I'M AT: The front of an overnight bus from La Paz to Sucre, glugging back Bocks and eating Pringles.
National Express should make a point of saying that, no, they won't ask their passengers to get off their buses at 2AM to push, should their coaches get stuck on a muddy road.
I stopped short of helping dig up the nearby bushes to act as traction under the sodden wheels, but froze my arse off, and got a mouthful of dirty exhaust as we scrabbled and argued for over an hour in the dark cold countryside between La Paz and Sucre. We'd taken a short cut to avoid the roadblocks on the motorway. But sadly our driver hadn't taken off-road tuition.
It was touch and go but we made it in only 16 hours.
Saturday 30 September 2006
Friday 29 September 2006
BOLIVIA: The Death Road
I´M AT: Las Brujas, see earlier.
I found out today that my mountain biking is pretty rubbish. I can't turn the damn things properly. So, despite the bedlike cushioning provided by the posh bikes we'd hired as part of the tour, I ambled and stumbled down the World's Most Dangerous Road.
And it was bloody dangerous. The urns and shrines at the side of the road pointed where lorries, and coaches, and other cyclists had met their death. The road is carved into the side of a mountain and is, in parts, only big enough for one vehicle. Signage is non-existent and the only help drivers get is a 'traffic light' system (handheld signs made of plastic and wood, turned by volunteers when a big truck approached a blind bend). 200 or so people are killed every year, sometimes in big lumps - like the coach that went over a month or so before we were there, killing about 40 - and sometimes solo, like the truck driver whose cab was later pulled out of the ravine and stripped by looters. The purple wreckage is still there at the side of the road only because there's no value in scrap, and no public facilities (or will) exist to clear it up.
So anyway, against this dramatic backdrop I shuffled down like an old lady and only held my own on the uphill bits, when fitness took me past most of the field, most of the time. Nice.
At the bottom we were given t-shirts in a small Oscar-type ceremony, and monkeys came over and bit people's ears, once pissing on the head of an American guy with a girl's face, called Rusty.
I sent Bud the t-shirt as a gift, but I bet it doesn't fit him, the fat fuck :)
I found out today that my mountain biking is pretty rubbish. I can't turn the damn things properly. So, despite the bedlike cushioning provided by the posh bikes we'd hired as part of the tour, I ambled and stumbled down the World's Most Dangerous Road.
And it was bloody dangerous. The urns and shrines at the side of the road pointed where lorries, and coaches, and other cyclists had met their death. The road is carved into the side of a mountain and is, in parts, only big enough for one vehicle. Signage is non-existent and the only help drivers get is a 'traffic light' system (handheld signs made of plastic and wood, turned by volunteers when a big truck approached a blind bend). 200 or so people are killed every year, sometimes in big lumps - like the coach that went over a month or so before we were there, killing about 40 - and sometimes solo, like the truck driver whose cab was later pulled out of the ravine and stripped by looters. The purple wreckage is still there at the side of the road only because there's no value in scrap, and no public facilities (or will) exist to clear it up.
So anyway, against this dramatic backdrop I shuffled down like an old lady and only held my own on the uphill bits, when fitness took me past most of the field, most of the time. Nice.
At the bottom we were given t-shirts in a small Oscar-type ceremony, and monkeys came over and bit people's ears, once pissing on the head of an American guy with a girl's face, called Rusty.
I sent Bud the t-shirt as a gift, but I bet it doesn't fit him, the fat fuck :)
Wednesday 27 September 2006
BOLIVIA: Softly canoeing through the open ferns
I'M AT: The Caracoles Lodge, three hours by rough road from Rurrenabaque, which is itself 22 hours by rougher road from La Paz. We took the plane, though. Caracoles is an 'eco-lodge' built from wood and hope, with mosquito nets round the gentle beds, a dining hut, hammocks under papaya trees, wandering llamas and a super-friendly, super-energetic stray dog they call Comer Nunca.
Rurrenabaque is a staging post for trips into the jungle and the pampas (grasslands). On arriving and shedding several stone in balmy sweat we checked into a place called El Oriental and slumped into hammocks, by green parrots a-squealing. And did nothing for a bit. La Paz is so high that it's generally pretty cold, 15 degrees or so, grey and autumnal, so we needed time to adjust to the heat and humidity, poor lambs - 30 degrees and t-shirt clinging to hot wet skin.
After a slump we clenched free drink tickets in damp hands and sloped to Moskitto Bar, were Premiership highlights flickered, pool table cambered, and drinks came cold and beautiful. Our tour left the next morning but despite this, I drank enough to give me both a hangover, and the fuzz to chat to an Israeli girl we met at the airport, sitting with her hairy brethren.
So next day we jeeped three hours to the Lodge, via sloths hanging like dark prunes in the trees, and a yellow-beaked toucan perched like a sentinal. Then patches of heron, and a pink spoon-beaked bird that nattered and swept. The wildlife in the pampas is magical and visible.
And so to the Lodge, dump stuff and swing, before we - a German couple, an Oz-American couple, and the four of us - Mark, Helene, Amanda and me - settled for a maté and food at a painted table. And after being burped and weened we staggered to our motorboat, a thin cigar of wood.
I simply could not believe that less than four or five feet away, and only a couple of minutes away from the fenceless lodge, lay countless alligators, thin strips of eye beaming as they lowered themselves into the water, and closer to the boat. They didn't look more scared than us. Prehistoric beasts with horny backs and threatening lurch. But eyeing them was strangely fascinating, and we kept our hands out of the brown water.
My camera also caught turtles, and hairy capybara as they sat like old Dukes on the shore, sniffing the air and waggling too-small ears. And later we set out again at night, to see by torchlight the reflected lenses of alligators, and mammals, and fireflies flicked the treetops.
The next day bought heat, sunblock and the stupid cricket hat I bought in Peru, and we eased again, right this time, to slip down the river and pick small yellow squirrel monkeys out of the trees, and a couple pirated themselves onto the boat, scenting mandarins, but we fed not. And then in deeper clutches of water we saw the humps of river dolphins break the surface, a gentle puff, and a silvery dive, and once again they'd beaten the shutters of our lenses.
Later we fished with wire and ham, and I caugt two yellow-bellied piranha, later eaten with salad and papas, and Mark caught a tiddler, and the German girl, tutored, caught a basket of fin - catfish and piranha, and later a small turtle, which she weeped pinkly over whilst it was unhooked and tossed back.
