Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu is considered to be one of the most sacred sites of the Inca empire (1200's - 1500's). It is also one of the best surviving representations of an Inca city as it was never found by the Spanish who plundered and destroyed many Inca sites throughout South America after they conquered the region.

Classic view of Machu Picchu. The cone shaped mountain in the background is Huayna Picchu which I climbed.

The day before we were due to go to Machu Picchu I had to get sick which was very bad timing. I was even too sick to go to Spanish school. Of course we had paid a lot of money to go to Machu Picchu, and we did it the cheap way by not going on a tour. By late afternoon I was not feeling any better so I went to a medical clinic. They did some blood tests which showed I had salmonella. I was also dehydrated. I spent the next 4 hours hooked up to an IV to rehydrate me and give me antibiotics. My Peruvian family even came to the hospital because they were so worried about me. After five hours I was sent home with a prescription of antibiotics. By this time I was already feeling better.

Me being hooked up to the IV at the medical clinic. Isobel  (my Peruvian Mum) on the right

The next morning I almost felt normal so off we went to catch the Collectivo (mini van which costs just a few dollars) to Agua Calientes. This town is one and a half hours away from Cusco and is situated in the Sacred Valley below Machu Picchu. Agua Calientes is a  little town that lives entirely off toursim. About 4000 people visit Machu Picchu every day which puts huge pressure on the town and on the ruins of Machu Picchu. The name Agua Calientes means hot water and there are hot pools here. Fortunately we did not visit them. We were told later that they were very popular and not very clean!

Traditional dress in Peru

We arrived in Agua Calientes in the early afternoon so we went and did some exploring and ended up visiting the Botanic gardens. A guide offered to show us around the gardens for a small fee. He showed us many of the orchids they have there and they were all very different. He told us that there are over 300 types of orchid in the Historical Sanctuary that incorporates the area of Machu Picchu.

Orchid at the Botanical gardens

The next morning we woke at 4am as we wanted to be at Machu Picchu at 6am to watch the sun rise. Unfornately it was raining so there was no sun rise to be seen. We caught the bus up the mountain to the ruins which sit on a small plateau. sandwiched between the mountains of Huayna Picchu and Machu Picchu. I had a ticket to climb Huayna Picchu at 7am. Only 400 people are allowed to climb this mountain each day. It was an exciting experience especially near the top as it is very steep, the steps built by the Incas are very narrow (they must have had very small feet) and the sides of some of the stair cases was  a vertical.drop to the valley below. After all my efforts to get to the top (it took about 45 minutes) there was no view to be had as Machu Picchu was covered in cloud. But my bad luck did not last for long as the cloud lifted as I descended the mountain and I got a superb view of the city below.

Our first view of Machu Picchu

View of Machu Picchu from Wayna Picchu

After descending Huayna Picchu Sue and I hired a guide who explained the history and the significance of the different buildings at Machu Picchu.. Engineers and architects in NZ could learn a lot from the Incas who perfected the technique of cutting blocks of stone, polishing then and fitting them together tightly without using mortar. This construction as well as other design features mean that the buildings have been strong enough to withstand earthquakes and Peru has had some major ones. These building techniques were used for the construction of important structures like temples, palaces for the King etc. Machu Picchu was a city built for the nobles but did have housing for the workers who "volunteered" (it would have been considered your duty or obligation) their labour for so many months of the year to build the city and grow the crops. The city was in fact never finished as the Incas abandoned it after 100 years (1450 - 1540) after the Spanish came and began their conquest of the region. It is believed that the Incas abandoned Machu Picchu because it was considered such a sacred site that they did not want the Spanish to find it. In fact the city is so well hidden up in the mountains that it was never discovered by an outsider until American Historian Hiram Bingham came to the area in 1911. He only found it because the local peasants who used some of the terraces to grow crops told him of its existence. When Bingham was guided to the site by a very young local boy the city was mostly hidden by vegetation. Bingham began the initial evacuation of the site and stole many artifacts - ceramics, silver statues, gold, jewellery, taking them back to the United States with him. It took Peru 100 years to get  some of these artifacts returned but most still remain in museums in the United States and around the world. Peru is still rightfully demanding that they be returned.

Some of these terraces were built to give the city stability others were built to grow crops. The Inca's brought sand, clay and soil up from the valley floor to fill the terraces. It is very humid here so they did not need to irrigate.

Above the natural feature of the rock face the Inca's have cut stone blocks, polished them and fitted them perfectly together without using mortar.

