MACHU PICCHU & LAKE TITICACA
TO BE CORRECT THAT SHOULD READ - CUSCO, MACHU PICCHU & LAKE TITICACA......
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Because we had heard good things about Cousco, apparently there is lots to do there, the Sacred Valley, multicoloured mountains, horses, and maybe RAIN. As it transpired the weather was lovely - and cool!!!!! A blessed relief after many days at 33 degrees. This a more balmy 20'ish. The drawback is the lack of oxygen. Really noticable as we are at 12,000 feet, 3,500 meters. Talk about a puffing billy as I walk up a slight incline.
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Cusco is the gateway town for Machu Picchu, Peru's tourist magnet. But tightly controlled with 2,500 maximum vistors a day. And it is a slog to get there. Bus for 1.5 hours from Cusco, then 1.5 hours in a traditional train up to a small town. Aguas Calientes, where you then take another bus for 30 minutes to the site itself. Hope it's bloody well worth it after such a slog. We are staying 3 nights, most visitors go up from Cusco early morning (6 hours) trek round the site (3 hours) then slog back (6 hours), long day! We want to have two clear days on site and do two early morning visits when it is quieter.
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It was a long slog from Rio, with a 5.5 hour leg, a 3 hour layover in Lima, then another 'technical'; on the plane - off the plane game, but finally we made it, breathlessly. Great hotel, Hacienda Cusco Centro Historico (£48 a night incl breakfast, so a real deal).
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Up the following day for a walking tour of Cusco, much to the surprise of the guide who felt that two days acclimatisation might have been a better option. "That is for the chicken-hearted, we are English my good man". I think he misheard me because he suggested that rather than chicken hearts we try the local Peruvian delicacy, Roast Guinea Pig. I counter with the fact that not only am I panting like an exhausted greyhound at the end of a long race but that I am already the victim of another Peruvian delicacy, the PISCO SOUR. It was like 'Caipirinha Day' all over again. Boy, those things are strong! I only had one and my legs went, its the elevation you know. I have added Guinea Pig into the list of things yet to eat. Once my panting eases off. Oh, and Alpaca, they scoff that too. Oh, and more Llama, except the Peruvians don't eat Llama, apparently due to internal parasites which give you a dodgy tummy - bit like what we got when we last scoffed Llama!
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So walk we did, around INCA HQ, the town where they started in 1430'ish. And lasted until 1530'ish. Yes, odd isn't it, you thought they'd been around for millenium. No, the Incas were around for just about 100 years before the Conquistadors rolled up and mullered them. So how on earth are they so famous and (apparently) achieved so much?
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STONE ME, THAT'S A LOT OF BLOCKS....
As a forinstance, the picture above on the left is the famous '12 Sided Stone', a UNESCO Heritage stone no less, it's the big bastard lower middle. 12 sides! That is just showy stone masonary, why make it so complicated? The other picture is one of a wall of which there are loads in Cousco, all from around 1500. You literally cannot get a fag paper into the joints and there is NO mortar. And every single stone is different, cut to fit to perfection, no wonder there are doubts surrounding how much the very short lived Inca's actually did themselves during their truncated reign, I mean they must have been stone masons to a man, woman and child to do all this.
I'm not going to bang on about thumping great blocks of limestone that were quite clearly and obviously cut by alien laser cutters and put in place with anti-gravity sleds (I mean look at the scale that Sara provides to the right). Reminder: The Inca lasted 100 years, during which they cut millions of these blocks and build goodness knows how many towns, normally on then very top of a very pointy mountain (and we haven't even got to Machu Picchu yet!). Oh, and in the same 100 years they expanded their empire from little ole Cusco to rule a third of South America.
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Well I have a theory. From 1,500 B.C there were many highly educated tribes in the area, I think in the 2,930 years B.I (before Inca) just maybe a lot of the work was done by them before the murderous Inca subsumed the poor souls, or they simply enslaved them all. OR they had the best stone mason universities ever seen or known to man. You decide.
PERU IS A NICE PLACE....... CUSCO IS EVEN BETTER.....
We found Couzco (so many different local spellings) to be a lovely town, depending as it does 80% on tourism, it is packed with restaurants and little shops, but at the time totally local and traditional.
Of course no self respecting South American town is complete unless a load of locals are leaping around in traditional dress and so it would be cruel not to showcase their antics. I realise it is cruel to you to include it though, sorry. To be fair it was Valentines, although I doubt that is why they were strutting their stuff. The faces of the locals are also so different to Brazil and Argentina, way more Inca looking on this side of the continent.
BACK IN THE BUS.... OFF THE BUS... ON THE BUS......
