Strange Encounters In Peru

Puna, Peru
Arequipa
Cusco
The Sacred Valley
Cusco
Salkantay Mountain Trek
Aguas Calientes
Cusco
Lima
July 14, 2013
July 15-18
July 19
July 20-21
July 22-23
July 24-30
July 31
August 1
August 2-9

Thus Far...

Sometimes, the beginning of a trip is the hardest part.

As I boarded the bus to Peru, I felt great after my ascension to health in Bolivia, culminating on the tranquil shores of Lake Titicaca. I looked forward to seeing the wonders of Peru, particularly with regards to the ancient works of the Incas. I had read a little bit about the Incas before, but to encounter the remnants of a lost empire up close and personal would be experiencing their legacy on a different level. Before I could do that, however, I had to survive an unforeseen event, in the middle of the night and in the middle of nowhere.

The Long Road To Arequipa

The trip started out innocently enough. Marlen and I planned to visit the floating islands of Puna on our way to the city of Arequipa. The road to Puna was uneventful and we arrived there in the afternoon with just enough time to take a boat to the islands before boarding a night bus to Arequipa.

Puna is a small city on the western edge of Lake Titicaca with a population of about 100,000 people. It is a smuggling city. However, we only wanted to see the floating islands located just off the city shore. There are several artificial floating islands near Puna, originally created by the Uros people hundreds of years ago to prevent attacks from their more aggressive neighbours such as the Incas. The islands consist of massive rafts of bundled reeds made from the totora plant, a water plant that grows along the shores of Lake Titicaca. We visited two islands, each populated by about 30 people. The residents of the islands greeted us warmly - perhaps a bit too warmly - singing for us and showing us inside their homes. While I genuinely appreciated the history and building of the floating islands, it was too touristy for me.

Upon returning by boat to Puna, we just managed to catch an overnight bus to Arequipa. I went to sleep for a few hours.

I was sleeping peacefully when I heard and felt a sudden crash. The engine stopped. I felt the bus roll backwards for a few seconds, and a few people were screaming. Marlen and I made our way to the front and noted that our bus had smashed into a small dump truck at high speed. The front of the bus was mangled; the door was crushed and the windscreen was shattered. Our bus driver seemed alright, so we jumped through the empty space where the windscreen used to be onto the icy road. It was around midnight.

The rear of the dump truck was pulverized. I could hear a lady crying in the box bed. Hoisting myself up into the box bed, I saw that an older lady was trapped within a mess of bags and blankets. I pulled her free and settled her with a few blankets for warmth. She kept pointing to the front of the box bed, so I ventured towards the front and found two more people buried in the blankets. I could not see their heads, only their tangled limbs. After receiving no response to my cries, I cleared away bags and blankets until I could see the heads. They were young guys, only around twenty years of age, both necks broken and twisted into unnatural positions. I assessed vital signs and pupil responses, and could do nothing else except cover the bodies.

I jumped out and went to the front of the dump truck. There was a lady screaming in the middle seat, and a young man in the passenger seat struggling wordlessly. Their torsos and legs were trapped by twisted metal. Peering under the truck I could see that one of the legs of the woman, Rosa, was broken but with no external bleeding. The man, Claudio, had more serious injuries, with both ankles almost completely sheared off and all leg bones broken. Both of his tibia bones were sticking out and a small steady stream of blood was pouring out of his right ankle, pooling under the truck. It took an hour for several of us to pry the door off its hinges and maneuver Claudio´s shattered legs from the wreckage. By this time, he was barely conscious from the loss of so much blood.

During this time, Marlen had been helping other injured passengers. We lay Claudio on some blankets and I was able to assess him properly. There were no other major injuries, but he was still bleeding, so I made a  double tourniquet around his right leg with my belt and the belt of another passenger. The bleeding stopped a couple of minutes later, but Claudio was still barely conscious. We wrapped him in blankets and semi-successfully tried to get water into him orally. What he really needed was intravenous fluids. One fellow pulled up in a car and stated there was a medical station a few kilometers down the road, so we placed Claudio on a makeshift stretcher (a piece of wood) and I hopped into the back of the car with him to the station.

