultural settlement closer to the Urubamba River. This sense of wonderment is shattered in an instant as we turn into the main structure and stumble on a young couple energetically engaged in the full sexual act on the grass by one of the ancient walls. So absorbed are they in their romantic encounter that they aren’t even aware of our presence, enabling us to slip away undetected. On sacred ground too, the naughty little devils.

It’s time to leave Rene’s riverside home, bid farewell to his wife and 2-year old daughter and head away from this rather magical village at the heart of the Sacred Valley, though not yet to Rene himself who is driving us back to Cusco via detours to yet more historical sites. 

As we drive out through the square a policeman, or at least a Serenazgo, blows his whistle and waves us through. These guys have been in every town, village and city in Peru, and have amused us throughout. We are convinced that as part of their training they must go to a whistling school, where they are taught the art of blowing their whistle to maximum effect, learning firstly that it is their job to blow loudly and wave through cars in the direction which they are already travelling, and also to never let more than three minutes pass by without another loud blast on the whistle, even if there’s no traffic. We even saw one giving regular blasts in the centre of a pedestrianised square. Whistle equals status symbol, evidently.

The incredible scenery continues to unfold as we pass through the Inca village of Chinchero where the well preserved ruins tell a special story: in Inca beliefs, Chinchero was the birthplace of the rainbow. The pot of gold has presumably long since upped and moved on. We too move on, through the attractive town of Pisaq, climbing next way above the town itself to almost 1,000 metres higher where there lies one more ancient Inca site. Its lofty position gives fabulous views across the dramatic scenery and to the town below, as well as another dose of the mystique which has been a constant feature of our time in the Sacred Valley.

Pisaq has long been a source of silver mining, so inevitably was plundered and ravaged by the Spanish – so many times in the company of Rene he has spoken of the “murder” and “slaughter” of the Incas by the conquistadors, on one occasion shaking his head and saying, “all because they had a different God”. That sentiment needs no further comment from us.

We are leaving the Sacred Valley with suntanned faces despite the fact that evenings are spent wrapped in coats, the temperature plummets just after 4pm even before the sun goes down, which is as intriguing as it is predictable. As we near Cusco, the red heads of the quinoa fields sway in the breeze and the snowy caps of the highest peaks creep just a little further down the mountainsides as winter strengthens its grip. Rene wants to call in at the home of “the best empanadas in the valley”, an opinion we share after sampling them, baked in a traditional wood fired oven and with the pastry made from the quinoa which decorates the valley. Sumptuous.

Up in the mountain villages, well away from the tourist sites, it’s been noticeable that traditional dress is still worn daily by many, women in particular. Short ladies in wide beamed skirts, wrapped in colourfully dyed alpaca wool, long dark hair tightly plaited to the waist, are kept busy by the tasks of mountain life – those in the cities holding baby alpacas and posing for photographs are only a slight exaggeration of ordinary village life.

Rene is gone, we are back in Cusco, for one night only. Plaza de Armas is alive, the national and regional flags now billowing in the breeze where before there was nothing. A delightful children’s parade is in progress, little ones looking proud to be sporting traditional costumes and taking the applause of the crowd, some of the entourage just three years old. It’s June now, a month known in Cusco as the jubilee month, packed with festivities which merge Inca beliefs including the winter solstice with Catholic events such as Corpus Christi. There is already a sense of occasion buzzing around the city. We have loved Cusco; indeed Michaela has even said that it is possibly her favourite city so far visited anywhere in the world. But it’s time to say ciao.

Children’s parade, Cusco

The following day we arrive on a short morning flight in the city of Arequipa, bathed in sunshine, its cathedral towers basking in the view of the neighbouring volcanoes. First impressions are of a classy, proud city, our first walks, in daylight and after dark, putting us very much in mind of similarly classy cities in Spain – we could be somewhere like Seville or Valencia. 

As if we weren’t already thinking that Peru is one of the very best countries we’ve visited, Arequipa looks like it’s poised to offer a different kind of allure…

Alpaca slideshow

Inside The White City: Tales From Arequipa

Ever since we arrived in Cusco we have seen, in virtually every main plaza and next to most tourist sites, women in traditional dress holding on to a cute baby alpaca, inviting tourists to pay a fee to pose for photographs with the two of them. The baby alpaca is impossibly cute, the lady resplendently colourful, but do NOT be tempted to part with cash. The horror behind this facade is that the alpaca has been taken from its mother while it should still be suckling, and is then fed artificial milk as a substitute. Horrifically, this kills the little treasure and most of these exploited animals die in pain before they are even six months old.

