Cusco - alleyways & paintings

Inca Trail - Day 5 - Machu Picchu arrives

Map of the overall sight (might be a little too Small to read the detail.)
Doing my bit for Ch´s !!!

The view arriving at the Sungate, before sunrise. We´d hiked 2 hours in the dark to both get there for sunrise & more importantly the other tourists.


Video - Arriving at the Sungate - Machu Picchu


The Sun dial in the centre of Machu Picchu. It´s located in the centre of the 4 surrounding mountains. This picture looks north at Wayna Picchu that 6 of us decided to climb; like we´d not done enough hiking prior).

Guto - dead at the top of Wayna Picchu (Imprint next to him wasn´t where he landed first!)

Me feeling slightly less dead before the downward climb


Video - Climbing up Wayna Picchu

& then climbing down it!!


Once down we had a few hours to wait for the train. All the restaurants are lined up along the track making it all a little bizarre to dine !!!

Video - Agua Calientas : Train arrives at your restaurant
(to come)

Inca Trail - day 2,3 & 4 - on the Trail

Inca Trail - Day 1...

I´ll just post the pictures at present as they each paint a hundred words. I need far more than that to write up what, where & when, as well as the time to scribble them down too. Suffice to say the Inca trail was great fun, happy to say it wasn´t not too challenging & that it felt oh so good to get out on my feet & "do some exercise again!"

The team- 15 of us, 2 guides & 21 porters+chef

The Route from Kilometre 82 (measured from Cusco) + Archaeological sites en route .

One of the small holdings that exists on the first few sections of the trail.

Images of Day one´s hike

Condors in the Colca Canyon.

The reason for our trip to Arequipa was to visit the surrounding Canyon country. AN organised tour bus picked us up early in the morning & we headed north for the Canon de Colca. The day long road trip wound up & up from Arequipa to the bleak “antiplono” – high plateau pass at 4800m, before descending to Chivay our night’s stop destination & hot springs relaxation. We chewed on coca leaves & drank Coca tea to help deal with the dizziness of altitude sickness. No one felt too bad but we all felt the lack of Oxygen when trying to breath.

We stopped of en route to meet the locals, the protected Vicunas, distant cousins of the Llama & Alpaca family. Every time we stopped, local Peruvians attempted to sell us everything under the sun. Water, coca tea, snacks, hats, scarves, jumpers & earrings were all available. Sean & Tim, the two Southern Irish lads seamed to buy almost everything offered & are now proud owners of a complete Peruvian wardrobe!

The Colca canyon is 3191m deep, yes nearly 2 miles deep! It is second only in terms of depth to it’s near by neighbour Canon del Cotahuasi at 3354m. The Grand Canyon doesn’t even come close. Our Colca canyon mission was to Condor watch. Our two day excursion was based on the possibility that we MIGHT be able to see these huge birds soaring the Canyon walls so we headed out early on day 2 (5am ) to hopefully catch these majestic birds. We weren’t disappointed!! A full 2 hours were spent filling my camera memory card with as many shot so& film of these magnificent birds.

Click on here to see it on Video

Arequipa

This Gap tour has been so action packed that I’ve had little time to myself & little time to write up what I’ve been doing. Today I make amends with the passed 10 or so days worth of news.

We left Nazca on the 9pm night bus bound for Arequipa at 10.30! We settled into the bus journey & had various levels of successful night sleep. A combination of ear plugs, eye shades, herbal drinks & Valium were the most common choice of sleeping aids. I opted for the first two & slept pretty well considering the continuous turning bus as it climbed up into the hills. South American night buses are a luxury affair, with fully reclining leather chairs & leg rests, a hostess & breakfast served in the morning. It helps make the long journeys slightly more bearable.

We awoke at 6, sorry, were awoken at 6 am to rock concert volume Pan pipe music & were served the driest sandwich on earth for brekie – Hum yum-yum & luxury!! The outside scenery had changed significantly as we’d climbed high up into the base of the Peruvian Andes. Arequipa’s landscape is surrounded by 4 snow capped mountains all around or over 6000m giving Peru’s second largest city the name, “the white city.” Built on the South American fault line there is little left of original colonial architecture as frequent quakes since 1548 have sort to redesign the city since Spanish conquistador times.

We transferred from the bus station to a hotel where some people went back to bed, others to explore the town & shop. Determined not to waste dayas wandering around towns, 4 of us went off to White water raft the narrow Rio Chili. Javier had run ahead & booked us in so we were picked up soon after check in & were driven high up the river valley, to spent the day squeezing past or over boulders, dodging rapids & avoiding sun burn.

Our late departure from Nasca meant a late arrival into Arequipa so we were thus off schedule all day. Our half day rafting finished at 3pm & no sooner were we back in town than we were off an a half day Mountain biking ride. Rob opted out but Javier, Sean & I hopped on suspension bikes & rode out around the original Inca terraces & streets of the town until the setting sun robbed us of any more time. The scenery was fantastic & the exercise well needed. I slept like a log.

Nazca & The Nazca Lines

A luxurious lie-in until 7am was quickly forgotten as we were ferried to Nazca airport. Our guide, Suzy, a local from Nazca, informed us all about the small town’s rapid rise to fame & in true Hispanic style, insisted on using 10 words to describe everything, when 2 would have easily sufficed. Both GAO Adventures & Peru have taken a firm stance on sustainable tourism & insist on using local tour guides. Our guide Javier is the last non Peruvian guide to work for Gap before they are totally locally guided. All the local tour operators are bi-lingual Peruvian, so it’s made learning Spanish a little easier for me.

Once at the airport we were ushered into groups of 5 & allocated a pilot & plane. The small Cessna planes jumped quickly into the sky & followed a set route around the desert symbols as quickly as they possibly could. We were literally rolled around a Nazca lines at break neck, tourist speed “get ‘em in & get ‘em out” that left us feeling dizzy & a little sick for most of the rest of the day.

The lines were simply amazing to see from the air. Out of the wide expanse of dry, rocky desert appeared an array of symbols, shaped & lines that are literally 100’s of metres in diameter. I’d have liked to spent more time looking at them but you can’t walk in the protected desert as the lines are incredibly fragile piles of rock no higher than 6 inches high. There is a tower & hil top look out that give oblique angle views but they don’t really give you a good view from the ground, so our only option was our aerobatic barrel roll of a trip.

After everyone was down & feeling slightly less dizzy we trekked out into another part of the desert 30kms south of the town to the Cemetery of Chauchilla, to visit Pre Inca burial sites, made by the Nazca people. The morbid tourist attraction was an interesting sight made mostly but the geographically created dry area, in which hardly any – to no rain falls (ever). This has left dried corpses, clothes & hair intact with textiles & pottery lying next to them.

We returned to our farm stead located hotel to relax & unwind by the pool before eating a traditional cooked meal & hopping on a 9 hour night bus to Arequipa, Peru’s 2^nd largest city. The diner was prepared in a similar fashion to the New Zealand, Maori but burying the wrapped chicken, beef, sweat potatoes & veggies with red hot stones & cooking them for together for 3-4 hours.