The medical station turned out to be a small clinic attended by a nurse named Marisol, who explained that the closest ambulance was two hours away in Arequipa, and the clinic only had two litres of saline fluids. Claudio´s blood pressure was unrecordable; I hoped that two litres would be enough. We placed him on a table, I inserted an intravenous line, and we dripped two litres of fluid into him over the next hour. Claudio improved significantly. He could open his eyes and answer questions, and his blood pressure was measurable at 70/40 mmHg. As we were treated him, more patients rolled in from further accidents as a result of the icy conditions - eventually, we had six patients, most with broken legs, although one fellow had a nasty left hip dislocation and was in tremendous pain (we only had diclofenac for pain relief). Finally, the ambulances arrived and Marlen and I hitched a ride to Arequipa. We may have saved Claudio, but hopefully the surgeons in Arequipa saved his legs. Marlen and I came through the accident just fine, having only sacrificed my belt and with some blood on our sleeves.

We finally arrived in Arequipa at seven in the morning, six hours later than we should have. We were tired from being up all night, so we found a good hostel, slept most of the day, and treated ourselves to a hefty meal of fish. Marlen ordered cerviche, a Peruvian dish made from fresh raw fish marinated in citrus juices. We wandered around Arequipa the next day.

Arequipa is the second-largest city in Peru with a metropolitan population well over one million people. It is known as the White City for its many white buildings, and it was notably faithful to Spain throughout its history. I also learned that Arequipa was historically quite an independent city, even possessing its own passport and currency for a period of time. I liked this city a lot. Arequipa is ringed by spectacular mountain scenery and the climate is ideal. The city itself is clean. There were a lot of tourists, but I was beginning to understand that tourism was rampant in Peru.

One particular place in Arequipa deserves mention. We spent a full day at the Santa Catalina Monastery, a monastery of nuns of the Dominican Second Order. Built in 1579 by a rich widow, Maria de Guzman, the monastery only accepted women from upper class Spanish families and was closed to the outside world for centuries. The monastery is essentially a small city, with two dozen or so nuns still living and practicing within its walls.

Anyways, after the long night of the multi-vehicle accident, Arequipa was a welcome place to unwind and I rate it as one of the best cities to visit in South America. It was now time to see Cusco, the historical Incan capital.
The artificial floating islands of Puna were constructed on Lake Titicaca to prevent attacks from aggressive neighbours.
Each island is constructed from bundled reeds made from the totora plant.
As we left the floating islands, the weather became dark and foreboding. This was to be the start of a long night for us.
Obviously we were too busy to take pictures of a multi-vehicle accident, but Marlen took a couple at the request of Marisol, the clinic nurse. This is part of the little clinic where we treated the patients. Marisol is about to inject some pain relief into the fellow on the right (both of his legs are broken). I am in the background having a look at another patient.
Marlen and I reward ourselves after a long night with a meal of fish, including cerviche. Note the Inca Kola, a type of soft drink prevalent in Peru.
View of the volcano of Misti over Arequipa, with an elevation of 5,822 meters (19,101 feet).
Arequipa is surrounded by mountains, creating a stunning background for the city.
A relaxing street view near the center of Arequipa, close to Plaza de Armas.
This lady is weaving fabric using a back strap loom. Peruvians are proud of the complexity and quality of their fabrics.
View from the top of a building in the Santa Catalina Monastery, a small walled city with named streets that was closed off from the rest of the world for centuries.
Marlen is admiring one of the many open courtyards that exist within the Santa Catalina Monastery.

Ventures Into The Sacred Valley Of The Incas

We took another overnight bus to Cusco, in Peru's interior. The conditions were again icy and the area mountainous, and at one point the bus sat on the side of the road for four hours to allow the ice to thaw a bit. We were a bit late arriving at Cusco, but we made it.