After a second night of heated sleep we ditched the boat and took hats and forked stick on a hunt on dry land for anaconda. 36 or 38 degrees and later 42. And after a bit we saw one, twisting as it warmed itself, and then I spotted a coterie of three mating snakes, and all in all we saw 11 anaconda, and one cobra, sitting in their holes or amongstthe dry grass. The whole area would be submerged by the rains, which would come pouring in the next month. Now, though, at the end of the dry season, small pools of water flapped with fish, and birds clinked empty cups, and all was survival, and sweat, and staring in awe. And our boat got stuck on the river bed a couple of times.
And after this, it was back to La Paz, on the road of flat tyres, and we wilted, and coughed dust, and sweated our slow way back to the waiting hammocks.
Rurrenabaque managed to spring a last surprise as, back at Moskitto, over a couple of cold ones, the gents played pool in a pair against the ladies, but with an inspired handicap - one of us would make the bridge, whilst the other cued, holding the shaft.
And we still beat them. The alligators ate well that night.
Rurrenabaque is a staging post for trips into the jungle and the pampas (grasslands). On arriving and shedding several stone in balmy sweat we checked into a place called El Oriental and slumped into hammocks, by green parrots a-squealing. And did nothing for a bit. La Paz is so high that it's generally pretty cold, 15 degrees or so, grey and autumnal, so we needed time to adjust to the heat and humidity, poor lambs - 30 degrees and t-shirt clinging to hot wet skin.
After a slump we clenched free drink tickets in damp hands and sloped to Moskitto Bar, were Premiership highlights flickered, pool table cambered, and drinks came cold and beautiful. Our tour left the next morning but despite this, I drank enough to give me both a hangover, and the fuzz to chat to an Israeli girl we met at the airport, sitting with her hairy brethren.
So next day we jeeped three hours to the Lodge, via sloths hanging like dark prunes in the trees, and a yellow-beaked toucan perched like a sentinal. Then patches of heron, and a pink spoon-beaked bird that nattered and swept. The wildlife in the pampas is magical and visible.
And so to the Lodge, dump stuff and swing, before we - a German couple, an Oz-American couple, and the four of us - Mark, Helene, Amanda and me - settled for a maté and food at a painted table. And after being burped and weened we staggered to our motorboat, a thin cigar of wood.
I simply could not believe that less than four or five feet away, and only a couple of minutes away from the fenceless lodge, lay countless alligators, thin strips of eye beaming as they lowered themselves into the water, and closer to the boat. They didn't look more scared than us. Prehistoric beasts with horny backs and threatening lurch. But eyeing them was strangely fascinating, and we kept our hands out of the brown water.
My camera also caught turtles, and hairy capybara as they sat like old Dukes on the shore, sniffing the air and waggling too-small ears. And later we set out again at night, to see by torchlight the reflected lenses of alligators, and mammals, and fireflies flicked the treetops.
The next day bought heat, sunblock and the stupid cricket hat I bought in Peru, and we eased again, right this time, to slip down the river and pick small yellow squirrel monkeys out of the trees, and a couple pirated themselves onto the boat, scenting mandarins, but we fed not. And then in deeper clutches of water we saw the humps of river dolphins break the surface, a gentle puff, and a silvery dive, and once again they'd beaten the shutters of our lenses.
Later we fished with wire and ham, and I caugt two yellow-bellied piranha, later eaten with salad and papas, and Mark caught a tiddler, and the German girl, tutored, caught a basket of fin - catfish and piranha, and later a small turtle, which she weeped pinkly over whilst it was unhooked and tossed back.
After a second night of heated sleep we ditched the boat and took hats and forked stick on a hunt on dry land for anaconda. 36 or 38 degrees and later 42. And after a bit we saw one, twisting as it warmed itself, and then I spotted a coterie of three mating snakes, and all in all we saw 11 anaconda, and one cobra, sitting in their holes or amongstthe dry grass. The whole area would be submerged by the rains, which would come pouring in the next month. Now, though, at the end of the dry season, small pools of water flapped with fish, and birds clinked empty cups, and all was survival, and sweat, and staring in awe. And our boat got stuck on the river bed a couple of times.
And after this, it was back to La Paz, on the road of flat tyres, and we wilted, and coughed dust, and sweated our slow way back to the waiting hammocks.
Rurrenabaque managed to spring a last surprise as, back at Moskitto, over a couple of cold ones, the gents played pool in a pair against the ladies, but with an inspired handicap - one of us would make the bridge, whilst the other cued, holding the shaft.
And we still beat them. The alligators ate well that night.
Friday 22 September 2006
BOLIVIA: BE the ball
I´M AT: Hospedaje Las Brujas (The Witches), central La Paz, $4, right on top of the Witches´Market, so even before breakfast I´ve had a taste of llama foetus.
A blur of motion as the golf ball soars over a parched lunar landscape, before trickling meekly into a grey, pitted canyon. Playing at the World´s Highest Golf Course was some gig.
Not cheap though. After security had radioed our taxi through, after verifying our nationalities (apparently a lot of Brits play at this course, so we were considered fair game), we stumped up a cool $60 each in green fees and club hire and limped nervously to the first tee. Clubhouse bearing down, all Pringle and Fred Perry, all eyes on the denim gringos, and fear, fear...but after the first drive went OK for both me and Mark, we were off, sweating only from the heat. I eventually took 12 shots on the first hole.
At one point we hunkered down with the caddies to avoid the errant shot from the clay pigeon shoot on the other side of the canyon, as it smacked into the nearby trees.
This was the first time I´ve played on a professional course, the first time with a caddy - a 25 year old bloke called Paulinho - and it was great. And only 67 over par. And I almost, almost beat Mark, who´s had lessons and goes on golfing trips and everything.
Those balmy afternoons at Sparrow´s Den Pitch-and-Putt weren´t entirely wasted.
A blur of motion as the golf ball soars over a parched lunar landscape, before trickling meekly into a grey, pitted canyon. Playing at the World´s Highest Golf Course was some gig.
Not cheap though. After security had radioed our taxi through, after verifying our nationalities (apparently a lot of Brits play at this course, so we were considered fair game), we stumped up a cool $60 each in green fees and club hire and limped nervously to the first tee. Clubhouse bearing down, all Pringle and Fred Perry, all eyes on the denim gringos, and fear, fear...but after the first drive went OK for both me and Mark, we were off, sweating only from the heat. I eventually took 12 shots on the first hole.
At one point we hunkered down with the caddies to avoid the errant shot from the clay pigeon shoot on the other side of the canyon, as it smacked into the nearby trees.
This was the first time I´ve played on a professional course, the first time with a caddy - a 25 year old bloke called Paulinho - and it was great. And only 67 over par. And I almost, almost beat Mark, who´s had lessons and goes on golfing trips and everything.
Those balmy afternoons at Sparrow´s Den Pitch-and-Putt weren´t entirely wasted.