The Inka bridge. This bridge and trail was cut high up on the side of the mountain. It was built as an escape route if the city was ever attacked by an enemy. The bridge is made of wooden planks that can be removed so as to prevent the enemy from crossing to the other side.

The valley below Machu Picchu

La Paz and cycling the Camino de la Muerte (Death Road), Bolivia

The city of La Paz sits in a "bowl" surrounded by high mountains and as it has grown the suburbs now also cover the steep hillsides. At 3,650 m (11,975 ft) above sea level it is still hard to breath at these elevations. La Paz is a crazy, choatic place full of narrow streets, markets stalls, people, traffic and noise. Crossing the street is a pretty scary proposition as the traffic does not stop for you even when you are on a pedestrian crossing.

I did not think I was crazy enough to bike the Camino de la Muerte (the road of death) but obvioulsy I am. I had wanted to climb a mountain from La Paz but this was not possible and this was the only tour available at short notice. The ride is 63km and is all downhill. We started at the top of a pass about half an hour drive out of La Paz. It was drizzling and very cold.. After biking down the main road for a short distance we stopped and the guides started putting the bikes back on the van. When I asked why they said that the next 8km was uphill so they were going to drive us up this section. I was pretty gutted as I had actually wanted to get some exercise.

When we finally got to the Death Road I found it was no worse than anything I had biked in North America. What earns the road its name is the fact that there is a vertical drop off into the valley below. Every so often a car or bus does falls over the edge. Our guide even pointed out a car where a family had driven off the road 6 years ago. He did not mention that cyclists have also died on this road which I read in the Lonely Planet.

We started the ride wearing lots of thermals, jackets, overtrousers, gloves and hats as it was freezing. By the time we descended 1700m into the valley we were sweltering in the heat and humidity of the jungle. One of the highlights was seeing baby condors fly overhead. Even as babies they are an impressive size.

As it turned out the most dangerous part of the journey was the drive back to La Paz when our driver decided to race another car and they were two abreast on a windy and steep two lane road. Our van almost collided into the other car as they were driving so close together. Luckily one of the passengers in our van spoke Spanish fluently and told the driver in no uncertain terms to stop. Even here in Bolivia there are boy racers!

Camino de la Muerte

Relaxing by the pool at a resort after the surviving the road of death!

La Paz

Doing homework in La Paz

La Paz

On returning to our hostal that evening I found Sue still in bed. I had worn her out from all our travels! She did tell me that there had been a big protest in La Paz that day and she had seen the police with guns and firing tear gas at the protesters from the hostal window. I did try and find out what the protest was about but I could not really understand the issues as my Spanish is still not good enough.

The next day we caught a bus to Cusco, Peru as were due to start our classes at a Spanish school for three weeks. We had only one and a half days in La Paz but we plan to return to this crazy place after our stay in Peru.

Cusco and the Sacred Valley

We arrived in Cusco, Peru on 5 October. We have not lost a lot of height here as Cusco is 3,399 m (11,152 ft) above sea level so we are still struggling to adapt to being without so much oxygen..Here we are going to a Spanish language school for three weeks. We are also staying with a Peruvian family Herman and Isobel who do not speak English. Mary from the United States is also staying with our family. She is here for three months to improve her Spanish as she already speaks very well. She helps with some of the translation when we don't understand although this probably means we are don't learn as much.

Now we go to school everyday Monday to Friday from 9am to 1pm to learn Spanish and we even have homework to do each day. Plus we practise speaking with our family. While my Spanish is improving I still have a long way to go to be able to be understood.

It has been quite cold here and the houses do not have heating so I am glad to have all my thermals. Even though the rainy season is not meant to arrive until December we have had rain daily either in the morning or the afternoon and sometimes even hail and thunderstorms. Everyone tells us this is unusual.

Cusco's biggest industry is tourism. Even though we are not here in the high tourist season there are tourists everywhere. We all come here to see the ruins built by the Inca empire which abound in and around this city. Plus this is the gateway to the most famous Inka city Machu Picchu. The city of Cusco was founded by the Inca's when it conquered the area in the 1400's. They built the city so solidly that is has survived earthquakes and other natural disasters over the years. In 1532 the Spanish arrived in Cusco and set about plundering the city. The Inca's resisted Spanish rule but were eventually defeated. 