Cusco is a city of 360,000 people and lies close to the Andes mountain range. It was the capital of the Inca Empire from sometime in the 13th century to 1533 and many historians believe that it was planned in the shape of a puma, a sacred animal to the Incas. Starting out as a small city-state, the Incas of Cusco started to form their empire in 1438 under the command of Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui, whose name meant "earth-shaker", and later his son, Tupac Yupanqui. Using a variety of techniques ranging from peaceful assimilation to conquest, the Incas eventually formed the largest empire in pre-Columbian America, bringing together modern Peru, large areas of Ecuador and Bolivia, northwest Argentina, north and central Chile, and even a small part of southern Colombia. The Incas called their empire Tawantinsuyu, which can be translated as "The Four Regions". The official language was Quechua, which many Peruvians still speak today, and they worshiped the sun god, Inti. The Incan Empire was only about 100 years old when Cusco was captured by Spain in 1533. There were a few factors that allowed the Spanish to conquer the Incas, but smallpox aided them the most, wiping out over half of the Incan population, including their strongest leaders such as Huayna Capac (had he not died, I believe the conquest would have been considerably more difficult). Cusco was recaptured by Manco Inca Yupanqui in 1535, but he could not hold it for more than a few days.

When Marlen and I arrived at Cusco, I was unprepared for the level of tourism I experienced there. The city was saturated with tourists, and the local people were quite forward in approaching us about the various tours and trinkets available to us. I often find that local people in tourist-infested areas are less polite and friendly then locals in areas with little or no tourism, and Cusco was no exception. On the bright side, our hostel, Pisko&Soul, was a fantastic venue run by a cool guy named Eduardo who would often make pisco, a special kind of Peruvian alcoholic mixed drink, for his guests. To be honest, modern-day Cusco was not to my tastes. I found most of the tourists irritating and many of the locals false, but if you like all the comforts of home in a foreign country then it is a great place. After spending only one day in Cusco, Marlen and I planned our first escape into the Sacred Valley of the Incas, a place that was the historical heart of the Incan Empire.

The Sacred Valley is - not surprisingly - a valley in the Andes of Peru located just outside of the city of Cusco. It was valued by the Incas for its special geography and climate, and formed one of the empire´s main sites for maize production and the extraction of natural wealth. The Sacred Valley contains a number of towns and a large variety of Incan ruins. Marlen and I chose to visit the four largest and most interesting ruin sites: Chinchero, Moray, Ollantaytambo, and Pisac. As usual, we went by ourselves to all of these places, preferring the cheaper local buses over tours.

The first site, Chinchero, was nothing fancy. It consisted of a small Incan town with some ancient agricultural terraces nearby. The special part of Chinchero was a short one hour trek that we made towards the mountain behind the town. There was nobody on this path except for a young boy with his small herd of pigs. We arrived at a scenic lookout over part of the Sacred Valley, and spent a couple of hours there - no tourists.

On our way to the second Incan site, Moray, I experienced the most bizarre run-in with someone that I have ever had in my life. While at a crossroads, Marlen went up to a young couple that had just arrived 30 seconds earlier and asked how much they paid for their ride to Moray. I started to walk past. The girl that Marlen spoke to answered her question, turned and looked at me, and stated ¨Are you Matt?¨ I turned and looked at her quickly. She had been wearing sunglasses and I had not met anyone looking like her in the last few months. As she removed her sunglasses, however, I was amazed to finally recognize my friend Shormila, whom I had not seen for seventeen years since I was in university in Canada. We had lost all touch since then, with me going to Australia and Shormila moving to Brazil, but amazingly, had met on a dusty isolated road in Peru. Shormila´s husband, Mauricio, was wondering what was going on, as was Marlen, but after a brief explanation and exchange of contact details, we sorted everything out and planned to catch up in Cusco a couple of days later.

The second site that day, Moray, had more impressive Incan ruins. Moray is a collection of several huge terraced circular depressions. These depressions are enormous, and their construction precise - moreover, their depth and orientation relative to the sun and wind results in a temperature difference of as much as 15 degrees Celsius between the top and the bottom of the circles. It is thought that the Incas used the temperature difference to study the effects of different climate conditions on crops, making Moray a gigantic agricultural experiment station. I was fascinated by these ruins, as they showed that the Incas blended farming with science.