Tuesday 19 September 2006
PERU - BOLIVIA: Lake Titicaca
I'M AT: Hostal Europa, Puno, Peru, a nice place but for some reason run by sharp sharks with alcoholic faces, darkly suspicious of their guests. AND Inti Wayra, Isla del Sol, Bolivia, one of many similar no-frills hostals to which we were guided by a mahogany-skinned local lad, found at the top of eighty backbreaking Inca Steps on the South of the island.
The bus from Cuzco to Puno was taken in sunlight, but strangely enough all the nuts came out during the day. A religious nut sat at the back rattled on for a solid hour, then two young singing nuts came and blew hot air round the wagon, then the religious guy started again, a baby wailed, and lightning flashed across the landscape. It took only a couple of seconds to remember that we were shuttling across a flat plain in a large metal object, but a couple of minutes more to forget.
Puno is the folk music capital of Peru and the streets clattered with brass as gentlemen span in sharp suits, doffing their porkpie hats at the ladies. It was some student festival and crossing the crowded road was noisy, tricky, spotlight on the gringos. But we made it out, for an alpaca feast, and tired, we all fell asleep, Katha and Ela meekly hiding something dark in their room. Mark thought it a Rubber Charlie - something man-sized and inflatible, carried under plain cover, with pneumatic cock and thick fingers. The girls never did reveal what their blushes hid.
After alapaca dreams we woke for the boat, a speedy launch that cut thickly across Titicaca as our gentle guide wove stories of reed and water. The Los Uros islands are upwardly thatched from the bottom of the lake, and the reeds squeaked as we were sped across the surface. After some explanation we paused to buy some trinkets and were then paddled across the lake. We looked back to see the small boy with whom we'd been playing football fishing for his ball with a practised thrust.
Taquile is home to indigenous people, wearing long hats, knitting and weaving and smiling for the cameras. After more perusing, and a fish lunch, we walked over the ridge and down to the soft waters, where the boat came to take us back to Puno. I talked with Katha at the end of the pier.
The bus from Cuzco to Puno was taken in sunlight, but strangely enough all the nuts came out during the day. A religious nut sat at the back rattled on for a solid hour, then two young singing nuts came and blew hot air round the wagon, then the religious guy started again, a baby wailed, and lightning flashed across the landscape. It took only a couple of seconds to remember that we were shuttling across a flat plain in a large metal object, but a couple of minutes more to forget.
Puno is the folk music capital of Peru and the streets clattered with brass as gentlemen span in sharp suits, doffing their porkpie hats at the ladies. It was some student festival and crossing the crowded road was noisy, tricky, spotlight on the gringos. But we made it out, for an alpaca feast, and tired, we all fell asleep, Katha and Ela meekly hiding something dark in their room. Mark thought it a Rubber Charlie - something man-sized and inflatible, carried under plain cover, with pneumatic cock and thick fingers. The girls never did reveal what their blushes hid.
After alapaca dreams we woke for the boat, a speedy launch that cut thickly across Titicaca as our gentle guide wove stories of reed and water. The Los Uros islands are upwardly thatched from the bottom of the lake, and the reeds squeaked as we were sped across the surface. After some explanation we paused to buy some trinkets and were then paddled across the lake. We looked back to see the small boy with whom we'd been playing football fishing for his ball with a practised thrust.
Taquile is home to indigenous people, wearing long hats, knitting and weaving and smiling for the cameras. After more perusing, and a fish lunch, we walked over the ridge and down to the soft waters, where the boat came to take us back to Puno. I talked with Katha at the end of the pier.
Wednesday 13 September 2006
PERU: An armed struggle - by some
I'M AT: El Arcano, see below.
Muyac Tours have a den on the river Urubamba from which their Grade II and III rafting trips depart. It's called Casa Cusi, Happy House, and is thatched and wooden, with kitchen, dining room, and sauna, in which you can hibernate after the icy water has finished numbing your parts.
Our captain, Americo, took us through a series of exercises on gentle waters so we'd be able to cope with the torrents to come. Forward! Backpaddle! Everyone Right! (which meant leapping across the guy next to you and clinging onto a piece of wet rope fixed to the side of the raft. This, and Everyone Left, were designed to lift one side of the raft out of the water, to avoid rocks.) INSIDE!!!! (this was really screamed. Everyone in the boat. In cases of extreme peril. We never used this one.)
And, so like many things on this trip, I experienced something for the first time - hurtling over boulders and rocks in the rushing streams of water, paddling like a maniac, trying to keep rhythm with the rest of the boat, plunging my arm and paddle into the churning water, shoulders and back and pivotal hookfoot aching. And it was bloody marvellous, and I got soaked, and Americo dived into the water like a crack-crazed conquistador at the end, and the two Spaniards in the boat, shaped like bulldogs, mohicanned, merely spooned the water into the air with their paddles, whilst the rest of us worked like dogs, and Americo shouted at them, the warm brothers, and further back, me and Mark and the girls sweated, and fumed, and slammed into the water once more.
After the sauna, we took luncheon to the sounds of Bob Marley, and much later, back in Cuzco, we took dinner to the sounds of a marching band, and the four of us waited for Mark's pizza, and then to Ukuku's Bar, where a small energetic bloke in a balaclava served drinks from the top of his skull, and a nine-piece band played, didgeridoos and panpipes, thimbles chattering against washboards and congas, and all was right with the world.
Muyac Tours have a den on the river Urubamba from which their Grade II and III rafting trips depart. It's called Casa Cusi, Happy House, and is thatched and wooden, with kitchen, dining room, and sauna, in which you can hibernate after the icy water has finished numbing your parts.
Our captain, Americo, took us through a series of exercises on gentle waters so we'd be able to cope with the torrents to come. Forward! Backpaddle! Everyone Right! (which meant leapping across the guy next to you and clinging onto a piece of wet rope fixed to the side of the raft. This, and Everyone Left, were designed to lift one side of the raft out of the water, to avoid rocks.) INSIDE!!!! (this was really screamed. Everyone in the boat. In cases of extreme peril. We never used this one.)
And, so like many things on this trip, I experienced something for the first time - hurtling over boulders and rocks in the rushing streams of water, paddling like a maniac, trying to keep rhythm with the rest of the boat, plunging my arm and paddle into the churning water, shoulders and back and pivotal hookfoot aching. And it was bloody marvellous, and I got soaked, and Americo dived into the water like a crack-crazed conquistador at the end, and the two Spaniards in the boat, shaped like bulldogs, mohicanned, merely spooned the water into the air with their paddles, whilst the rest of us worked like dogs, and Americo shouted at them, the warm brothers, and further back, me and Mark and the girls sweated, and fumed, and slammed into the water once more.