Now, we’re no animal rights activists or anything but that is a horrific level of exploitation, and never in a million years would we give them any money. There’s even some here in Arequipa, where the alpacas are more than 1,500 metres below the level at which they naturally live.

Arequipa sits at “only” 2,300 metres above sea level, so although winter is advancing the chill wind of Cusco evenings has gone, and, as winter in these parts equals dry season, the days bring unbroken sunshine from dawn till dusk. From our apartment’s vantage point in the elevated neighbourhood of Yanahuara, the city looks regal, its famed white buildings glinting in the endless sun. The whiteness of Arequipa gives the city an appealing look but is borne out of practicality.

Surrounding Arequipa is a series of volcanoes of varying sizes, of which two of the largest, Misti and Chachani, have issued the white volcanic rock known as sillar for centuries. Suitable as a sturdy and resilient building material, sillar has been utilised throughout history in the construction of many of the city’s buildings and features, including the splendid arches of the Mirador of Yanahuara a short walk from our apartment.

Heading out for our first full day’s exploration, we make a bee line for what is probably Arequipa’s most famous, not to say most intriguing, feature. The Monasterio de Santa Catalina prompts some serious debate on several different levels – we enter through its ancient doorway by activating its electronic turnstile, an unlikely combination in itself, to find ourselves lost in a different world. Huge blank walls hide Santa Catalina from the world, then once inside there is a multitude of reasons for intrigue. 

The first one is practical: what at first feels like a small enclave turns out through twisting alleys, wider streets and unexpected plazas, to be a city within a city, which somehow feels infinitely larger than the outside perimeter would suggest is possible. An eclectic mix of streets named after cities in Spain, living quarters ranging from spartan to luxurious, manicured gardens and a large quantity of stone ovens rub shoulders with chapels, altars and galleries of religious artwork. 

Here there is a large bakery, next a penance chamber where thorns, nettles and ropes were used during prayer; an austere stone confessional is yards away from a comparatively elegant dining room.

Inside Santa Catalina

Damaged by numerous earthquakes over the centuries, each subsequent repair and extension was completed in whatever was the contemporary architectural style, giving this hidden citadel an accurate parallel narrative on the changing look of the city outside. The nuns of Santa Catalina enjoyed for centuries a reputation as master bakers, providing and selling to generate funds bread, cakes and pastries of quality to the outside world, hence the many ovens within the complex. As you wander through the labyrinthine sections, you can’t miss the black smoke stains on walls above the ovens, still telling the story of life in a hidden world.

And then we start to read the history of Santa Catalina, which simply serves to increase the sense of the weird. Inaugurated in 1579, the monastery – it’s called a monastery but was exclusively the domain of nuns – was a place of utmost secrecy for a remarkable 391 years. In all that time only a handful of outsiders were ever allowed in, until the first partial opening to the public in 1970. A handful of nuns still reside to this day in one corner of the 20,000 square metre complex, but the rest remains a creepily unchanged reminder of its unusual past.

Yet the most intriguing story unfolds as we move through the different living quarters. There was, for centuries in this secret city within a city, a bruising hierarchy, all in the name of devout faith, whereby some of the nuns with a previous life of wealthy standing, used novice nuns as skivvies and maids, treating them with disdain and disrespect. This was a two-tier class system which seems utterly counter intuitive to a life of shared pious obedience. Doesn’t it? Incidentally, when one renowned Bishop attempted to intervene in the politics of this hierarchical enclave, it was he who lost his job.

Living quarters

From Santa Catalina, the streets of Arequipa open out into the majestic Plaza de Armas dominated on one side by the large and beautiful cathedral, its twin towers forever allowing the sunshine to embolden its sillar exterior. Elsewhere amongst the palm trees in the elegant plaza, restaurant touts thrust menus in front of our faces, tat sellers show us what we don’t want to buy and another woman in traditional dress holds another baby llama on a lead. Yet the plaza is a meeting place too, where families chatter, friends embrace and university students sit with notepads poised. 