As our first day in the Sacred Valley was quickly ending, we stayed overnight in a nice little hostel dedicated to llamas (with a llama in the front yard) and took a bus the next morning to our third site, Ollantaytambo.

Ollantaytambo was one of the larger Incan ruin sites that we visited in the Sacred Valley. The town of Ollantaytambo is charming, and despite a good dose of tourism, its charm seemed less affected by this somehow. In Incan times, Ollantaytambo served as the royal estate for Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui, the ninth Sapa Inca (Great Inca) who transformed the Kingdom of Cusco into the Incan Empire. The town lies within a small valley and there are ruins along the sides of the mountains high above it. On one side, an extensive set of agricultural terraces - higher quality than most Incan terraces - allowed the Incas to use otherwise unusable land to increase food production. On the other side of the town, an array of huge storehouses were situated. Built at high altitude, the increased wind and lower temperatures of these storehouses defended their contents against decay. The Incas built in ventilation systems as well. To explore these ruins, Marlen and I had to do a bit of climbing, but that was half the fun.

We arrived at our last Incan site, Pisac, late in the day. We had to stroll through the town of Pisac to get to the ruins, which had a massive market strategically placed in our path. The ruins here were huge. It is thought that Pisac defended the southern entrance to the Sacred Valley, with Ollantaytambo defending the northern entrance and another site, Choquequirao, defending the western entrance (more on Choquequirao later). The Pisac ruins consisted of agricultural terraces as well military and religious structures. The agricultural terraces are, like Ollantaytambo, of the highest quality. They are shaped into the wings of a giant partridge (pisaca) from which the ruins are named, although you have to use a bit of imagination to see it.

After another night in the llama hostel, Marlen and I did a half-day trek to Maras, another town in the Sacred Valley known for its nearby salt evaporation ponds. These ponds, in use since Incan times and still in use today, produce salt by evaporating salty water from a local subterranean stream. As the salty water emerges, it is redirected towards a complex system of channels and into several hundred ancient terraced ponds. Marlen and I chatted with a few of the workers there.

Our tour of the Sacred Valley complete, we returned to Cusco and met up with Shormila and Mauricio for a night of great dinner and conversation at a local Indian restaurant. Catching up with an old friend after seventeen years of zero contact is a cool experience, and I was happy to see her doing so well.

If one is interested in learning about Incan structures, the Sacred Valley is a must-see during any visit to the Cusco region.
Cusco, the historical capital of the Incas, is a nice city to look at and it is rich in history. However, it lacks authenticity and caters heavily to tourism.
Cusquena beer, my favourite South American beer to date.
Above the agricultural terraces of Chinchero.
Marlen and I trekked an hour north of Chinchero along this deserted path, used only by this boy with his pigs.
At the end of the path, we were rewarded; the best experiences can often be found by going ¨just a little farther.
After seventeen years and both of us living on different continents with no contact at all, I serendipitously met my friend Shormila in the Sacred Valley.
Marlen and I with the enormous circular terraced depressions of Moray in the background. These served as a collective agricultural station.
The circles of Moray are huge, and a person standing in the middle of this one would be a tiny dot. Note the precise construction.
Marlen overlooks the town of Ollantaytambo from atop an extensive set of agricultural terraces. The structures of Ollantaytambo served as the royal estate for Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui.
I am standing within the huge storehouses on the other side of Ollantaytambo. The agricultural terraces that Marlen is sitting atop of in the above photo can be seen in the distance.
One section of the agricultural terraces of Pisac. These were terraces of the highest quality in the Incan Empire. Viewed from afar, the terraces as a whole are shaped into the wings of a giant partridge.
The salt evaporation ponds near Maras, used since Incan times and still in use today, produce salt from a local subterranean stream.
Marlen and I had a great dinner back in Cusco with Shormila and Mauricio.