After the sauna, we took luncheon to the sounds of Bob Marley, and much later, back in Cuzco, we took dinner to the sounds of a marching band, and the four of us waited for Mark's pizza, and then to Ukuku's Bar, where a small energetic bloke in a balaclava served drinks from the top of his skull, and a nine-piece band played, didgeridoos and panpipes, thimbles chattering against washboards and congas, and all was right with the world.
Tuesday 12 September 2006
PERU: Live eviL
I'M AT: El Arcano, a friendly place in Barrio San Blas run by a sweet young girl, her junky brother, and her laughing pa, Irwin, who gently changed the sheets of my bed following an accident with a loose-capped water bottle - Irwin, I SWEAR it was only water.
So we went overnight from Arequipa to Cuzco on a class coach of some luxuries, Cial Tours, a leaping marlin sprayed under the windows. Evening meal of jelly, a sweet strawberry sandwich and hot sugary coffee. And as we sat there, onto the bus walked 30 Peruvian schoolgirls, giggling at the gringos.
By this time, as I was visiting the toilet ten times a day and leaving only liquids, I'd decided to find out for sure if I was dying from some intestinal nightmare, so taxied to Clinica Pardo, and, having paid $20 and been told to wait 20 minutes, saw my bewigged Doctor two hours later, he had me shit into a small transparent cup, and told me to wait another three quarters of an hour when the laboratory would have my results. Conscious of time, I half-ran back to the Plaza de Armas where, in the Cross Keys Britpub, I met Mark, who'd found Kata and Ela, we had a water and a quick chat, and I scanned the walls for Palace shirts (none). And we made rough plans for the next couple of days, before a taxi took me back to the clinic.
A pink lab slip later, I walked out with my diagnosis: giardia. Bought huge pills of death, which I took straight away, to kill the shell-dwelling beasts. And was told not to drink for three days whilst on the other medication, big orange capsules. I looked at the lab sheet, for the description of my sample: liquido, amarillo claro. Clear yellow liquid.
So, relieved at fiinding out I was actually ill, back to the girls and Mark, and then to Muyac Tours, where we signed up for white water rafting, and made plans for Peru's glittering prize - Machu Picchu.
So we went overnight from Arequipa to Cuzco on a class coach of some luxuries, Cial Tours, a leaping marlin sprayed under the windows. Evening meal of jelly, a sweet strawberry sandwich and hot sugary coffee. And as we sat there, onto the bus walked 30 Peruvian schoolgirls, giggling at the gringos.
By this time, as I was visiting the toilet ten times a day and leaving only liquids, I'd decided to find out for sure if I was dying from some intestinal nightmare, so taxied to Clinica Pardo, and, having paid $20 and been told to wait 20 minutes, saw my bewigged Doctor two hours later, he had me shit into a small transparent cup, and told me to wait another three quarters of an hour when the laboratory would have my results. Conscious of time, I half-ran back to the Plaza de Armas where, in the Cross Keys Britpub, I met Mark, who'd found Kata and Ela, we had a water and a quick chat, and I scanned the walls for Palace shirts (none). And we made rough plans for the next couple of days, before a taxi took me back to the clinic.
A pink lab slip later, I walked out with my diagnosis: giardia. Bought huge pills of death, which I took straight away, to kill the shell-dwelling beasts. And was told not to drink for three days whilst on the other medication, big orange capsules. I looked at the lab sheet, for the description of my sample: liquido, amarillo claro. Clear yellow liquid.
So, relieved at fiinding out I was actually ill, back to the girls and Mark, and then to Muyac Tours, where we signed up for white water rafting, and made plans for Peru's glittering prize - Machu Picchu.
Sunday 10 September 2006
PERU: In the shape of...the mountains it was built on
I'M AT: Las Bromelias, a cheap and squeeky hostel in Aquas Calientes, which is a touristy place at the bottom of the hill leading up to Macchu Picchu. The receptionist told us we had 'chikkipikki' luggage so that became, hoho, the word of the day. How we all laughed.
I managed to miss by some six months any availability on the Inca Trail, which is tightly regulated to minimise ecological damage, so me and Mark decided to approximate one of the organised tours ourselves, trying to save some dough in a place where every little thing costs a fortune. We also wanted to do as much physical work as possible to get up there, in a bid to suffer at least some of the rigours of the trail, and without a doubt we did.
The first thing you pay through the nose for is the train from Cuzco to Aguas Calientes, which, until it hits the Rio Urubamba, is also a pretty boring ride. There's no other way of getting there, so they have you over a barrel, albeit a barrel of exquisite Inca design. We got off the train early, at KM114, which is the start of an alternative (shorter) Inca trail (but one which is also tightly regulated, so all we could do was to go over the large wooden bridge and back). The conductor shook his head as the train pulled away, and for the next 5 or 6 kilometres we bumped over the large gravel chips of the railway, deep in subtropical forest, by the green rush of the Urubamba. We passed a number of blackened and creased porters taking a short cut from the main Inca trail, ahead of their groups.
On arrival we stashed gear and ate probably the most expensive pizza I've ever had in a riverside restaurant, not a wise choice. A bloke on the shore broke rocks open, and bluebirds swooped. And from there we went further down the railway to a disappointing waterfall, which despite all the PachaMama shit they give you here is locked away behind a rusting gate, and you have to pay the landowner for the privelidge of visiting it. It wasn't worth it, but we were getting the hikes we needed. That night we ate a tiny meal and scrunched our toes into the gravel as some fit Brazilian birds bounced around in the thermal baths.
Now, you can take a bus up to Macchu Picchu, or you can walk. There's kudos in being up there early whichever option you take, and if you're lucky you get to see the sun rise over the city, and over Wayna Picchu, that steep, inverted V of rock in the background of the classic photo that comes to mind whenever you think of Macchu Picchu.
And we were lucky, and on time, and the sky was clear, and we witnessed all of this.
The walk up was hard, no doubt, up an Incan staircase. We left in the dark at five and arrived at about six, keeping up the record of beating the approximate time of any walk we do. At points the walk is block on block on block of stone, steeply rising. There's no way of resting your muscles between steps until you get near the top, so you get knackered pretty quickly.
Anyhoo. Wet with sweat, and the sun rose, and it was breathtaking. We spent a hot morning exploring the city - it's pretty big and much of it's well-preserved, and it's ruthlessly functional. We also heard, from Katha, that the guides tell people that it was designed by the Incas to resemble the shape of a condor. But what absolute bollocks. If this were true, there would be parts of the high plateau that weren't covered in agricultural terraces, or buildings, for aesthetic reasons, and believe me, some of the terraces are nearly vertical. They made use of all the space they had.
