The Peruvian Ps

Famed for its pisco, pollution and pickpockets (all of which we experienced first hand) we set about working our way through South America's third largest country in search of a few more Ps..........

Puno
Straddling the border with Bolivia, Lake Titicaca's islands are home to Peru's oldest surviving people and are a must-stop on the 'Gringo Trail'. Unfortunately, this also means stopping in Puno - the not particularly attractive capital of the region. Fortunately, we met a helpful and honest tout (both rare qualities here) at the bus station on arrival, and within an hour we were safely installed at a nice hostel; sitting on the last island tour of the day and booked on the first bus to Cusco the next morning.

Los Uros (the floating islands) were cool though. The people there are self sufficient - fishing, hunting birds and living off the lake's plants, the most important of which are the reeds which they use to make boats, houses and also the islands themselves. Using a centuries-old technique, they replenish the 'ground' of the islands every week during the rainy season and every month in the dry season before abandoning and building a new island when it evenually touches the bottom of the lake (approx. every 15 years). Originally built to escape the warring Incas, Steve now reckons they are purely a tax dodge!

Pillaging...
...not us, but the Spanish conquerors who plundered the Incas centuries ago. However, the remains of this lost civilisation and their conquisitors combined for a great road trip involving stops at Inca ruins, colonial churches and traditional towns, before we arrived in Cusco, the ancient capital of the Incas, just in time for sunset. Expecting the worst, having read tales of robberies, rubbish strewn streets and crumbling buildings, we were pleasantly surprised to find a beautiful and welcoming city. Over 125 churches, monasteries and convents dating back to the 1500s (and much further, since those amazing colonial churches were built by the Spanish on the foundations of the grand Inca temples they destoyed - talk about the final insult!), extensive pre-columbian ruins and Inca walls, arches and stonework are interspersed with countless hotels, bars and restaurants to create a great feel. On top of that, Sacsaywhuaman (pronounced 'sexy-woman'), the pre-Inca ruins on the outskirts of the city, proved to be an amazing site. Cusco was definitely our favourite place in Peru.

After checking into a great value hostel in the historic San Blas district, we set about following the 'Gringo Trail' to the 'Sacred Valley of the Incas' ... don't worry we didn't take leave of our senses and do the 4 day trek, us oldies took the tour bus through the valley and then the train to Macchu Picchu!

Pisac
Much to Ali's delight the first stop on our Sacred Valley tour was the traditional Sunday market at Pisac, where the local people come to sell their handicrafts in exchange for essential goods and the tourist $. An explosion of colour greeted us in the form of clothes, jewellery and strange looking drinks (including luminous Inca-kola). This is a place in which Ali could definitely browse for hours. However, much to Steve's delight, we were only allowed 45 minutes there before climbing to explore the impressive Inca fortress that sits high above the town.

After the obligatory expensive lunch-stop, next on the trail was the Inca town of Ollantaytambo. With it's modern (by comparison) buildings built almost entirely on intact Inca foundations and overlooked by Inca temple ruins and terraces running up the hills, it was Nikon heaven!

Finally we visited Chinchero to climb yet more Inca ruins and visit a very impressive old colonial church, this time by sunset, before heading back to Cusco and a well-earned drink!

Picchus
Another early start put us on the 6.30am 'backpacker express', along a winding track to Aguas Calientes - the jumping-off point for Machu Picchu. A complete (and until 1911, lost) Inca city, you get a tremendous feeling of awe on first seeing Machu Picchu. Nestled in the jungle between the misty mountain range, Machu Picchu truly was an amazing sight on the ridge of a high mountain with steep, terraced slopes falling away to the valley and river below.

Towering overhead is the equally impressive Huayna Picchu - a climbable mountain with its own ruins and lookout from where you can get a bird's eye view of the whole site, which we obviously had to do! If only someone had warned us about the slippery path; the crooked and exposed ladder at the summit; the narrow and dirty tunnels; and the 'tic-tac' sized stone steps back down with their sheer drops below. Scary-stuff but the views were more than worth it.