The Golden City And The Old Peak

With our travels in Peru thus far, Marlen and I had experienced moderate to high levels of tourism in every place we had visited. While I was happy that Peru was being experienced by many, the presence of large numbers of these people had a sullying effect on many areas. We decided to escape it completely in an effort to see the ¨real¨ Peru.

We had heard through the grapevine about a multi-day trek into the Salkantay Mountains that culminated in the ruins of Choquequirao (translated as ¨The Golden City¨), an ancient Incan city similar in structure to Machu Picchu. The major difference was that the only way to reach Choquequirao was by trekking there for two days, and thus it was relatively immune to the effects of rampant tourism. We decided that this would be a good thing to do. Moreover, it was possible to continue into the mountains for several days beyond Choquequirao, something which hardly anybody did, and that appealed to us even more.

We left Cusco in the morning and took a variety of small buses and taxis to finally reach the tiny town of Cachora, the starting point for the trek to Choquequirao. I loved this town. We were the only foreigners there, and there were no restaurants or stores catering to foreigners, nobody on the street asking if you wanted to buy their beads or other useless trinkets. Just local Peruvians going about their business. After nearly two weeks of seeing only the touristy side of Peru, Cachora was pure heaven. We stayed in a rustic little hotel where we were the only guests, and arose early the next morning to start our new adventure.

We went to a small store to buy a few last-minute supplies, and the lady who ran the store generously offered for us to sit down and have some coffee. As we sipped our coffee, I overheard her speaking on the phone with a friend about a constant pain in her back, lasting for weeks, that she stated was from a kidney infection. She had been told to take gentamicin, a potent antibiotic that can itself damage kidneys, but she had (wisely) stopped it after five days as she felt no improvement with it. Sounded a bit odd to me, so after 40 minutes of history (with Marlen translating much of it) I figured she had two problems, recurrent urinary tract infections and osteoarthritis involving her lower back and hips, and we took some time to plan a more suitable treatment regime for her. Hopefully it helped.

After that quick consult, we headed off for Choquequirao. The weather was cool and calm with a few clouds in the sky. It was glorious. The first half of the day involved a gentle ascent along a mountainside, with majestic views of the surrounding peaks at all times. We had lunch on a grassy outcrop with amazing views all around. The road turned into trail in the second half of the day and involved a sharp descent down towards the Apurimac River. We were accompanied the last few hours by a faithful little dog that appeared to want to guide us towards the campsite. Perhaps she did that for many travellers, but it was nice to have a bit of extra company for a while.

The second day was much tougher and involved a steep ascent over eight hours. We started off by crossing the Apurimac River using a small two-person cablecar, which involved no effort on our part until we were two-thirds of the way over the river, at which point I had to pull us across the remaining few meters. Then the ascent began. It was constant and steep, and the day became hot, so Marlen and I were ecstatic when we finally arrived at Maranpata, a small family settlement at the top of the mountain. A couple of hours later, in the early evening, we arrived at Choquequirao.

There were only four other people at the ruins that night. A French couple, Antoine and Lucile, had started out from Cachora the same day as us and we had seen them from time to time over the last two days. Like us, they planned to venture beyond Choquequirao into the mountains, so we would be seeing them intermittently over the next few days. The other two guys were travelling alone: one was from Argentina, the other from the US.

The third day was ours to explore the ancient city. Choquequirao is a city that served as an administrative center and probably protected the western flank of the Sacred Valley. It is big, around 1,800 hectares, and only 30-40% of it is excavated. It consisted of mansions for administrators, houses for artisans, warehouses, large dormitories, and plenty of farming terraces. The top of the mountain overlooking the city is truncated and was probably used for ritualistic purposes. Choquequirao was one of the last centers of Incan resistance, and it was the final refuge of Manco Inca Yupanqui after his failed attempt to recapture Cusco in 1535.