But well, blimey, Macchu Picchu eh? It's far more impressive than you think it will be, because it's so well designed, and so atmospheric, far more so than you would have imagined. Some of the walks round the city take you to sheer drops, so awe is partly, on my part at least, inspired also by fear.
Later that day we walked to the Sun Gate, which, coming from the other direction, is the first time the trekkers get a glimpse of the city; and I went to the Inca Bridge, cut into the rockface round the back - about where you'd put the bins out - and which previously a visitor had fallen off and died, while Mark went up Wayna Picchu. He later told me that some people were crying up there, the stairs were unforgiving and some over sheer, sheer drops, down to a bumping rock death.
But. Anyway. Macchu Picchu, eh? Done.
I managed to miss by some six months any availability on the Inca Trail, which is tightly regulated to minimise ecological damage, so me and Mark decided to approximate one of the organised tours ourselves, trying to save some dough in a place where every little thing costs a fortune. We also wanted to do as much physical work as possible to get up there, in a bid to suffer at least some of the rigours of the trail, and without a doubt we did.
The first thing you pay through the nose for is the train from Cuzco to Aguas Calientes, which, until it hits the Rio Urubamba, is also a pretty boring ride. There's no other way of getting there, so they have you over a barrel, albeit a barrel of exquisite Inca design. We got off the train early, at KM114, which is the start of an alternative (shorter) Inca trail (but one which is also tightly regulated, so all we could do was to go over the large wooden bridge and back). The conductor shook his head as the train pulled away, and for the next 5 or 6 kilometres we bumped over the large gravel chips of the railway, deep in subtropical forest, by the green rush of the Urubamba. We passed a number of blackened and creased porters taking a short cut from the main Inca trail, ahead of their groups.
On arrival we stashed gear and ate probably the most expensive pizza I've ever had in a riverside restaurant, not a wise choice. A bloke on the shore broke rocks open, and bluebirds swooped. And from there we went further down the railway to a disappointing waterfall, which despite all the PachaMama shit they give you here is locked away behind a rusting gate, and you have to pay the landowner for the privelidge of visiting it. It wasn't worth it, but we were getting the hikes we needed. That night we ate a tiny meal and scrunched our toes into the gravel as some fit Brazilian birds bounced around in the thermal baths.
Now, you can take a bus up to Macchu Picchu, or you can walk. There's kudos in being up there early whichever option you take, and if you're lucky you get to see the sun rise over the city, and over Wayna Picchu, that steep, inverted V of rock in the background of the classic photo that comes to mind whenever you think of Macchu Picchu.
And we were lucky, and on time, and the sky was clear, and we witnessed all of this.
The walk up was hard, no doubt, up an Incan staircase. We left in the dark at five and arrived at about six, keeping up the record of beating the approximate time of any walk we do. At points the walk is block on block on block of stone, steeply rising. There's no way of resting your muscles between steps until you get near the top, so you get knackered pretty quickly.
Anyhoo. Wet with sweat, and the sun rose, and it was breathtaking. We spent a hot morning exploring the city - it's pretty big and much of it's well-preserved, and it's ruthlessly functional. We also heard, from Katha, that the guides tell people that it was designed by the Incas to resemble the shape of a condor. But what absolute bollocks. If this were true, there would be parts of the high plateau that weren't covered in agricultural terraces, or buildings, for aesthetic reasons, and believe me, some of the terraces are nearly vertical. They made use of all the space they had.
But well, blimey, Macchu Picchu eh? It's far more impressive than you think it will be, because it's so well designed, and so atmospheric, far more so than you would have imagined. Some of the walks round the city take you to sheer drops, so awe is partly, on my part at least, inspired also by fear.
Later that day we walked to the Sun Gate, which, coming from the other direction, is the first time the trekkers get a glimpse of the city; and I went to the Inca Bridge, cut into the rockface round the back - about where you'd put the bins out - and which previously a visitor had fallen off and died, while Mark went up Wayna Picchu. He later told me that some people were crying up there, the stairs were unforgiving and some over sheer, sheer drops, down to a bumping rock death.
But. Anyway. Macchu Picchu, eh? Done.
Saturday 9 September 2006
PERU: A touch of class in Arequipa
I'M AT: El Caminante Class, Arequipa, $8 each in a beautiful quad room, hot water, TV, balcony, courtyard, sun terrace. Lovely.
So after the grind of Nazca came the cut-above city of Arequipa, where dark shadows hide only sunshine.
The big draw here is the nunnery of Santa Catalina, a small walled city in its own right, with walls painted ochre, blue, white and yellow. This place was established soon after the Spanish arrived, and must have been some sort of haven for a Europe blighted by war and disease. I swear we saw crooked steps leading the nuns up to some of the finest sunbathing in South America. Allegedly they held parties here, until a much stricter Sister iintroduced chainmail underwear and barbed wire pennance. But all in all, Santa Catalina is beautiful, a sanctuary for the mind and soul.
Sitting in her own icy sanctuary some blocks away is Juanita, a mummified Incan girl found some years back, above the snowline, in the mountains. The booth in which she rests is really nothing more than a fridge-freezer. There's no money here to buy her a fitting chamber, so she sits all icy and slowly rotting away, a far cry from the perfect conditions in which her body was preserved 500 years ago. If truth be told, Juanita is a bit ugly - her teeth jut out from a dehydrated face, and she's all curled up on top of herself, in the shape she was buried. But the Arequipans are rightly proud of her, and she has a real aura of, somehow, peace. An odd thing to say about a human sacrifice.
Arequipa's other big draw is the Colca Canyon, which is the second-deepest in the world, and in which live families of condors.
(Along with pumas and snakes, condors are very important in Incan mythology, representing humans, the earth, and the sky, respectively. Macchu Picchu is apparently built in the shape of a condor, but I'd argue that the shape is determined by the mountains on which it's built. We would shortly discover that Lake Titicaca is also, apparently, formed in the shape of a sacred animal, in this case a puma - chasing a visqaca (a mountain-rabbit).
But these lake-shapes can only be seen now using satellite photography, and as the Incans famously left no written records, how they mapped and subsequently deified this mystical puma was lost on me. We'd find out that these three animals were a little TOO important for some of the tour guides, who seem to see animal shapes in everything they see. It's mostly, in my opinion, a load of old fanny.)
There are loads of different tours to Colca, but as time was short we took a two-day tour with an overnight stop in Chivay. Chivay at night turned out to be one of the coldest places on Earth, made worse when I stepped in some overflow from the sink during a midnight piss, giving me wet hiking socks for the rest of the night.
