Counting down

It's been a long time since I last wrote anything here. I am currently in Arica, the northern-most city in Chile. Arica is a pleasant if unremarkable little place, renowned only as the home to a church built by Gustav Eiffel. However, it’s nice to feel the sun and be at sea-level again after 5+ weeks at altitude, and to be contemplating the fact that in two days I’ll be home. Yay!!

Now that going home is such an immediate reality I am really looking forward to leaving South America. All the little things that are part of travelling in South America (unreliable buses, Peruvian retailers, dodgy food) have started to really annoy me. It must be time to go.

The long gap between posts is mostly due to the amount of travelling and trekking I have been doing in the last couple of weeks. I have been trekking for 7 of the last 10 days and on buses the rest of the time.

Apologies, there are no photos in this post (ancient computers again), so please go to flickr - use the link on the right.

So what's been happening....
I left La Paz as soon as I could after the mountain biking. Which seems like a really long time ago now. La Paz really was a festering shit-hole. Just 'orrible. I could go on and on about all the reasons why I hated it: the noise, the crime (had my pocket slashed), the smell, the crowds... It's just a big ugly city; we've all seen its type before.

So I escaped to Copacabana (the one in Bolivia, not Rio), which was a relaxed (and relaxing) little town on the shores of Lake Titicaca. After La Paz, where it was impossible to find something decent to eat, the oversupply of cafes was mana from heaven.

First morning in Copa we witnessed a crazy car blessing ceremony outside the cathedral. The owners cover the vehicles in flowers, and then the priest blesses the car with holy water, and the owners spray beer all over their vehicles. A few firecrackers round the whole thing off. Hopefully this won’t take of anywhere else. Worryingly the drivers here seem to have more faith in the mystical powers of this ceremony than they do in the road rules or concentrating on the road while they’re driving. Don’t rent a car if you ever go to Bolivia, stick with the buses; they’re the biggest thing on the road.

The main reason for visiting Copacabana was to see Isla del Sol, one of the small islands that dot the lake. The Inca's believed the sun and earth separated there. The island has several Inca and Tiawanaku (pre-Inca) ruins. It’s possible to walk the length of the island in an afternoon along an old Inca road.

From Copa I crossed into Peru and headed for Cusco, on yet another night bus. This one managed to break down less than five minutes after we left the bus terminal.

Cusco is a likeable but touristy place; although it must be murder in the high season when it’s full of elderly, over-weight Americans. A word of warning though. The retailers and street-sellers in Cusco (and the rest of Peru) are some of the most aggressive and annoying people you are ever likely to encounter. Everywhere there are hawkers and touts trying to flog everything from postcards to traditional handcrafts (the old women selling the handcrafts were the worst). The moment you pass a shop, a restaurant or a travel agency (you don’t have to walk in) there’s someone shouting at you, a sales tactic that encouraged homicidal urges and not an intention to buy. Great cafes in Cusco though. I had a fantastic four-course lunch of soup, kingfish, cheesecake and a drink for $3.50.

In Cusco I managed to make a booking to trek the Inca Trail. Before I arrived in South America I’d been looking forward to going to Machu Pichu but had lingering doubts about doing the trek. Mostly these related to hang-ups about doing an organised trek where there are 500 people walking along the track at same time as me. The cost was also a factor: on the internet trek costs from US$300 up (way up!). So I figured if I could get a cheap booking in Cusco I would do the trek. As luck would have it, there was space available only on the weekend that I wanted to go (the trek is limited to 500 people, including porters, per day). The rest of April and May were already fully booked. The trek cost me US$220 (some people I met paid $170, but got what they paid for). More on the Inca Trail and Machu Pichu in a later post.

From Cusco I also did a tour of the sacred valley, the river valley between Cusco and Machu Pichu. It was an amazing trip, particularly the ruins at Ollantaytambo (halfway between Cusco and MP), which was a major Inca site. There is a vast network of terraces and buildings built on adjoining hills, all in complete harmony with Inca spiritual beliefs, scientific and cosmological knowledge and the environment. The architecture is stunning, and the stonework absolutely beautiful. The stones at Ollantaytambo, which are enormous (the largest is 6m by 1.8m), were sourced from a quarry at 5000m, and some how rolled down to the valley floor some 3000m below and then up 1000m to the site. Each stone was then individually carved so that it fitted into position - no mortar is used in the temples and other important buildings.

The buildings survived for hundreds of years in an earthquake zone and are now ruins only as a result of the destruction wrought by the Spanish. The Spaniards commonly (in Cusco, Ollantaytambo, Chinchero and other places in the area) would destroy Inca temples and buildings and then build catholic churches on top of the ruins to demonstrate Spanish and catholic superiority.

Next stop the Inca Trail and Machu Pichu.