Like an Indiana Jones movie, Choquequirao loomed out of the mountains as we approached. It was quiet. A few more people had arrived in the morning, but there were still less than ten people exploring the ruins that day. We had all day to explore the main plaza, the truncated hilltop, and other areas of the ruins situated even higher than the truncated hilltop. There was a huge lower section of terraces with paintings of llamas along many of the walls that required a couple of hours of descent (followed by an ascent, of course) involving some rather large and steep stairs. It required hours to explore Choquequirao, and we returned to our campsite just before dark.

Having seen a mighty ancient Incan city minus the tourism, Marlen and I both felt heavily satisfied. Still, even higher peaks than what he had seen so far loomed beyond the ruins, and we felt that we had to press on.

The fourth day was the toughest of the trek. We started out by going the wrong way for 45 minutes, but the event - which so often happens - turned out to be serendipitous, as we ran into a couple of guys from Israel, Or and Asaf, who also planned to press on into the Salkantay Mountains. They were going to explore the ruins a bit that day first, however, so we continued on separately. After a couple hours of ascent, Marlen and I had a relatively flat twenty minutes of trekking along the top of a mountain before encountering a steep descent that took us down to the Yanama River. We had lunch, and prepared for the biggest ascent of the trek. The altitude at the river was about 1,500 meters (4,921 feet), and the top of the mountain we were to ascend was a mighty 4,200 meters (13,779 feet). We only had to get just under halfway before darkness, as there was a place called Maizal where we could pitch our tent on the side of the mountain. This was a hard trek, and we made it to Maizal just before dark.

Maizal was an isolated little farm owned by a Peruvian man named Valentino and his family. The view over the mountainous valley was stupendous. Valentino and his family made us a wonderful trout dinner accompanied by chuno, a kind of freeze-dried potato obtained by exposing a frost-resistant variety of potato for five nights and days to very low night temperatures alternating with hot daytime temperatures, and served us Cusquena beer and Inca Kola, for a small fee of course. As we ate, a few other trekkers joined us - the French couple, a Brazilian guy named Julian who had hired a guide named Wilfredo to take him to Choquequirao and beyond, and the Israeli guys (who arrived an hour after darkness, extremely tired but nonetheless happy to make us all some hot chocolate). These were to be the only other trekkers we would see for the next several days.

On the fifth day, we continued our ascent up that darn mountain. The path was good, but it was sandy and steep, and the day got hot again. Finally, in the early afternoon, we reached the summit at a point called Abra San Juan. All I can say is that the view was worth the effort, a panoramic 360 degrees of snow-capped peaks with no end in site. I had counted the number of steps it had required to ascend that mountain since the river Yanama - it took me 17,300 steps, all uphill (rounded to the nearest hundred). After Abra San Juan, I was satisfied that by pressing on we had seen something that only a few visitors to Peru experience, and it felt real. Marlen and I trudged our way across a ridge for an hour followed by several hours of descent into the tiny town of Yanama.

Like Cachora, Yanama was another gem in the Peruvian mountains. No tourism. No electricity. Just rural Peruvians doing their thing, and not paying much attention to us. We had a nice evening, but a cold night. There was ice all over the tent the next morning.

We were now up to day six. This involved trekking from Yanama to another town, Totora. To get there, we had to trek up another mountain and over a high mountain pass. I thought the views just could not get any better, but wrong again - this trek just would not let up on the mountain scenery. We followed the river for the first couple of hours, and ascended the mountain for much of the rest of the day. We took a couple of extended breaks on this day, even falling asleep for an hour during our morning break, so we pushed the time a little too far and only managed to cross the mountain pass in the late afternoon. Fortunately, the path had turned into road that day and a crew of road-workers near the pass offered to drive us down to Totora. Marlen wisely took them up on it, but it did not feel right to me to take a ride of any sorts, so I continued walking on my own. The rest was descent, and I went fast, but still ended up walking the last twenty minutes in darkness. Fortunately I had a light with me. I was greeted by Marlen and a couple of the other trekkers, and we feasted on another dinner of trout and chuno that night.

Our six-day trek was now complete. From now on it was all road, with more cars, and it would soon get touristy again. We decided to use a combination of local buses and trekking to reach our next destination, Aguas Calientes, the town below the famed Incan ruins of Machu Picchu. 