In and around the streets of the city, quaint courtyards hide behind understated entrances, often providing delightful surprises such as the former Jesuit college with its ornate masonry where we take lunch one day. Arequipa is indeed elegant as per our first impressions, but is also a modern city, with the type of shopping streets and malls which can be seen anywhere – so much so in fact that we find ourselves delighted that we aren’t in the centre, but instead in the neighbourhood of Yanahuara where the more unassuming plaza gives great views across the city through those mirador archways.

Former Jesuit college, Arequipa

Oh, by the way, do you remember that we mentioned that Peru grows 3,500 varieties of potato? Well, here’s a few market stalls sporting just some of those varieties in different sizes, shapes and colours…..

The volcanoes and mountains which surround the city create a constant, relaxing vista, enhanced by the white caps of snow which are visibly advancing downwards day by day, giving something tangible by which to measure the onset of winter. It’s still very warm during the day even as the snow advances, an incongruous mix for us English, unaccustomed as we are to extremes.

Before arrival here we had earmarked Arequipa as our “regroup” point, a chance to pause from the adventures, take a bit of time out, catch up with those essential issues like laundry, admin etc. In our comfortable apartment in Yanahuara with its relaxing views across the city, we’ve done just that.

Now, it’s back to adventure as we head into an even longer stretch of even higher altitudes than we have so far experienced, into the Colca Canyon and then on towards Lake Titicaca.

It’s time to get the coca tea and coca candies out again……

Condors In The Colca Canyon

A trip out to the Colca Canyon is on most travellers’ must-do lists while staying in Arequipa, but Michaela plays a blinder by finding a 2-day tour which is linear rather than circular and ends in the place which is, handily, our next destination anyway. So we leave Arequipa in the morning sunshine with the canyon and its resident condors in our minds, hoping we get lucky enough to see one or two.

We head now back up into high altitudes, in fact at no time in the next nineteen days will we be below 3,400 metres above sea level. We’ve dubbed this part of the trip “the cold section” as evenings and night times will dip to zero or below even though sun block is still called for during the day. In fact, as we discover on the first of the two days, when the mountain wind blows while the sun is shining, it’s entirely possible to feel hot and cold at the same time.

Travelling through this high altitude terrain is an entertainment in itself: the huge country of the soaring Andes, desert like rocky plateaux, then areas of pampas and high level wetlands where the giant Andean coot shares the waters with ibis and ducks. But in terms of fauna it’s the camelids which dominate, with large numbers of llama and alpaca roaming their territory, and herds of their lesser known relative the vicuña moving in numbers.

One of our calls is at Patapampa, the highest point on the 2-day journey at 4910m, where we get to see and touch one of the weirdest plants we’ve ever seen. Yes it’s green, yes it’s kind of moss like in appearance, but it feels like rock to the touch. This is the yareta, one of the slowest growing plants on Earth, gaining just 1.5 centimetres per year yet able to form pads up to 6m in diameter – the specimen in this photograph is around 200 years old, and still going strong. It can only survive at altitudes between 3,500 and 5,250 metres.

Our overnight stop is at the mountain village of Chivay with its numerous statues depicting Inca and Quechua traditions, where houses appearing to be only half built huddle in the narrow streets around the plaza, everything looking like it’s designed to cope with the cold of midwinter. Incongruously, in the midst of all these people wrapped in layers of alpaca wool clothing, women in traditional dress and men in cowboy hats, where Quechua is spoken much more than Spanish, the music in the coffee bar could be straight out of my own personal collection – Pink Floyd, Steely Dan, Tom Petty, Dire Straits.

Michaela’s discovery of this two day option turns out to be extremely budget friendly too, accommodation and food in Chivay is at the raised eyebrow end of the low cost scale. Our room in the village, basic but definitely acceptable, costs £16 (about 21USD) including breakfast for two.

Just after 6:30 next morning, exactly zero degrees, we’re back on the mountain roads headed for the canyon. It’s a staggering sight too, even though we only enter the early stages of its length, long before it takes on its greatest dimensions. Colca Canyon is the sixth deepest canyon in the world, deeper than the Grand Canyon, its sides 2000m high at its most dramatic point, the bottom 2000m above sea level, the edges 4000m, stretching in total some 70 kilometres end to end.