Petroglyphs
An extremely uncomfortable overnight bus took us to Arequipa - a nice city flanked by four volcanos and home to 'Juanita', a famous Inca mummy of a sacrificed teenage noble found frozen atop one of them - where we spent the day before taking another overnight bus. Actually this wasn't originally an 'overnight' bus, but it broke-down in the middle of nowhere for a few hours (we were seriously beginning to question the wisdom of travelling). Anyway, eventually we arrived in Nasca, exhausted. Fortunately there wasn't much to see there (except the world's highest sand dune, Cerro Blanco, and of course, the 'Lines') so the perfect place for a day off before our 7am flight over the lines the next day.

Etched into the stoney, flat desert, the famous lines cut(!) an impressive sight ... once you notice them, which is difficult from a four seat Cessna that turns frequently to allow both sides of the plane a view and is subject to its fair share of turbulence. The huge parallels, geometric shapes and petroglyphs depicting a dog, a spider, a parrot, a hummingbird, a monkey, a whale and bizarrely, an alien (looking very much like the 'typical' alien drawn through history around the world) are thought to have been created in three different ages - 900-200BC, 200BC-AD600 & AD630+. There are several theories surrounding their origin and meaning, our favourites were that they were a means of communication with aliens or that they portrayed the flight of a shaman on mind altering drugs!!!

Pisco, ponds & pistes
Speaking of which, we felt like we'd taken some mind-altering drugs when we arrived at a palm tree and restaurant fringed oasis flanked by giant sand dunes - completely out of place in the midst of the noisy and polluted city of Ica only 5 minutes away. Huacachina was a great place to relax with its curative, green sulphuric waters, brilliant sunshine and a hostel swimming pool! Though, we did find some energy to try our hands at sandboarding - whizzing down the giant dunes on a snow board. Excellent hair-raising fun, as were the dune-buggies (no chair lifts out there) to get back to the top. In all, a perfect prelude to a night on the Pisco!

Pollution & Pickpockets...
And finally to our last two Peruvian Ps - both of which seem to be in abundance in the capital! Shrouded in a pollution filled fog for eight months of the year (and unfortunately during our stay), Lima is renowned for being run-down, dangerous and unwelcoming.

We stayed in the fashionable coastal suburb of Miraflores, hoping to top-up our tans on the beach before heading to Mexico. Unfortunately, the fog put a dampener (literally!) on our plans and forced us to sight-see instead, but in doing so we found that Lima was actually quite a nice place. Whilst it's run-down in parts, the heart of the city is still very colonial and quite smart with some amazing architecture and works of art. In contrast Miraflores is upbeat with modern hotels, big US style casinos, and a shopping and dining complex overlooking the ocean, which features recognisable stores and bars (though Steve claimed never to have seen 'Hooters' before). But, despite its exclusiveness, Miraflores is also surrounded by poverty (like every city in South America) and was the scene of our first pickpocket encounter ... a five year old boy caught with his hand in Ali's (empty) pocket - cheeky bugger!

Postscript
And so, almost 5 months after we arrived in South America it's time to move on. A continent of complete contradictions: tropical sunrises over palm-fringed beaches vs bracing winds over ice-fields and tundra; blinding white salt flats vs dense green rainforests; multi-coloured lakes vs sapphire blue glaciars; penguins congregating on ice-bergs vs hand-sized butterflies flitting around waterfalls. We've had a great time here. A wonderful continent with by far the most spectacular landscapes and vistas we've ever seen. We've thrown ourselves off giant sand-dunes; we've chugged down Amazonian rivers; we've gone to the end of the world..... and beyond; and we've visited 10,000 Plaza de Armas (one in every town).

Most of all though we've met some great people.

We've also had some funny experiences: the bank security guards in Bolivia who wouldn't let us enter the bank together; the hostel in Peru who accepted beer bottle deposit slips as a means of payment; the tourist police (also Peru) who argued over who should give us directions; the fur seal who took a dislike to Steve in Antarctica; the post offices in Argentina who don't sell stamps ans insist on sewing parcels into muslin; the fact that nobody has change for even the smallest of notes; and the obsession with English football no matter where - from the middle of the desert to the jungle!!

In all, a great time with our only disappointment being that we wanted to do some voluntary work whilst we were there. Easier said than done... Ideally, our prolonged stay in Buenos Aires was the time but the astronomical costs (still struggle to understand the concept of paying to help out) and the reported corruption of some organisations discouraged us. A shame, but in hindsight, it would have been best to arrange in advance from UK.