Aguas Calientes is a small town of 1,600 people, with Machu Picchu settled in the mountains above. Being one of South America´s most visited sites, the Peruvian government decided to limit access to the public and so now it is only possible to reach the town either by train or a nine kilometer walk. It took us half a day to bus to the hydroelectric dam which lies at the start of the walk, and two hours to trek into Aguas Calientes. Compared to what we had just done, this was a really easy trek along flat land.

Entering Aguas Calientes is quite a sight. The town is buried deep within the mountains. The mountains rise steeply out of the ground, with peaks that are green and rounded, providing quite a contrast with the huge jagged peaks around Choquequirao. As I suspected, Aguas Calientes was bustling with tourism. We only planned to spend one night there, so I did not mind too much. But to put it in perspective, we spent more money in less than 24 hours at Aguas Calientes and Machu Picchu than the entire previous week trekking the Salkantay Mountains from Cachora all the way to Totora.

Eventually, we found a decent little hotel and got up early the next morning to see Machu Picchu. Apparently, 6 am was not early enough. There was already a line-up with hundreds of people eager to board the buses. It was a bit mad. After waiting nearly 40 minutes, we got on a bus and made our way up the mountains to the entrance of Machu Picchu.

The entrance to the ruins was, once again, pure madness. People and security everywhere. It really felt like an amusement park. I was trying to just enjoy the moment, but the sheer numbers of people made it difficult. We were told that nearly 3,000 people had bought tickets just that morning alone, never mind the rest of the day. I recalled our glorious day at Choquequirao with less than ten people exploring the ruins of The Golden City - what a difference! Anyways, we finally entered Machu Picchu.

Machu Picchu (translated as ¨The Old Peak¨) is undeniably beautiful. It is believed to have been constructed as as estate for Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui, and is often referred to as ¨The Lost City of the Incas¨. Machu Picchu was not known to the Spanish during their conquest, and as such was not thoroughly destroyed. It was left relatively intact and the surrounding jungle grew around it over the ensuing centuries, hiding its existence all but the local people until 1911 when a historian from the US named Hiram Bingham brought the city to international attention. Bingham, of course, removed many artefacts from Machu Picchu and smuggled them out to the US, resulting in a long dispute between the government of Peru and Yale University, the custodian of the artefacts.

Marlen and I wandered around Machu Picchu for half the day. It is a large sight with plenty to see. There were tour guides with groups of people everywhere, so if you wanted to learn a bit it was easy to eavesdrop on any number of conversations. We were asked three different times to not sit on that wall, do not lie on that rock, you have to walk this way, you are not allowed to walk that way - a stark contrast to the freedom we had just experienced on our multi-day trek. Despite the high levels of tourism, however, Machu Picchu is without question worth a visit. I just think that the experience could have been better without the crowds. Still, I suppose the counter-arguement is that if not for the numerous catering services, far fewer people would be able to experience Machu Picchu.