Our first sight of Peru

Festival in the Plaza de Armas (Central square), Cusco

 The best ruins in Cusco is Sacsayhuaman (sounds like sexy woman in English). The Inca's started buidling this site in 1440 and it took one hundred years to complete. The stone blocks weigh more than 300 tons and some came from as far away as 30 km.. For the Inca's this was an important religious centre as well as a fortress and was the site of a major battle between the Inca's and the Spanish conquistadors.

Sacsayhuaman and the city of Cuso in the background

During our first week in Cusco we visited a wildlife refuge. This is a place where wild animals are taken because they have been used as pets and mistreated. We were told by the volunteers that work there that while there are no laws against animal cruelty in Peru the police will come and take the animals if someone makes a complaint. At the refuge we saw tortoises (well we saw their backsides as they were trying to hide under rocks). vicuña  alpacas, condors, macaw parrots, coati, guinea fowl, venado (like a deer), very large ducks and a very strange dog that has no hair called Perro Peruano (Peruvian dog)

Macaw

Perro Peruano 

Condor

On our first weekend in Cusco we visited the Sacred Valley. Juliette (from the United Kingdom), Haney (from Holland), Hans Pieter and Bridgette (from Switzerland) joined us. We caught the local Collective (mini van) for just a few dollars to get to the small towns in the valley and visit the Inca ruins. This was a  bargain after we had been quoted US$150 each for a day tour of the area. 

Our first stop was Pisac. This town is best known for its Incan ruins built in the 1400's which lie on top of a steep hill. They were used by the Inca's for military, religious and agricultural purposes. Surrounding the ruins on the step hillsides are terraces the Inca's built to grow crops. They even hauled topsoil from the valley below to put in these terraces. The terraces enabled the production of surplus food, more than would normally be possible at altitudes as high as 3350 m (11,000 feet). . The ruins are extensive and Juliette, Hans Pieter, Bridgette and I spent four hours walking around them. Sue and Haney took a taxi and hired a guide who played traditional music on a flute in between telling them about the history of the site.

Pisac Inca ruins

Our next stop was Ollantaytambo which is at the other end of the valley (about one and a half hours from Pisac). This is another town which has Inca ruins. During the Inca empire, Ollantaytambo was the royal estate of the Inca Emperor Pachacuti who conquered the region and built the town as well as a religious

centre and fortress. At the time of the Spanish conquest of Cusco this fortress served as a base of resistance led by Manco Inca Yupanqui which successfully pushed back a Spanish led invasion. But this was only a temporary success as the Inca civilisation was eventually defeated by the Spanish who became the new colonial masters in South America

At Ollantaytambo we stayed in a very cheap hostel costing about NZ$7 each. It was so cheap that the balcony to get to the bedrooms had holes in it large enough to see the ground below. I was not too sure how long it would survive. The blankets and even the sheets did not smell too clean, there was no hot water despite being told we could have "hot" showers and the toilets were not the best I have seen. However everyone took it in their stride and we all managed to get a good night's sleep despite the state of the hostel and the next morning we were up bright and early to visit the ruins.

Ollantaytambo Inca ruins

View of the Sacred Valley from the Inca ruins at Ollantaytambo

From Ollantaytambo we went to visit more Inca ruins at Moray. the ruins here consist of two large terraced circular depressions, the largest of which is about 30 m (98 ft) deep. Between the top and bottom terraces there is a temperature difference of as much as15 °C (27 °F). One theory is that this large temperature difference was used by the Inca to study the effects of different climatic conditions on crops.

Moray

 Our last stop was a visit to the La Salineras (salt ponds). Here salt is harvested since pre-Inca times by evaporating salty water from local local spring water with a very high salt content. This water is directed into a system of channels that feed the several hundred small terraced ponds that have been created. Families of the local community are given the rights to harvest the salt.

Families harvesting salt at La Salineras 

After visiting all these ruins we arrived back in Cusco on Sunday evening to a home cooked meal with our Peruvian family. Next weekend we will be visiting one of the seven wonders of the world when we go to see the Inca city of Machu Picchu. 

Salar de Uyuni

Our trip to the Salar de Uyuni (Salt flats) in Bolivia has to be the highlight of our trip so far. The salt flats are part of the Altiplano - a high plateau. The plateau has many fresh and saltwater lakes and salt flats and is surrounded by volcanoes.

