I
have the pleasure of blogging from the Starbucks in the Lima airport
today after a very stressful morning. We arose at 4am to make
our 7am flight from Cusco to Lima, only to spend the next 6 hours
sitting at cusco airport waiting for the weather to clear! We missed our
flight to Quito and so have just had a frantic episode to book a
different flight to Quito so as to make our flight tomorrow morning to
the Galapagos islands- nerve wracking, expensive but sorted... For now
at least!
The past two weeks in Peru have been
absolutely fantastic. Our first week was spent primarily with Tish's
family friends the Lanhams which was awesome- Judy and Lex's son Zac
moved to Cusco about 7 years ago and so Judy and Lex have spent the last
7 months living there and exploring south America. We had several days
walking the town and hills with them which was great as they have seen a
lot of the sites multiple times and know some great local haunts!
Cusco
was a fascinating city nestled in the Andean range. Although different
in detail, the history of the city rivaled Buenos Aires and the range of
activities ensured there was never a dull moment. The history revolves
around pre-incan, Incan and colonial (post spanish invasion) eras which
has resulted in a spectacular mix of architecture, culture and religion.
The Incan masonry did not disappoint- it's true that many of the walls
are so perfectly constructed you couldn't squeeze a knife blade between
the mortar-less joins.
The morphed worship of animals, mother
earth and finally the catholic god has resulted in an eclectic array of
decorations in architecture as well as in art forms like textiles and
ceramics.
I took a week of 2hr/day Spanish lessons which was
extremely helpful and it has been lots of fun trying to put it to use -
needless to say the blank looks and laughter have both continued to a
large extent!
I managed to get a bait for a kick of soccer
with my Spanish teacher and his mates one night which was a heap of fun
but the combination of altitude and suboptimal fitness gave me some
pretty sore legs! They play 5 or 6-a-side 'futsal' on modified
basketball courts, and like any good soccer event the 2 hours was
finished with a very verbal argument, this one with the police officer
for turning off the lights 2 minutes before our time was up. Hooligans!
Amongst
the time with the Lanhams were multiple market stops - the best of
which were to San Pedro markets where we saw cheap seamstresses, all
parts of all animals for sale and my personal favourite- the Especial
con Malta. This was a... juice... composed of mango, papaya, banana,
melon, black beer, egg, condensed milk, syrup and a variety of other
condiments. I assure you it was delicious and I certainly returned for a
few during our stay!
Also definitely worth a mention is Zac
Lanham's brewing. Zac works as a travel agent but somehow manages to fit
some very involved brewing into his schedule and is hoping to become a
commercial microbrewer in the next month or so. And it is DELICIOUS! It
was my privilege to not only enjoy several sampling sessions (his porter
variety is an absolute cracker) but also spend one day brewing with Lex
and Zac. My contribution was fairly well limited to drinking beer and
talking nonsense, at which I am well adept, but the day was great and
very interesting - much more involved than my own modest attempts at
home brewing and the result was exponentially better.
Tish
and I hired a cab for a full day out of town at the exorbitant price of
$40 to see some of the Sacred Valley which was beautiful. The two main
sites we saw amongst our tour was Maras and Moray. Maras was a
fascinating formation of terraces used to leach salt out of the soil in a
trickle system, whilst Moray was a terracing system used by the Incans
to experiment with crops and develop new varieties to suit the various
conditions of temperature, moisture, soil type and humidity throughout
their empire. The Incans' agricultural exploits were very impressive and
by no means did they rest on their laurels in depending on the Amazon
and Andes for providing adequate food sources and reserves...
Which
brings me to my next highlight! We had planned to spend 2 days in Nazca
seeing the sand dunes and Nazca lines but unfortunately our bus was
cancelled due to protests blocking the route. Subsequently, we ended up
with a day or two up our sleeve before taking on the Inca Trail. With
one more day to kill, we booked in for a cooking class with Judy, Andy
and Lizzie. We were lucky to get the class as they are only offered
occasionally - the majority of them have been done with journalists (the
latest of which was with the BBC for a documentary on Perivian
cuisine). The class started with a tour of a local market which was an
experience in itself. Not only did we sample food we would have never
dreamt of judging based on its proverbial 'cover', but Eric the chef
gave us an absolutely astounding account of Peruvian agriculture and
cuisine. Facts like 59% of the world's food varieties originating in the
Andes and Amazon and Peru having over 4000 varieties of potato had us
stunned and extremely impressed before the cooking even got started!