The canyon is a magnificent example of our fabulous world, but we’re really here in the hope of catching sight of the Andean condors – and we get incredibly, sensationally lucky. Having been warned numerous times that it’s pot luck whether any condors will show, this morning turns out to be perfect conditions, a clear sunny day with little wind and perfect thermals in the deep canyon. The result is beyond spectacular.

After patiently waiting a while, the first condor or two start to appear, but then, as our time on the canyon’s edge unfolds, it’s as if one condor has told the rest how good today’s thermals are, and, magnificently, several take to the wing. At one point we count nine of these majestic, giant gliding birds circling above our heads. The whole experience is truly spine tingling, a fantastic sight which is hard to walk away from; the sight of so many gliding across the canyon, their giant wings spread to their full 3-metre span, is way beyond what we’d hoped for.

From the canyon it’s another five hours to our next destination, Puno, which is in fact our last stop in Peru before we cross the border. Our hopes for Puno weren’t too high, but yet again Peru exceeds expectations and hands over a welcoming, tidy little town on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Puno manages somehow to be both attractive and modest, its plazas filled with locals chatting in the sunshine before the thermometer drops to zero again.

The main plaza, neat and tidy and as ever home to the town’s cathedral, is fully pedestrianised, streets gently sloping from here down to the shores of the mighty lake. There’s a feeling of frontier here too, for just across the water part way across the lake, Peru gives way to Bolivia. In the last couple of hours before the sun drops below the mountains, ladies sit in the warmth of the sun, already wrapped in coats in anticipation of the evening chill.

As the ladies of Puno sit chatting on benches, the plaza fills with schoolchildren in red and black uniforms filing home. But there’s one child, a young girl aged about eight, who isn’t in uniform and isn’t mixing with the others. She sits on the paving in the middle of the plaza, feeding, and surrounded by, pigeons, encouraging them to sit on her lap, on her outstretched arms and even on her head, oblivious to any onlookers. When a small dog chases away her friends, she looks forlorn; when they fly back she smiles the sweetest of smiles, just to herself. After a while she is done, and skips away from the plaza in overt happiness. Are we watching an inherited love of Pachamama? Who is this little girl with pigeons as her friends rather than children? Who is she? What is her story? 

As in Chivay last night, there is noticeably less English spoken here than in previous towns and cities, and the local tongue has changed from Quechua to Aymara, the second of Peru’s official indigenous languages. And despite the presence of the famous lake, there’s no mistaking the high altitude: again the air is thin and we find ourselves repeating some of the acclimatisation process. We can’t treat this thing lightly, especially with almost three weeks of it ahead of us.

Darkness falls quickly before 6pm, the sunset is but a fleeting splash of pastel shades. The cold takes its grip at speed. Even in the daytime hours when the radiation levels from the hot sun need careful attention, turn into a shaded street and we’re reaching for our coats once more. This is a world where we can get sunburnt whilst feeling the cold, where the low oxygen levels mean that water boils at 84 degrees, where the simple act of breathing is an art to be relearned. We are now in the Altiplano, a region almost unique in the world – more on that as we move deeper into its unusual territory.

We’re not yet anywhere near the highest point to which the rest of this journey will take us and it’ll be almost three weeks before we once more breathe air with oxygen levels at our norm. Yet next, way up here at 3,500m, we’re poised to journey out on to a huge expanse of water ….Lake Titicaca awaits…

The Floating Islands Of Titicaca

Michaela wants me to tell you about face cream. And hand cream. Et cetera. At these altitudes they behave rather differently from normal – every time Michaela removes the lid from a tube, there’s a rocket launcher of a squirt of white liquid capable of hitting the far wall of a hotel bedroom without so much as a gentle squeeze on the tube, like the contents can’t wait to escape. No doubt there’s a scientific reason for this phenomenon but for now Michaela is busy finding ways to clean cream off everything from quilt covers to wallpaper.

Today’s cream coating for the bedroom furniture is in Puno, our last stop in Peru before we cross the border into Bolivia, a pleasant town where the Peruvian obsession with panpipes goes to new incessant levels, though to be fair we’re still able to enjoy the music and thankfully we’re not yet panpiped out. Not quite.