We left San Pedro on 30 September for a three day tour of the Salar and Altiplano. After reading horror stories about drunk and dangerous drivers and not getting enough food on the trip we were a bit nervous. But we need not have worried as we had the most fantastic driver and guide who navigated us through some serious 4WD country, did not get us lost in this vast desert, cooked us amazing meals and was very knowledgeable about the area. Our guide Gilmar did not speak English but I was able to understand a surprising amount. We were also helped by Alexis from Argentina who kindly translated many things for us. In addition to Alexis we had Alexis partner Stine from Scotland (they met in New Zealand of all places!) and Bea from Germany on the trip with us. We all got on famously and everyone was  very considerate which is pretty important when a bunch of strangers are thrown together for three days for what was a pretty intense trip. We were all dealing with being at high altitudes (we went as high as 5000m), extreme cold and wind and driving long distances in a 4WD vehicle.

Sue waiting outside our hostel to be picked up for our trip to the Salar  de Uyuni.  In every town and city we have visited  there have been dogs roaming and sleeping in the streets. Many of them don´t even have owners but they are very friendly and they survive because the locals feed them.

Bolivian Immigration centre in the middle of  the desert. This is where we started our three day Odyssey.

Bea (Germany), Sue, Gilmar (our Bolivian guide), Alexis (Argentina) , Stine (Scotland)

Laguna Colorado - this lake was partly frozen.

Our 4WD vehicle is the white one on the right.

Laguna Blanca on the left is coloured white because it contains borax which is used in lots of industrial processes. Laguna Verde on the right is coloured green because it contains arsenic, lead, copper and other heavy metals.

Solar de Manaña geyser basin (4850m). The Geysers were near the highest pass which was about 5000m above sea level

Laguna Colorada is coloured  red by the algae that live in it,  which the flamingos feed on. The Bolivian Altiplano is a major breeding ground for several species of pink flamencos.

On our fist night we stayed at a very basic hostel in the desert (see picture below). There were no hot showers or heating apart from  one small ineffectual log burner. The temperature was well below zero once the sun went down as we were still at over 4000m above sea level. We all slept together in a dorm and we slept in all our clothes. Sue was the best prepared  for the frigid temperatures as she brought thermal leggings that she got from the hospital after her hip operation. She modelled this  fashionable attire for us as you can see in the picture above. As ridiculous as they looked (and we were all in hysterics when she put them on) she was the warmest of us all and had the best sleep.

Arbol de Piedra (tree of rock). This area was called the Desierto Dali because it resembles the paintings of Salvador Dali.

Very strange snow formations in the Desierto Dali.

Laguna Hedionda

Our last stop for the day was at San Juan de Rosario village. Here you can visit mummies in these tombs pictured above. The mummies were the Inca nobles who when they died were placed in the tombs alongside items they would need for the after-life. The tombs were built from the coral which covers the ground as this area used to be under the sea. The tombs have been opened up so that you can see the skeletons which are still fairly intact. This village also used to be an important trade route from the interior to the coast. As in the past the people here grow quinoa and potatoes (papas as they call them here). In Bolivia quinoa is one of Bolivia's most important exports. They supply 46% of the world's trade in quinoa which has become very popular in Europe, North America and even in NZ because it has a higher protein content than wheat, maize, rice etc.

After eleven hours of travelling we arrived at Villa Martin Hotel. The hotel is made entirely from salt and could not have been  more of a contrast from our first night.  I shared a room with my Mum and we  had our own ensiute, warm showers and heating.

On our last day we were up at 4.30am to go and see the sun rise over the Salar  de Uyuni. The salt flats are vast and look like snow. Thirty minutes after leaving our hotel I realised I had left my passport and credit cards in the hotel room. When I told Gilmar this he explained that he did not have enough petrol to go back and get them and continue the tour. Luckily for me he had a satellite phone and we still had reception so he was able to call the hotel and arrange for them to put the items on a bus that day. They arrived in the town of Uyuni where we finished the tour and were delivered to me when we arrived. I have to say I was very, very lucky.

Cyclists on the Salar de Uyuni.

Isla de los Pescados, or in the indigenous language Quechua this island is call la Isla Incahuasi. This island is in the middle of the salt flats and is formed from fossilised coral and is covered in 1000-year-old cacti. These cacti grow at a rate of 1cm a year and can grow as high as 10m. 

Mining salt

Looking back at the Salar de Uyuni

This was the last stop on our tour - a visit to the Train Cemetery

The town of Uyuni, Bolivia where we finished our tour. After having a farewell dinner with our travelling companions Sue and I caught the overnight train that left at midnight. Our next destination La Paz (the capital of Bolivia).