Day two was a tour of "The Sacred Valley". Up at 5.00pm to meet the packed coach, so we blagged the seats up by the driver with the best, best view ever. I have to admit after 13 hours the view palled a bit - but NOT the amazing Inca sights we saw. Despite my slight incredulity of what may or may not have been accomplished in their brief 100 years rule, some bastard did an awful lot of incredible work at sometime (aliens I tell you). Just look at these pictures to get an idea of the beauty of the area and the astounding terraces and works...
PACKING IT IN.....
In this one day of 13 hours we saw weaving Llama wool, God knows how many Inca sites, Salt Pans, Chocolate Pisco Sours, Inca steps, Inca terraces, Alpaca's, Llama's and loads more, too many to mention. We must have got on and off that bus a hundred times, and all for £39 each including a very nice lunch.
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Peru is cheap!!! Love it. Plus lovely people.
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Sara compared the views as we drove through the Sacred Valley to those wide panning shots in 'The Sound of Music" where the Tyroll looks so green and lovely - just like Peru! Probably shot it here.
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The rural idyll was maintained right down to the mud bricks used to build the villages and the fact that we did not see ONE TRACTOR. Not one. Thousands of acres of potatoes and a weird green wheat, all planted and harvested by hand apparently. And that is all they grow, tatties (ten different variaties is the local boast), green wheat and sweetcorn. Miles and miles of it. all neat.
I include this as proof positive that I CAN DANCE. After my abject failure at Tango and Samba I would like to show everyone that I am perfectly capable of jigging about with the best of them to an old boy playing traditional Peruvian music (volume control on old boy is bottom right of video if you want to hear him. I have no volume control, or even control of my rhythm).
Sara in the meatime adopted a new family. Just as a warning to our exisiting family to sharpen up. I mean how cute are the new ones?? A new grandma, a new dog, plus two new children, and all for £50 the lot. And so colourful. The big cup of leaves is the Peruvian answer to altitude sickness. It is Coco Leaf tea, legal in certain parts of South America, but don't try this at home, strictly illegal. To be fair they search cars regularly here to see if an over enthusiastic local has tried to process his coco tea into cocaine, I tried but there were insufficient leaves on the breakfast bar as I needed about 10 kg to get started. So I just drank 10 litres of the tea, felt nothing, and was up all night going to the loo. But at least I tried
THE HILLS ARE ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF PUFFING........
We will both be pleased to leave this elevation, luckily Machu Picchu is 2,400m compared to Cusco 3,400m, a nice drop of 1000m elevation and so we should be able to breath again. May even be fitter due to four days traing at heights! We are heading there on the historic Peru Rail Vistadome Observatory train.
BRITISH RAIL THIS AIN'T! .......................
Up early to catch to bus/train combo to Machu Picchu. We paid extra for the VISTADROME car, so the 1.5 hour return journey was snip at £135 each (not). On the bright side it was like no other train journey. It was a flat out party with food and wine and no H&S concerns with the open back. The photos below tell the story!
Once we had escaped the looney tunes train ride we wandered down to our hotel, the Panorama B&B (£120/night incl bf) and were amazed that it was opposite a raging torrent making a hell of a noise 24/7. But what a view from our balcony. And a reduction in elevation of a 1,000m was a relief. No more puffing for a day or so. Also the town itself was a pleasant surprise, very picturesque.
Luckily on the flight to Cusco Sara had sat next to a tourist guide who kindly recommended a guide for the archaeological sites. Sergio was SO good. 35 years old, perfect English, well educated, well read. In one day he answered all the questions that I posed earlier. I won't bore you with the answers.
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On the day of our visit to Machu Picchu itself the weather was perfect, bright blue sky (this is low season and rainy season by the way, so no guarantees). And being low season much smaller crowds, except of course on Carnival Sunday 18th February, our day – when locals go up to the site for free! So a massive queue of little Peruvians pushing and shoving, but we made it onto one of the fleet of buses that run you up the switchback road to the site itself for a mere £25 pp return.
MACHU PICCHU ITSELF IS AMAZING.......
It is a bit like the Taj Mahal, no matter how many times you have seen the photos the real thing is just mind boogling. Perhaps it is the incredible journey to get there, the sheer height of the mountain, the scenery, or - all of the above. I will let the pictures speak for themselves.
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Just an incredible sight with an excellent guide who explained so much. Perfect weather, what could go wrong?
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Well some time in 2023 someone had said to Sara "you must try and climb Huayna Picchu, its an amazing climb". And that thought stuck in her mind.