The Colca trip was a bit of a disappointment, really. We saw one condor, which was great, but most of the rest of the time was spent rattling around at the back of our coach. Every small town we stopped a rolled out the tourist tat for the bus. And whilst the landscape was glorious, all golden in the sunlight, the sheer number of coaches on tour, stopping for the llamas, was a it overwhelming. The Typical Andean Dance at night, durng the meal, was good, though; a local girl whacked her boyfriend round the arse with a hard whip. The harder she whipped, the more she wanted him. And she was very pretty.
During my time in Arequipa we also visited several bars and restaurants, including Retro, the Forum, Govinda's, and some posh place near the Mirador with a terrible singer who'd loudly practice his tunes and then deliver them moments later, as if his audience had been temporarily deafened.
And naturally we flirted with the girls.
Friday 8 September 2006
PERU: Clamber sands
I'M AT: Casa de Arena, Huanchaco - $5, a blinding laugh with a young crowd, poolside bar and nightly barbeque with free jugs of Pisco Sour, hot sun and lots and lots of sand. AND La Estrella del Sur, Nazca - $7 including a breakfast that I was never able to enjoy, and to be honest a bit of a dump.
Directly south of Lima is a fucking huge desert.
It's frighteningly inhospitable, but still folk live there, in dusty towns without water, eking out a living somehow. The bus ploughed through massive hills of sand as we pulled into Haunchaco.
It's a real-life oasis in the midst of all the dust, situated round a big green lake with reeds and birds and stuff, boats for hire. Palms sweep round in a curve, five trees or so deep, and then the desert begins again. A picture of Huanchaco's on the back of the 50 sol note, the most widely-counterfeited note in circulation here.
The hostal was great, and dead relaxed after the aching cool of Lima. We walked into some kind of paradise, with tanned or tanning bodies lolling round a swimming pool, or sitting at the bar, music belting out, laughter, a little miracle. Groups of people were walking up the huge sand dunes that tower over the hostal, and the sun was setting. So after a nip round town, gazing at the bright dune buggies, and a beer with a Peruvian guy that supported Brazil, we went back for the barbie, all chicken and burgers and avocadoes, tomatoes, potato salad, buns, pisco sours, cuba libres, the works, and had a great time getting pissed to Reggaeton with the people we met, Katarina, Daniella, Rachel and a posse of geezers from Sacramento.
Next day, fuzzy head and up and out for a zip round the dunes, our dunebuggy driver the colour of a burnt log, the buggy itself huge with three rows of padded seats, rusty buckles, rollbars overhead and a very loud engine. The ride was great - coming to rest after a dune climb, then tipping over, gears shifting, g-force rollercoaster of a dusty, windy sand blur. And all there was was sky and sand and empty water bottles.
And then the boarding itself, boards waxed with red goo, spinning, slipping, falling over into the hotly yielding sand, no balance, those around gliding like seals across the yellow surface, before on the final big dune I found some momentum and glided seal-like myself. My pockets were full of sand.
Less than 24 hours after we'd arrived at Haunchaco we left for Nazca, which turned out to be a sharp trap of a town.
The only good thing about the place was a terrific planetarium and lecture on the history and theories surrounding the Nazca lines, for which the town is famous and which were etched into the stone surface of the desert over a period of 700 years - lines, dead straight, some 10km long, but also geometric shapes, and animals, spirals, haloes of design everywhere.
No-one's sure what they were - calling cards for spacemen, running tracks for ancient Olympics, irrigation channels, representations of the stars. The lecture gave more questions than answers. But the guy running the show was fascinating, and he'd set up a telescope so we could see the moons of Jupiter and a real close-up of the full moon overhead after the show had finished.
So, all ready, we hit the airport for an organised tour the next morning, everyone who'd been at the barbie in Huanchaco plus a guy we met just before we left, Jan - and it was all such a great disappointment. We went off four hours late, despite being told every half hour that our flight was just about ready.
It was hot at the airfield and there was nothing to do, and we couldn't eat because we were told we'd all be heartily sick if we did so before the flight, so we all missed breakfast and gradually wilted. Then the tour guy insulted all the Germans in our group, his eyes darting with malice, and stung us for the 'airport tax'.
The flight itself eventually left at midday, with the sun directly overhead and no shadows cast, and it was really difficult to make out any of the shapes properly, apart from the 'spaceman' etched into the side of a mountain. The spaceman was just a bloke with an oddly-shaped head. Then my hands went numb. 20 minutes later we'd returned safely to Earth.
It was good being up there and all, at 2,400 feet, seeing the shadow cast by our small 5-seater cessna as it dipped and banked over the desert, but really, after seeing the lecture and all of the very impressive photography on all the brochures, our expectations were such that the flight could never have matched them. As such we all trooped off of the plane, a bit glum, and headed off to find some food.
Nazca drained me of money and enthusiasm and I was very glad to leave.
Directly south of Lima is a fucking huge desert.
It's frighteningly inhospitable, but still folk live there, in dusty towns without water, eking out a living somehow. The bus ploughed through massive hills of sand as we pulled into Haunchaco.
It's a real-life oasis in the midst of all the dust, situated round a big green lake with reeds and birds and stuff, boats for hire. Palms sweep round in a curve, five trees or so deep, and then the desert begins again. A picture of Huanchaco's on the back of the 50 sol note, the most widely-counterfeited note in circulation here.
The hostal was great, and dead relaxed after the aching cool of Lima. We walked into some kind of paradise, with tanned or tanning bodies lolling round a swimming pool, or sitting at the bar, music belting out, laughter, a little miracle. Groups of people were walking up the huge sand dunes that tower over the hostal, and the sun was setting. So after a nip round town, gazing at the bright dune buggies, and a beer with a Peruvian guy that supported Brazil, we went back for the barbie, all chicken and burgers and avocadoes, tomatoes, potato salad, buns, pisco sours, cuba libres, the works, and had a great time getting pissed to Reggaeton with the people we met, Katarina, Daniella, Rachel and a posse of geezers from Sacramento.
Next day, fuzzy head and up and out for a zip round the dunes, our dunebuggy driver the colour of a burnt log, the buggy itself huge with three rows of padded seats, rusty buckles, rollbars overhead and a very loud engine. The ride was great - coming to rest after a dune climb, then tipping over, gears shifting, g-force rollercoaster of a dusty, windy sand blur. And all there was was sky and sand and empty water bottles.
And then the boarding itself, boards waxed with red goo, spinning, slipping, falling over into the hotly yielding sand, no balance, those around gliding like seals across the yellow surface, before on the final big dune I found some momentum and glided seal-like myself. My pockets were full of sand.