We have ventured now into the vast region known as the Antiplano, a huge high level plateau – in fact, this is the only place in the world outside of Tibet where such an extensive high level plateau exists. The bulk of the Altiplano lies in Bolivia but such is its size that it also extends into Peru, Chile and Argentina, covering in total some 40,000 square miles. This is a world of unique flora and fauna – and a world where we breathe hypoxic air (Google it – we had to!), dangerous if not treated with respect. Puno is the first of several Altiplano towns and cities which we’ll be visiting over the next two weeks; it’ll be a some time before we drop below 3,500 metres altitude.

This pleasing town sits on the shore of Lake Titicaca, the world’s highest navigable lake at 3,812 metres above sea level. It’s a sizeable lake too, measuring 190 x 80km with a surface area of 8,372 square kilometres, and a maximum depth of 280 metres. The Peru-Bolivia border runs roughly down its centre. 

A short boat ride offshore from Puno are the famed floating islands which are home to the Uros people who have inhabited these strange places for many generations, isolated from the mainland community and in extremely spartan conditions. Let us say next though that visiting these places now is a little odd: fascinating to observe and learn how in a historical sense they have survived, but the fact that tourists now traipse through their world every day has surely, for them, changed everything. Remarkable as it all is, the isolation is in reality a thing of the past.

So let’s forget the now and imagine the then. The floating islands are constructed entirely from the reed grasses which grow in abundance in this part of Lake Titicaca. In their natural growth process, the reed forests form a thick 1-metre deep root bed comprising root and mud, which breaks away from the lake floor as water levels rise in the rainy season. Thus, the reed bed rises to the surface and becomes effectively a natural floating island.

Presumably, having spotted this natural process, the Uros people concluded that all that was now needed was some form of secure matting to top the island and make it habitable. For this, they dry out the tops of the self same plants until they are straw-like, then matting them down on to the surface to a depth of one metre. So now there’s a metre of dry flat matting and, beneath, another metre of wet root bed. Of course, this combination is temporary as the wet root beds begin to rot the matting, so a new 10-centimetre layer of dry matting is needed, across the top of the island, every single week.

The island is then anchored to poles (you guessed it, the poles are the thicker reed stems, almost as thick as bamboo) via ropes. Thus, the island doesn’t sail, but it definitely floats – walking across it is akin to walking on a bouncy castle, and when the wake of a passing boat passes through, the whole island moves in waves.

For centuries the Uru led a completely isolated lifestyle, eating just fish and birds (and, would you believe, the base of those very useful reeds), with little or no contact with the outside world. Now, tourism brings money, brings solar power, brings food from mainland shops. It also brings knowledge, so of course now the population of the floating islands is dwindling fast as the younger generation head away from the traditional life and into an easier world.

Last word on the Uru, or Uros people, has to go to their very unusually shaped boats, pictured below and vaguely resembling Venetian gondolas. These odd looking craft are made from  – well, they’re made from the reed grasses, of course they are, although sometimes nowadays with a synthetic coating. The island President (yes, each floating island has one) tells us the main reason the boats have such high sides.

He points to the tiny, flimsy huts that are their homes.

“Here on our island”, he says, “there is no privacy. So when two people want love, they go on to the water in one of our boats”.  

It takes a moment for it to sink in that he really is saying that the boats have high sides so that couples can have sex in them away from prying eyes. He even calls the boats their “barcos romanticos”. Michaela suggests another name but I can’t put it in print!

Final word on that to The President…”we always say”, he chuckles, “that two go out in the boat but three come back”. 

Leaving the floating islands and their unusual history behind, we journey to a more conventional island, Taquile, where the island dwellers enjoy a reputation for making high quality woven hats and knitted belts and bags. In truth, our joy of Taquile is the lovely ancient shepherd’s path which rises from the lakeside to the village at the top, reminiscent of our many hikes to the chora of a Greek island. Apart from the gorgeous island scenery, our confident 40-minute climb is a nice confirmation that we are acclimatising well to this very different environment.

Climbing into bed tonight, we feel that wonderful mix of travellers’ emotions that comes with moving on: a genuine sadness that tomorrow we will be crossing the border and leaving Peru behind, but a buzzing excitement that a new country, Bolivia, awaits.

Adios Peru. Muchas gracias.