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We therefore bought the tickets in advance to be one of the exclusive club who were allowed on this trek. £85 a head! I had literally no idea what it was about, and to be fair I don't think Sara did either.
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Well, it's this monster! The big threatening peak behind Machu Picchu itself, 1,000 feet high. The trek is up an almost vertical stone staircase set in the dark bit of the photo, right to the very, very top.
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Our guide tested our fitness and our head for heights as we went along the first day and agreed that it was do-able and that he would guide us up it the following day.
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Back to the hotel, Sara to sleep the sleep of the dead, I to enjoy a nightmare about the climb being up a narrow goat track with vertiginous drops, and promised myself if it was raining, I would back out. Morning arrived. It was raining, yes!! It was foggy, yes!! But we’d paid so up we went. I attempted to back out but was firmly over-ruled.
It was a factor of 10 worse than my nightmare. To say it was dangerous for a 73 year old with two dodgy knees and two dodgy ankles is an understatement. But we made it up, and once you are up, you have to come down. Which is even harder. And it was pissing it down the whole way. Our guide at 35 was the oldest person on the mountain, except for me!!!. People kept looking me and giving me the thumbs up, fuck knows why???
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I mean, seriously, can you see where the track is below??
But we finally made it to the summit in more or less one piece, but what goes up must come down, and that was even worse!! Pissing with rain, water streaming off the rocks. And my comment earlier about a ‘goat track’ is wrong, no self-respecting goat would even attempt it. It’s just scrambling over an ultra-steep jumble of rocks with no handrails and a deadly drop all the way, until you get to ‘The Stairs of Death’ (see below). Then it gets tough!
If I had had any idea, I would never have attempted it. As it turned out we both survived, just!! Sara is becoming an adrenalin junky on this trip; she also wasted the money she spent on a new life insurance policy she had taken out on me for the climb.
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In the shot on the right above you can JUST see Machu Picchu down below. To be honest I could have just stayed down below and looked at it in close up! But my little adrenalin monkey loved it.
Once back to the hotel we slept for 3 hours and then popped out for a snack before sleeping for another 12 hours straight. Our biggest, biggest mistake (other than going up in the first place), was to Google the trek. As you can see below it comes out as the 5th most dangerous trek in the world!!!!!!!!!!!!! Its 1,000 feet straight up, equal to 100 floors, same size as The Shard.
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I AM NOT IRRESPONSIBLE, BUT SOMETIMES I WONDER.......
Seriously, that was a mistake. Had we done more research beforehand I would never have tried the 5th most dangerous trek in the world, especially as other lists have it at 4th!!!! But we did, and we did it!!
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On the bright side I consoled myself that we had a pretty easy 3-4 days coming up.. Away from the High Altitude of Cusco, down to Lake Titicaca. Just out of interest I Googled 'Highest Cities in the World. Another mistake.
HOW MUCH HIGHER CAN WE GO?.......
As you can see far from going down - we are going UP. From the 9th highest city in the world (Cusco) to the 4th (Juliaca, right next to PUNO) and that is only 36 feet lower than number three, so technically if I go upstairs in our hotel we are at the THIRD HIGHEST CITY IN THE WORLD.
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Why, oh why, did I do that bit of research, as it has not cheered me up one itoa.
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But again, looking on the bright side, I did get to eat Guinea Pig and also had a go at Alpaca. The Guinea Pig was like Crispy Duck but without the taste or the succulence. It so will NOT catch on in the UK.
So it is onwards and UPwards by luxury train for 10.5 hours to PUNO on Lake Titicaca. We love trains, especially as this one costs a meaty £230 a head. Thank goodness that includes lunch, drinks and entertainment.
PERU RAIL REALLY DON'T GET SAFETY....
Another amazing ride! How 10 hours can go so quickly I have no idea. It might be because the train ride is just non stop entertainment, food, drinks, and wandering around what is an Orient Express level train where the staff are a real laugh and nobody pays any attention to silly little things like safety. Big armchairs, fully serviced bar, no restrictions, dancing in the aisles, just one stop in the whole journey at the highest point. Real fun way to travel.
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Until you reach Juliaca, a big town with maybe 10,000 or more part finished houses, all vacant, all with then traditional shit concrete and unrendered brick finish, all with reinforcing bars sticking out the top, roads deserted, nobody working, a true ghost town. No idea why or what on earth is going on. No Peruvian was able to (or wanted to) explain it. Such a shame.
A CHANCE TO BUY MORE GUINEA PIG....