After Machu Picchu, Marlen and I went straight back to Aguas Calientes and returned that same day to Cusco. Our time with the Incas was over, and we had a date with Lima, Peru´s capital city.
Starting out, we had calm and cool weather, and anticipated the journey ahead (day one of the trek).
This gentle ascension eased us into the trek (day one).
Marlen takes a rest on this stone seat (day one).
Me with The Littlest Hobo, a dog that temporarily accompanied us (day one).
Marlen is excited to have a chance to ride a tiny two-person cable car across the Apurimac River (day two).
The Incas often built their structures in the forms of animals. This extensive set of terraces is just outside Choquequirao; the photo was taken from several kilometers away. I do not know what animal this is (day two).
Marlen walks amongst the ruins of Choquequirao, ¨The Golden City¨, which likely served as an administrative center. It is only 30-40% excavated. Note the lack of any other people in the photo (day three).
This may be a housing section of Choquequirao (day three).
Marlen stands atop the wall on the edge of the truncated hilltop (day three).
This is the ¨llama¨ section of Choquequirao, a huge set of terraces that descends the mountainside for several hundred meters. The tiny white dots visible on the terrace walls are pictures of llamas (day three).
Picture of a llama up close, with me beside it for scale. Compare the llama to the white dots in the above photo to get a feel for the size of these terraces (day three).
After Choquequirao, we had a hard day of trekking. We always had a nice view to accompany us though (day four).
Marlen and I with Antoine and Lucile, both from France. This is in Valentino´s house in Maizal, a tiny isolated farm on the edge of a mountain (day four).
Breaking camp after breakfast in Maizal. The view over the valley was stupendous (day five).
View of several peaks from Abra San Juan. I counted 17,300 steps of ascent to get here (day five).
Marlen and I on the top of the mountain at Abra San Juan (day five).
The path got a little narrow at times (day five).
Taking a rest while we ascend our final mountain up to the high pass between Yanama and Totora. It was a nice spot to have lunch (day six).
The setting sun outlines these peaks as I descend towards Totora. Darkness caught me for the last twenty minutes, but it was worth it (day six).
The 6 am line-up to board the bus to Machu Picchu in Aguas Calientes.
The rounded peaks of the mountains around Machu Picchu.
Machu Picchu. Took the picture from afar so it looks empty, but there are hundreds of people down there.
An even more distant view of Machu Picchu, in all its restored glory.

Cosmopolitan Lima

A long bus ride later, Marlen and I were in Lima. 

Lima is big, with a greater population of eight and a half million people. It was founded by the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro in 1535. Lima is probably named after a famous oracle known as Limaq, which means ¨talker¨ in Quechua, and it is thought that the word ¨Lima¨resulted as the Spanish pronunciation of the native name, Limaq.

It had been a while since I had visited a city comparable in size to Buenos Aires and I felt the difference immediately in Lima´s modern freeways, streets, and buildings. Marlen and I saw the best of Lima, as we stayed in the Miraflores District, an upscale district known for its shopping gardens, parks, and beaches. Miraflores has a beautiful coastline, with the city built on cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and we walked along this for several hours. Interestingly, the waterfront consists of small rocks as opposed to sand, resulting in quite a unique sound, different to what I was used to in Australia as the waves crashed over these small rocks.

Lima has a cool climate. It is classified as subtropical, but its proximity to the Pacific Ocean results in cooler temperatures than normal, so it is best described as having a mild desert climate. It was grey and overcast the entire time I was there, although I was told that this was normal for winter. Despite the overcast skies, the districts of Miraflores and Barranco are beautiful.

If you are interested in food, Lima is a great, with many different cuisines available. The cerviche at ¨El Muelle¨ was spectacular. Marlen and I had a great Japanese meal on our last day together at ¨Magma Sushi Lounge¨.

Despite our adventures together, it was time for Marlen to return to Costa Rica. She needed to apply for overseas courses and catch up with family and friends back home. Once again, I counted myself extremely fortunate to have met someone with whom I could share so many different experiences. If not for Marlen and her street-savvy ways, not to mention fluent Spanish, my travels in Bolivia and Peru would have been, at the least, much more difficult, and I could not have experienced many of them as fully as I did.
Lima is big, and as such has all the amenities of a big city, such as nice parks. The overcast sky is normal for winter.
The best feature of Lima is its coastline, with the city built on cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
Final photo with Marlen.
The coastline of Lima consists of small rocks rather than sand, resulting in quite a unique sound as the waves roll up the shore.

Looking Beyond...

Apart from several strange encounters, I certainly appreciated the majesty of Peru´s history and landscape. However, unlike Bolivia which was generally authentic, Peru oscillated between excessive tourism (most apparent in well-developed towns such as Cusco and Aguas Calientes) and absolute authenticity (most apparent in relatively isolated rural towns such as Cachora and Yanama). I disliked the former, but truly appreciated the latter, and I rank the trek through the Salkantay Mountains as the best multi-day trek I had ever done up until this point in time, as well as one of the high points of the entire trip. Since Marlen had to return to Costa Rica, I was on my own again, and ready to head north towards the country of Ecuador.