Less than 24 hours after we'd arrived at Haunchaco we left for Nazca, which turned out to be a sharp trap of a town.
The only good thing about the place was a terrific planetarium and lecture on the history and theories surrounding the Nazca lines, for which the town is famous and which were etched into the stone surface of the desert over a period of 700 years - lines, dead straight, some 10km long, but also geometric shapes, and animals, spirals, haloes of design everywhere.
No-one's sure what they were - calling cards for spacemen, running tracks for ancient Olympics, irrigation channels, representations of the stars. The lecture gave more questions than answers. But the guy running the show was fascinating, and he'd set up a telescope so we could see the moons of Jupiter and a real close-up of the full moon overhead after the show had finished.
So, all ready, we hit the airport for an organised tour the next morning, everyone who'd been at the barbie in Huanchaco plus a guy we met just before we left, Jan - and it was all such a great disappointment. We went off four hours late, despite being told every half hour that our flight was just about ready.
It was hot at the airfield and there was nothing to do, and we couldn't eat because we were told we'd all be heartily sick if we did so before the flight, so we all missed breakfast and gradually wilted. Then the tour guy insulted all the Germans in our group, his eyes darting with malice, and stung us for the 'airport tax'.
The flight itself eventually left at midday, with the sun directly overhead and no shadows cast, and it was really difficult to make out any of the shapes properly, apart from the 'spaceman' etched into the side of a mountain. The spaceman was just a bloke with an oddly-shaped head. Then my hands went numb. 20 minutes later we'd returned safely to Earth.
It was good being up there and all, at 2,400 feet, seeing the shadow cast by our small 5-seater cessna as it dipped and banked over the desert, but really, after seeing the lecture and all of the very impressive photography on all the brochures, our expectations were such that the flight could never have matched them. As such we all trooped off of the plane, a bit glum, and headed off to find some food.
Nazca drained me of money and enthusiasm and I was very glad to leave.
Tuesday 5 September 2006
PERU: Bay City Strollers
I´M AT: The Point Hostal, Barranco, Lima. $9 including a small breakfast. Bar, pool table, BBQs, no locks on the doors, and our dorm was called White Vinyl. Cool. Too cool for me to stay longer than two nights.
Lima´s a city of 8 million people, many of them living in stinging poverty. The lifestyles here are more sharply contrasting than anywhere else I´ve been in South America so far.
The weather´s also pretty grim at the moment. We plodded along the cliffs by the crashing Pacific, in the grey mist, through our Beverley Hills-style barrio, all white skin, shiny bikes and fat salaries. The coast road took us into Miraflores, another rich district and one where most tourists stay - there´s a very swish cliffside shopping centre called Larcomar here, where we chucked a couple of credits into the Daytona machine. Paragliders zipped around overhead, too close to the nearby glass skyscrapers.
From here we got a ten-minute VW Beetle to the city centre. The guy tried to sting us for a $8 ride - not the last attempted scam of the day. We walked around the posh Plaza Mayor, cathedrals, monestaries, government offices, buildings like iced battenburgs. A bearded guy asked us where we from and flipped out a wallet containing colourful woven dolls, supposedly knitted by kids with down´s syndrome. It was impossible to tell whether this was true or not. We next bumped into two Limeño guys, one with a daughter in Bristol who´d been deported, and another who spoke German with Mark. They asked if we wanted a beer, maybe to sit down with them for ceviche? We moved on politely, the choking traffic racing in every direction, until another bloke came up, black bouffant. Woman? Woman? Woman? Then mumbling something about God and Jesus.
I wanted to see a famous stone bridge crossing the River Rimac (Lima is a Spanish corruption of the Inca name Rimac). It was disappointing. And it led to a real slum area, just minutes walk from the palatial splendor of the Plaza. Windows smashed, drunks bumbling, eyes staring. Walked past a food stall on the street and a woman with a purple birthmark on her face rushed over, concerned..."¡regraso, regraso....es peligrosso!" (return, return, it´s dangerous!). We looked up and saw a beaten-up Policia 4x4 hastily driven onto the pavement up the way. A raid. Men on the roof, semi-naked. Making signs of the devil at us as we walked past. Another man on the corner, pointing for us to go in the other direction. "regraso, regraso....". We got the fuck outta dodge.
The San Francisco monastery was a small walk away, so we visited that as part of a tour group. The guide showed us Moorish tiling in the main courtyard, wooden tributes to the deeds of St Francis, a carved wooden copula, and a catacomb full of grey bones. We stared at a circular arrangement of many skulls and femurs.
From here tried to find Chinatown, but instead hit a street market full of food stalls, and had a bite of Papas Rellenas, a mashed potato reformed with cooked beef, an olive, and a boiled egg inside, then deep fried until golden and crispy. I had another spud feast, Papas de la Huancaina, something I remember was recommended by Tina - boiled slices in a hollandaise-type sauce, with aji. Gorgeous.
Then to San Cristobal, the hill overlooking the city. From the top, where there´s an ornate cross studded with halogen lamps, you can see the vast expanse of shantytowns and skyscrapers, mud flats and well-cut parks. A strange place.
After a quick spell down a massively crowded shopping street, Jiron de la Union, we got a taxi back, to change, then out again for the most expensive meal I´ve had in months, at the Nautica Rosa restaurant. It´s built on its own pier so you walk past crashing, salty waves to get there, passing craft shops and bright lights. The ocean below the restaurant is lit by searchlights, and we were by far the youngest there - all else were lawyers and doctors, resplendant in their finery. Swordfish, tuna, asparagus, risotto, pecan pie, lucuma cream, a holy bread man, too much cutlery, a $8 splash of wine in a crystal glass. Fantastic food, and the bill was 174 soles, about $60. It´d be a ton back home.
We wanted a couple of beers to finish off and asked the taxi by the start of the pier to take us back to Barranco, but he told us all the bars were shut, and that he would take us to the Eclipse instead, a place full of chicas, in San Isidro, a barrio north of ours. The Eclipse turned out to be a strip club, charging 50 soles entry. So we got straight back in the cab, went to where we wanted to go in the first place, found out the bars were in fact open, and Mark stiffed the driver with the fake 50 sol note he´d picked up in Trujillo.
Lima eh?
Lima´s a city of 8 million people, many of them living in stinging poverty. The lifestyles here are more sharply contrasting than anywhere else I´ve been in South America so far.
The weather´s also pretty grim at the moment. We plodded along the cliffs by the crashing Pacific, in the grey mist, through our Beverley Hills-style barrio, all white skin, shiny bikes and fat salaries. The coast road took us into Miraflores, another rich district and one where most tourists stay - there´s a very swish cliffside shopping centre called Larcomar here, where we chucked a couple of credits into the Daytona machine. Paragliders zipped around overhead, too close to the nearby glass skyscrapers.
