Incas, Selfie Sticks and Spacemen

The Guide books tell you that the city of Cusco boasts a thriving Andean culture, a wonderful mix of Inca and Spanish Colonial architecture along with an endless variety of museums.  The surrounding countryside is full of Inca sites, Machu Picchu being the best preserved because the Spanish never found it.  That all adds up to it being one of South America’s biggest tourist destinations, and certainly the most crowded honey pot that we have ever come across.

In spite of the crowds we very much enjoyed Cusco where we ended up staying for a week (including a trip to Machu Picchu).  Many of the streets have a great deal of Inca masonry still extant, some of the alleyways are narrow and cobbled and have beautiful stonework on both sides, but generally it’s only up to about head height because the Spaniards in their usual conservation sensitive manner flattened everything above it and built their own colonial architecture on top. 

Alleyway, Cusco

Close up showing quality of the Inca stonework

Campesina woman spinning wool in the alleyway

Inca Temple of the Sun with Spanish Cathedral built on top

Temple of the Sun in daylight

The Plaza de Armas is a great big place which is absolutely rammed with Peruvian touts all trying to flog massages or tours or lure you into their restaurant or invite you to stroke their baby alpaca whilst wearing a rather outlandish version of national costume.  When you manage to fight your way through that lot and the plethora of so-called artisan shops, there are some wonderful things to be seen.  The cathedral, churches and convents are all great examples of Spanish Colonial flamboyance.

Convent de Santa Catalina, Cusco

Pretty display of a load of old bones, Convent de San Francisco

Templo de la  Compania de Jesus, Plaza de Armas

We spent a day driving around the archaeological sites that surround Cusco. The first one we stopped at was particularly impressive, it was a sort of hilltop fort, built apparently in the shape of a Puma’s head and the jaggy walls which zig zagged across one side of it represented the teeth of the Puma.

Sacsayhuaman archaeological site showing representation of Puma's teeth

Inca stonework

Inca doorway

The stonework was phenomenal.  The walls were made of the most massive stones, some of them apparently weighing over three hundred tons and these were finely fitted together following the natural shape of the stone itself, so if the stone was trapezoidal in shape then that was how it was laid and other stones were fitted to it.  In a lot of places you couldn’t get a blade of a knife between these mighty rocks.

Some of these stones weigh over 300 tons

Inca baths at Tambo Machay

We were told that many thousands of people were used to build the sites and many thousands died in the process.  There is in fact a legend, hopefully only a legend, that three thousand workers, or possibly slaves, died moving one huge boulder, although whether it fell on them or they got terminal hernias in the process is not disclosed.

Wild Iris

We decided that we would visit Machu Picchu but as it is very difficult to access independently, there being no road, we threw ourselves on the mercy of a tour operator and signed up for a two day trip.

On day one we were collected from our hotel and first of all taken on a tour of the Sacred Valley which included Inca sites at Pisac and Ollantaytambo. This would probably have been very enjoyable had they not been completely thronged with tourists.  In some places we were trying to climb up the various edifices and it was a little bit like Kings Cross Station escalator only the escalator had broken.  However, the ruins were impressive, the views were good, and the countryside was stunning.

Inca agricultural terracing at Pisac ruins

Sue at Pisac ruins

View of the Sacred Valley from Pisac ruins

Inca terracing still in use today

Ollantaytambo Archaeological site

At Ollantaytambo we boarded a train which chuffed on down along the course of the mighty River Urubamba until we reached Aguas Calientes, also known as Machu Picchu Pueblo, an hour and a half later.

Rio Urubamba, no place for a kayaker

We stopped for the night in Aguas Calientes and then were up early next morning to go and see the big attraction.  After queuing for about half an hour together with several hundred other eager visitors we boarded a bus which took us up the switchback road which climbed the side of Machu Picchu mountain to the ruins.

The winding road to Mach Picchu

Once there we met our guide, jostled our way through the turnstiles and started climbing up to the top of the Machu Picchu site in an absolute scrum of people. It was about then that we had a brief debate and decided that we did not want to wander around in the Machu Picchu ruins with about 5,000 other people all taking selfies.  We therefore tactfully told the guide that we didn’t need him, and would he just kindly put us on the path to the Sun Gate and he could go and do whatever it is that guides do when they’re not guiding.

Machu Picchu

View from Machu Picchu

The multitudes at Mach Picchu

This was much, much better.  We followed the stony track up the hill past a halfway house, past a lot of bamboo, wild begonias and huge orchids, frequently turning to look at the stunning view of Machu Picchu ruins below us.  When we got to the Sun Gate just over an hour later there was another couple there, so we got them to take a photograph of us to mark the occasion.

The path to the Sun Gate

Llama feeding by the path

Orchids next to the path, Machu Picchu far below

Sue and Alan at the Sun Gate

At the Sun Gate (Alan needs a haircut)

Coming back down it started to rain so the track got a little slippery.   Our descent was further enlivened by the sight of a snake which Alan thought was almost certainly venomous.  It had a diamond pattern on its back, and we watched it slither rather reluctantly over the edge of the path and down into the undergrowth.