One of the advantages of travelling by train is you get to window shop along the way. The little fellow on the left had set up his Roast Guinea Pig market stall actually on the train line. Good thinking!! No need to move it when the train rolls over it, just step aside for a moment. The pigs look good too, just hope nobody uses the toilet though, Peru Rail use the old fashioned 'straight-through' method. Adds a bit of taste to the pig I guess even if such flavouring is a bit hit-and-miss.
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On to PUNO, another massive town that seems to serve no purpose. 12,000 feet up on the Altiplano, main claim to fame - its next to Lake Titicaca (which only has a modest tourist draw for reasons I will explain). Thousands of unfinshed houses (again), no industry, just a town plonked in the middle of nowhere.
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On Plan A we were actually just passing through Puno on the way to Bolivia and La Paz, but by the time we arrived we were on Plan D (version 2a). Plan D2a stated that it was more important to enjoy at least TEN DAYS by a beach. Uninterrupted and luxurious were the exact words in the planning document I was given. So that meant ending the hard travel here.
TOO MUCH RESEARCH THIS TIME.....
The highlights of any tourist trip to Puno is 'The Floating Islands of Uros', literally reed islands out on the lake. Well the hotels team decided that as this was the main attraction, why stay in a bog standard (luxurious) hotel in town when one could actually stay on the islands themselves, why indeed? So we booked into the highly recommended Uros Lake Titicaca Lodge (£80 a night incl bf). A hotel actually ON a floating island!!
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Met at Puno by our taxi, driven in the encroaching dark down a myriad of side streets, all deserted, to a dingy dock to await a wreck of a boat piloted by a scruffy little round Peruvian called Carlos, the owner of the 'Lodge', who then took us another 30 minutes along canals and finally into the lake itself and moored alongside a bundle of damp reeds, showed us into a hut and said goodnight........ But not before telling us there was no wifi and no hot water, but on the plus side the lights were working today and breakfast would be served in the room at 8.30.
Not a Lodge, a 'Homestay' is more accurate, on a deserted island with no way off. Us and the family Carlos. For three nights. Just the hut and a small deck. It was exactly as we both imagined a prison must be like. Very basic bread and jam for breakfast. Thin soup and omlette for lunch and dinner. No coffee. No sugar. No hot water. Exercise for an hour a day in the yard. At least we got to wear our own clothes.
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But we found it hilarious! We made our own entertainment and managed to add it two trips to pass the time. TRIP 1: Was with Carlos to visit the next door island, much the same as our island except we were allowed to change clothes.
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TRIP 2: Was to an actual island out on the main lake, a 1.5 hour boat ride away, to walk about two miles and have the opportunity to once again show off my undoubted skills as a traditional Peruvian dancer. I add that qualification to my previously seen Samba, Tango, and Inca dance skills. I leave it to you to judge which I am best at (see below).
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Then back to the hut before lock down (it gets dark at 6) and dinner.
WE MAY HAVE OVERCOOKED IT......
To say that three nights was one (or three) nights too many to book to be staying on an ACTUAL floating island, as opposed to staying in town and VISITING a floating island is to fail to appreciate how funny it actually was and how much we enjoyed it. We we were paying almost double the cost of a really decent hotel in Puno to stay in a damp, chilly hut (old school gas heater, partly broken, supplied) sleeping under no less than FOUR big thick (and uncertainly clean) duvets.
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Joking aside it was really interesting. Carlos, who spoke excellent English, has lived in the 'community' since birth. Each family has an island. The islands need constant maintenance, new reeds are added every two weeks. They grow some food in their gardens, they barter, they help each other. In my personal opinion they do bugger all most of the time, can't even be bothered to tidy their own island ( and at £80 a night you'd think they might), but hey ho.
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Carlos's sons will one day build their own island by waiting for heavy rains which cause sections of the reed bed to tear off from the lake bottom and float like an iceberg. First to spot one has first dibs on it. Plant a flag, tow it in, anchor it, place layers of cut reeds on it like a thatch, and build a hut - bingo! Job done! Put it on Bookings.com and they will come. We did.
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We did not have the heart to post an honest review to challenge the hitherto amazing reviews Carlos has garnered, lord knows how or from whom. Who cares, we enjoyed it!! Absolutely priceless experience!
So off on a long 24 hour hop back to civilisation in Brazil, via a couple of hours enjoying Puno (watched a local wedding and had a spot of lunch), 2 hours in a cab to some out of the way airport where amazingly I was served the only decent beer I have enjoyed in South America. How on earth wouold they have Old Speckled Hen and London Pride??????????? I mean why??????? No matter.
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Another 3-4 hours to get to Lima, a 4 hour layover. A 6 hour flight to Rio, a 3 hour drive to Buzios, and a very tired driver and co-driver finally flopped into the room in heaven.............................