From here we got a ten-minute VW Beetle to the city centre. The guy tried to sting us for a $8 ride - not the last attempted scam of the day. We walked around the posh Plaza Mayor, cathedrals, monestaries, government offices, buildings like iced battenburgs. A bearded guy asked us where we from and flipped out a wallet containing colourful woven dolls, supposedly knitted by kids with down´s syndrome. It was impossible to tell whether this was true or not. We next bumped into two Limeño guys, one with a daughter in Bristol who´d been deported, and another who spoke German with Mark. They asked if we wanted a beer, maybe to sit down with them for ceviche? We moved on politely, the choking traffic racing in every direction, until another bloke came up, black bouffant. Woman? Woman? Woman? Then mumbling something about God and Jesus.
I wanted to see a famous stone bridge crossing the River Rimac (Lima is a Spanish corruption of the Inca name Rimac). It was disappointing. And it led to a real slum area, just minutes walk from the palatial splendor of the Plaza. Windows smashed, drunks bumbling, eyes staring. Walked past a food stall on the street and a woman with a purple birthmark on her face rushed over, concerned..."¡regraso, regraso....es peligrosso!" (return, return, it´s dangerous!). We looked up and saw a beaten-up Policia 4x4 hastily driven onto the pavement up the way. A raid. Men on the roof, semi-naked. Making signs of the devil at us as we walked past. Another man on the corner, pointing for us to go in the other direction. "regraso, regraso....". We got the fuck outta dodge.
The San Francisco monastery was a small walk away, so we visited that as part of a tour group. The guide showed us Moorish tiling in the main courtyard, wooden tributes to the deeds of St Francis, a carved wooden copula, and a catacomb full of grey bones. We stared at a circular arrangement of many skulls and femurs.
From here tried to find Chinatown, but instead hit a street market full of food stalls, and had a bite of Papas Rellenas, a mashed potato reformed with cooked beef, an olive, and a boiled egg inside, then deep fried until golden and crispy. I had another spud feast, Papas de la Huancaina, something I remember was recommended by Tina - boiled slices in a hollandaise-type sauce, with aji. Gorgeous.
Then to San Cristobal, the hill overlooking the city. From the top, where there´s an ornate cross studded with halogen lamps, you can see the vast expanse of shantytowns and skyscrapers, mud flats and well-cut parks. A strange place.
After a quick spell down a massively crowded shopping street, Jiron de la Union, we got a taxi back, to change, then out again for the most expensive meal I´ve had in months, at the Nautica Rosa restaurant. It´s built on its own pier so you walk past crashing, salty waves to get there, passing craft shops and bright lights. The ocean below the restaurant is lit by searchlights, and we were by far the youngest there - all else were lawyers and doctors, resplendant in their finery. Swordfish, tuna, asparagus, risotto, pecan pie, lucuma cream, a holy bread man, too much cutlery, a $8 splash of wine in a crystal glass. Fantastic food, and the bill was 174 soles, about $60. It´d be a ton back home.
We wanted a couple of beers to finish off and asked the taxi by the start of the pier to take us back to Barranco, but he told us all the bars were shut, and that he would take us to the Eclipse instead, a place full of chicas, in San Isidro, a barrio north of ours. The Eclipse turned out to be a strip club, charging 50 soles entry. So we got straight back in the cab, went to where we wanted to go in the first place, found out the bars were in fact open, and Mark stiffed the driver with the fake 50 sol note he´d picked up in Trujillo.
Lima eh?
Saturday 2 September 2006
PERU: The majesty of Huaraz
I´M AT: Albergue Churup, see below.
The days are full of snow and white horses.
Flanked by mountains of grace and majesty, Huaraz sits in a bowl of dust, arteries untidy with unkempt brick. It´s thrown up some great hikes.
First was Pasto Ruri with my recovering brother. A white shroud at 5000 metres, this glacier caps one peak on a crown of mountains. Bus from hostal, with biscuit-faced hombre giving it large on the mic in his black leather jacket, led us to bubbling mineral pools, rust red and foaming, and to a small deep green pond. A llama in Don Johnson shades was posed for photos. And a girl got onto the bus holding a lamb in a small knitted hat.
Bus carried on past a scattering of puya raymondi plants, endemic to Peru and Bolivia only at this altitude and climate. They´re enormous. A spiky bush gives frond to a bushy spike only once, at the end of the plant´s 100-year life, scattering thousands of seeds from thousands more flowers. The spike flamed its way high into the sky from the charred earth and we took pictures of each other.
The glacier itself sits at the end of a short walk at high altitude, and is grey from visitors. But the countryside is fantastic, all curves and licks and dripping icicles.
Next day, Axel, Mark and I, later joined by a lovely French couple, went to the best hike of the lot, Laguna 69. After initial confusion we took a bumpy collectivo to Yungay, a town recovering from an earth-and-meltwater catastrophe in 1970 that buried the whole city. From here we got a battered half-brother taxi up the rocky slopes to the Llanganucho lakes, clear greens and blues, and then to Cebollapampa, a campsite through which we walked at the start.
This hike was stunning. Up white-grey tracks past trees and flowering bushes, a waterfall polishing the red shine beneath, past a huge shard of rock and a small grazing pasture to a brilliant blue lagoon, on the one side overtowered by a huge peak, reflecting gently in the rippled surface. Mark and I walked in opposite directions round the shore, returning only when the noise of rockslides above got too much.
I met another great couple here as well, Richard and Mazza, she of Vancouver and he - fantastic - of Croydon outskirts, so chatted with Richard in matching accent, all big time and easy life. A lovely couple who I hope to stay in touch with.
The Laguna had killed Axel a bit so he went to bed, but Mark and I went onwards outwards to meet Danish Rebecca for a lemon tea or six in the Trece Buhos, the Thirteen Owls club.
Nexto, Mark and I, expensive mountain bike trip in the corderillera negra, unsnowed peaks, freewheeling past dust and pines and farmers and angry barking dogs, who almost took our shins off, good sport. This was just a half-day and there was too much up.
And finally today up early again to meet Hans, a Swiss guy, and later US Heidi and her mates, medical students from Lima, for Laguna Churup. This one did me in, steep from the start, and after grazing on rocks with the promise of more steep I bailed out and took a leisurely descent into donkey fields, with a bag of dried apricots and pistachios. Hans and I gladly shared the lift back to Huaraz, where I found a burnt neck.
Huaraz is great. Lima tomorrow.
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