Tree Orchids next to the path

Machu Picchu through the clouds

Had it not been for the walk to the Sun Gate our experience of Machu Picchu would have been very disappointing.  After queuing yet again for the bus, another train journey (delayed by an hour due to a landslide), and the final car journey from Ollantaytambo, we finally arrived back in Cusco at 11.30 pm.  Unsurprisingly, we awarded ourselves a day of R & R before continuing on our way.

From Cusco we had a 700 km journey across the Andes to Nazca which is near the coast.  We drove up the mountains, we drove down the mountains, and we drove around the mountains.  Sometimes we were up on the high Altiplano where herds of alpaca and vicuna were grazing and sometimes we drove through lush river valleys which narrowed to steep gorges where condors flew overhead.  We stopped off at small rural towns and never saw a single tourist for the whole three days that it took us to reach Nazca!

Lunch stop next to strange 'ice cream cone' rock formations

Just another Andean view

Rocky mountain stream (Can you spot the Torrent Duck? Sue did!)

Nazca is a lively, bustling town but it is also the place from where you can go to see the Nazca Lines.  The Nazca Lines are a series of animal figures and geometric shapes, some up to half a kilometre in length, which are drawn across some 500 sq km of the bleak, stony desert.  They remain one of the world’s biggest archaeological mysteries and there have been many theories about how they were created and what they represent.  One of the more bizarre theories is that of Erich von Daniken, the populist author, who claimed that the Lines were built as runways for alien spaceships!

Erich von Daniken's idea of a Spaceman

The Hummingbird (1/2 kilometre long)

Long before we set out on this trip the Nazca Lines were high on Alan’s list of ‘must see’.  Apparently, the best way to fully appreciate the Lines is from the air, which is exactly what he did.  Sue declined the opportunity on the basis that she didn’t want to be bounced around in a tiny aircraft, although she was able to see a couple from a viewing tower.

The Nazca Lines were everything that Alan had been led to believe and he was very impressed.  The Altimeter read 2,500 metres and the little aircraft bobbed and wove its way around, banking from time to time (somewhat alarmingly), the better to take photographs of the various objects which were etched in the desert at about the same time as the birth of Christ.

Nazca Lines, The Whale

The Dog (with spare leg)

The Monkey

The Spider

The Condor

There are a number of other interesting archaeological sites from the Nazca period and we particularly enjoyed visiting the Cantalloc Aqueduct.  This comprises a series of large conical spirals, laboriously constructed out of stone, which apparently serve as air vents for a vast underground canal system that syphons water from rivers higher in the valley.  It was designed and constructed by the Nazca people and is still in use today for agricultural irrigation. 

Inca Trading Centre at Los Paredones

Sue at El Telar

View of access points to Cantalloc Aquaduct from the air

Spiral access to the aquaduct

Sue going down the plughole

Stonework in the spirals

The two day drive from Nazca to Lima completed the last lap of this trip.  Lima is a large, noisy, capital city with not a great deal to recommend it other than it is the port from where Footloose Lucy will be shipped back home and from where we will follow by plane shortly after.  So, now begins the customary process of stamping one’s feet, banging on people’s tables and tearing one’s hair out (not that Alan has much of that left) prior to getting Lucy inserted or, to use the elegant term of the South Americans, ‘stuffed’ inside a container, sealed and sent off on the high seas.  

In the meantime, we are making the most of our time in Lima, visiting the various sights in and around the city, and sampling restaurants as we go.  The seafood restaurants around fisherman’s harbour are particularly good!

Inca Tern with its favourite meal of Anchovy

Pair of Belcher's Gulls (note tricolour beaks)

Brown Pelican

In the Fish Market

Brown Pelican

Pair of Inca Terns

Inca Tern

Inca Tern

When we started this trip, our final one to South America, we had five main objectives: to visit the Atacama Desert in Northern Chile, the Salar Uyuni salt flats in Bolivia, Dinosaur footprints in the Toro Toro National Park in Bolivia, Cusco/Machu Picchu and the Nazca Lines, all in Peru.  We achieved all those objectives and were not disappointed, but we have seen and experienced so much more that has amazed and delighted us.

In Northern Argentina we stayed in an area called Quebrada de Humahuaca, a beautiful valley overlooked by mountainsides that have been eroded into spectacular formations that reveal waves of colours.  We have stumbled across numerous carnivals and fiestas with brightly costumed dancers and noisy bands. We made a humbling visit to the Potosi Silver mine in Bolivia and witnessed the appalling conditions in which the miners work.  In the Colca Canyon, we watched great condors rise up through the depths of the canyon in the early morning, flying so close to the walls of the canyon that you felt you could almost reach out and touch them. 

At least two thirds of our time has been spent in the Andes, at anything from 2,500 metres to nearly 5,000 metres.  Everything the Andes has to offer has been spectacular, from the vast snow-capped mountains, to the bleak Altiplano with grazing herds of vicuna and alpaca, to the lush green valleys.  We and Lucy have found the altitude quite difficult to cope with at times, but it was worth it!

Our route across South America

Now we are looking forward to returning home and catching up with family and friends.