Peru still magic

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Trip Start Mar 31, 2006 Previous
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  Cusco, Peru
Monday, August 21, 2006

Peru Still Magic

Well we stayed in La Florida at Tarma a few more days and did recharge. The Hacienda was started in 1885 by the present owner's grandfather and stretches a couple of kilometers along the valley with indigenous intensive agriculture along one side - makes a very pretty picture. He specializes in artichokes and we have never seen so many in one place. He also claims to have the third largest eucalyptus tree in the world? We had an evening meal there in the wonderful old dining room surrounded by antiques and oils of his relatives and old black and white pictures. We were personally served by the owner, Pepe. Magical especially when the bill for four courses for two only came to 16 soles (about $5). We camped in the walled garden all by ourselves and were serenaded by owls all night, magic for Sheila who worships them.

So we were sad to leave Tarma and La Florida. We set off in good spirits and quite sure of the road that we would travel - the realization that we were on a different road not evident on our map would come later. Our destination was Ayacucho which looked like an easy day's drive away. The first part on tar was very fast but the later dirt section was like tacking in a sail boat - 2km travel to make 1km forward and poor dirt roads with loads of hairpins. On the paved road we were traveling through a series of villages when we noticed many people dressed up with brass bands standing around ready for something. We stopped and had a delightful time following one group of dancers and musicians through their village and into the church.

Cusco Plaza Armas

And somewhat unusually they invited us to take photographs very different from the usual reluctance coupled with a request for money. We made Huancayo easily on the tar but then the wheels fell off, or almost.

Back on the narrow, windy and rough dirt roads, Sheila demands that I hoot when we approach bends as most are only one car width so as we travel we have the co-driver shouting "hoot, hoot". We also had not realized that we would climb to over 4,000m and then drop precipitously to below 2,000m (the beautiful light blue Rio Mantaro) where they were growing fields of papayas amongst the cacti. In fact we went up and down by this amount three times. It was as we were going over the river and then following the valley that Sheila realized we were not on the planned road, not really on a "road" at all as far as she could make out. Road there but not on the map and not going through any of the villages we should have passed through. Of course it is now getting darker and darker and we started looking for places to pull in so we could sleep in the car but the road was mostly too narrow. Finally we reached La Esmeralda which really looked very poor and we were not hopeful of finding somewhere to stay but were shown to a house that turned out to be a hostal - sort-of. We have never stayed anywhere as dirty as this or as shoddily built; it would have given a Vancouver building inspector a nightmare. But we had a good evening meal in the village and a good night's sleep so who's complaining.

Cusco street

The hostal owner was so pleased to have gringos staying that we had our photograph taken hanging over his balcony hoping it wouldn't collapse.

On the road again that still looked straight but went up and down like yo-yo; lovely country but frustrating when you aren't going anywhere. We finally made Ayacucho which turned out to be lovely. We spent a very happy evening watching various groups of entertainers and dancers either practicing or performing in the streets. All seemed to be for their own pleasure as no one asked us for money and it was mainly local people who were out watching. Seeing so many young people so enthused by their own culture was wonderful.

Our destination the next day was just short of Cusco so we could visit Machu Picchu. Again very slow and about twice as long as we expected so we had to overnight somewhere before getting to Urubamba which is in the Sacred Valley. Nice little town and the next day early we visited our first major ruins at Ollantaytambo. Magnificent and as we got there at 7am we had the whole place to ourselves. We then decided to do something which we later learned had not been achieved by anyone else, ever - drive to Aguas Calientes which is the town that serves Machu Picchu. Both our guide books said you could only get there by rail but what did they know! Well we finally found out and turned back with our tails between our legs. Our problem was that we had misinterpreted what some other travelers had told us; they had obviously thought they were talking to people with at least half a brain between them.