On
return to the restaurant, we enjoyed a stab at making some Peruvian
cocktails (chilcano and pisco sour), sampling some of Eric's infused
pisco's and of course cooking up some food. Peruvian cooking is best
described (in Eric's words) as 'fusion' as a product of the immense
variety of available foods and a similar mix of influences from
immigrants throughout the past 500 years. We spent around 6 hours at the
restaurant and had an absolute ball. Eric's knowledge, tutoring and
personality/life story were all inspiring and our spontaneous decision
to do a cooking class thus turned into one of the best afternoons of the
trip so far. We returned to the restaurant last night for a few drinks
and dinner and Eric came and chatted for the entire evening. If I
haven't made it clear enough, I can't recommend this experience highly
enough so for any of you traveling to Cusco, be sure to look up Eric at
Marcelo Batata Restaurant!
And then... drum roll... the Inca
Trail! The first day was spent having a look around the Sacred Valley
which was good - a little walking, a guided tour of some more ruins we
hasn't seen and finally a night in a town named Ollyantatambo half way
along the valley.
Our hiking group was a good mix - an Irish
couple, four Norwegian girls, an American couple, the four of us and two
swedish lads with the parents of one of them. We began the walk on day 2
which was fairly flat - along the river and into the valley. The
porters carried the majority of the gear while we only had to carry day
packs. Day three was extremely tough - climbing to a peak of 4200m up
some very steep steps to 'Dead woman's pass' before a steep descent to
camp. Dead woman's pass is so-named because of a boob-appearing
formation at the pass, complete with nipple and all. The Incans didn't
lack sexual-minded ness- many of the statues/ornamental figurines of man
and woman put particular emphasis on the man being visibly proud of
having a raging protrusion.
At the end of day 3 we were
pretty wrecked. There were only cold showers available so Andy and I
went for a swim in an Andean stream which was absolutely freezing but
too good an opportunity to pass up. Hopefully the photo of Andy in the
stream makes it to Facebook- it looks like he's been hit with an
electroejaculator.
Day four was also challenging but a little
easier than the day before. There was some rain and wind but by then the
group had gotten to know each other a bit and we were all getting along
very well. There weren't so many ruins through those two days so it was
mostly hiking with whatever views were available between fairly cloudy
periods.
Finally the fourth day of hiking came and time to see
Machipicchu. After a 4.30am start hiking, the weather was kind and
cleared up reasonably well. The ruins didn't disappoint with an
incredible variety of building size and structure along with the
compulsory Incan agricultural terracing. Our formal tour of the ruins
was fairly brief but we managed to spend a bit of extra time and (I
think) see most of the ruins. Funnily enough, the uncertainty about the
city which makes it so fascinating was also a little frustrating as at
times it sounded like historians might be drawing a bit of a long bow.
Nevertheless the day was fantastic and the city did have a truly
enchanted feel about it. Speculative or not, plenty of the stories about
the Incans were very interesting and they were clearly a very
intelligent and inquisitive people.
We made our way down the
hill and caught the train/bus combination to be home by early evening.
To top the week off the whole group went out for dinner and then some
drinks as dancing which was heaps of fun.
So that pretty much
brings us to now- yesterday was a quiet day saying goodbye to the
Lanhams, visiting one last museum and then our dinner with Eric.
We
now only have 2 hours (!) until boarding for Quito and that should
hopefully have us in by midnight, only to be back at the airport
by 8am to fly to Galapagos! All in all an absolute wow of a fortnight,
not the least in which we avoided any illness at all. Seeing as though
I'm running out of superlatives and probably developing mild RSI in my
thumbs typing on my phone, I will call it quits and bid you all adieu -
see you all after the Galapagos!
