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| Peru |
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Lima, August 2004 Amigos, Arrived safely in Lima. Much colder than we expected and cloudy too. Never imagined it would be cold in South America. I know it's winter here in the Southern hemisphere but we are well into in the tropics. Only staying a couple of days in the city before heading off to Cusco to see the Inca ruins of Machu Pichu. The stupid zigzagging of the 'Urabanito' shuttle bus took us 2 hours to get into the centre of the city instead of 30 minutes. So we got a free tour of the city and got to see plenty. Lima is great. The city seems huge like an asian city and much bigger than Santiago.The outskirts are like the worst bits of China and the centre is like best bits of beautiful Seville. Very colourful and even concrete office blocks are painted in green, turquoise, pink and yellow ocre. The pollution is horrendous and nearly as bad as streets in India. Haven't seen a chinese community yet but there are loads of chinese restaurants. The local food is spicy, cheap and very tasty. The streets seem chaotic and less regulated than in Chile. Having said this security is taken very seriously in Lima. Every home even in the scruffier parts of town have bars on all the windows and doors. The japanese embassy looks like a fortress. There's an alarming number of gun-turrets, watch towers and pill-boxes on even the most ordinary looking warehouses and builders yards. We heard there's going to be a strike tomorrow and we've seen quite a few police in riot-shields. There's even an armoured water canon vehicle outside one of the government buildings and armoured car. There's no subway so there's a lot of congestion and choking traffic fumes. A lot the cars, taxis and trucks are huge 70's american monsters that wouldnt look out of place in Starsky & Hutch. Loads of lovely old Volkswagen beetles around. Buses are like those yellow american school buses in the movies but highly decorated with go-faster-stripes/lines/wings and the names of destinations in garish 3-D letraset lettering! Found a fairly decent place to stay in the centre of town except for the bedding which consists of a bedsheet, couple of pillow cases and no top-sheet between us and the thickest, wooliest blanket ever! It's the first tme we've used the sheet-sleeping-bags for a while. If its any colder tonight will break out the silver survival blankets! Cusco, 06 August Cusco, 3600 metres above sea level , which means clear incredibly bright blue skies and there isn't much air up here! Over did it a bit with a beer as soon we landed and had a bit of altitude sickness but recovered after a couple of minutes. Being so high up isn't exactly comfortable and it takes a couple of days to get used to the lack of oxygen. Sarah's been fine except for being a little out of breath but for me it's been like having a 5 day hangover. The locals make a drink with coca leaves and hot water. They call it Mate de coca and it's totally legal, quite refreshing and a bit like green tea. For those who want to have full benefit and narcotic effect the leaves have to be chewed with some bicarbonate of soda. Coca is still a very big part of Peruvian culture and has been enjoyed for centuries by many pre-Inca civilizations The American explorer Hiram Bingham rediscovered the 'lost' Inca City of Machu Pichu in 1911 with the help of a couple of local framers. From Cusco we took a train called the backpacker express to a little town at the base of Machu Pichu mountain and then a bus up the through the clouds to the vistors centre. After the the ticket booth and a short steep climb to the top of a terrace you get the classic picture postcard view of the city. The city ruins are impressive and very well preserved but for me it's the location of Machu Pichu that is really amazing. Photos of the city don't really give an acurate impression of scale. The city is a bit smaller than I had imagined but it sits on top of a mountain that completely towers over the surrounding jungle, canyons and valleys. The spanish conquistadors never found the city which explains why is was never destroyed. In fact the Incas abandoned the city 33 years before the spanish reached the Cusco area and nobody really knows why..... |
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