Dancing and music

We parked our car in a private courtyard owned by one of the market stall owners and then proceeded to shell out what seemed to us vast amounts of money for trains, entrance tickets etc. We made Aguas Calientes about four in the afternoon and found a perfectly satisfactory hostal in our price range - what most people would call dirt cheap. The village is totally given over to the tourists with restaurants and gift shops lining the narrow little streets but it is quite sweet. In fact it is totally over-serviced by restaurants which were mostly empty; this is meant to be high-season so we are not sure how it works but it makes for very good value.

We started the next morning at 5am to get the bus up to catch the sun-rise and to get the jump on the day visitors from Cusco who arrive at about 10.30. The buses are very efficient and some eight of them left very promptly with a few hundred of us. Everyone has seen masses of pictures of Machu Picchu and we were quite ready to be disappointed but it really is absolutely mind-blowing; not so much the ruins themselves as there is nothing different from other ruins (although they are more complete having been "discovered" less than 100 yrs ago) but it is the precipitousness of the site with steep cliffs plunging down on two sides that is really awe-inspiring coupled with the outstanding views in all directions. The Incas seem to have chosen most of their sites for the shear audacity of what they planned - they must have killed thousands falling off cliffs.

Machu Picchu

We spent 5 hours happily wandering around until the big groups started to arrive when it actually gets hard to take a photograph that is not filled with floppy hats, massive cameras and ample behinds.

In our usual parsimonious manner we decided to walk back to town which is about 500m down a steep path to avoid paying another bus fare; Sheila says it was for the exercise and we nearly did our knees in! Back on to the train (which is also its own little marvel) and then a short drive into Cusco where we finally pitched our tent as the light was falling.

We have now visited four major Inca sites including Machu Picchu and all of them are subtly different and all quite awe-inspiring and fascinating. As Sheila says they perfected a way of building with no technology and hardly any tools and they built perfect structures which are still standing after 500+ years; we in our advanced state of knowledge have now learned how to build with as little quality as possible to last as little time as possible. Their walls have withstood many earthquakes and the ravages of the Spaniards. When you look at surrounding rock cliffs it seems as though they were mimicking the rock with all its tight irregular cracks so that everything is tightly interlinked; and no detail was too trivial with their lovely water channels hewn into the solid rock.

Our campsite in Cusco, Quinta Lala, was started only last year but is obviously on all the overlanders' lists as we are now surrounded by eight very tough looking vehicles; we are the only idiots in tents (it is really cold up at 3,400m).

Machu Picchu again

And they are mostly either German or Dutch with a sprinkling of German speaking Swiss. But of course everyone speaks English (plus at least a couple of other languages) to the dumb English although one French couple was a bit pointed about the English's inability to speak anything else. But they are all very friendly and eager to pass on their experiences and we are busy changing our plans for Bolivia as most of it is getting down to -15oC at night (yes Sheila did not sign-up for that). But where are all the English speaking overlanders? Are they too timid or lazy?

Cusco itself is lovely and was built over original Inca foundations so you see layers of history everywhere together with splendid colonial architecture but its reason for being now seems to be the tourist and everything now charges an entry fee that used to be covered by a single quite reasonable ticket. Caused a lot of argument as the guide books have not caught up with the changes. We were told by one government official that it was the Catholic church "mafia" that used to rule Cusco and is now re-imposing its rule! But is really is quite a beautiful town with lots of narrow cobbled streets.

Everywhere we go in Peru they signal to tell us our headlights are on (they are automatic by law in BC). In Ecuador they were mostly too polite or simply put it down to gringo ways. Well in Cusco we ran into a Transito (they help move the traffic with lots of whistling that most people seem to ignore) and he was determined to get us to switch off our lights. So we held up madly hooting traffic while he got me to switch everything in sight on and off while he ran round and round the front of the car; I thought we were in real trouble as he seemed to be saying that it was against regulations; but suddenly he smiled (in fact looked a bit sheepish) and waved us on.

We will be here another few days: the overlanders are organizing a huge Alpaca barbecue which we are staying for before heading to Bolivia.

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The winding road

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