Cusco part II

Today we headed off at 8am for our half day tour of some historic sites around Cusco, which we learnt was called Qosqo by the Inca, but the Spanish had trouble pronouncing this so they started writing is phonetically and came up with its current spelling. 

Actually, for those who are riveted by history, or imagining it from your no doubt comfortable homes, we also learnt that the term Inca is for the 'king' or 'leader' of the people (which follows blood lines like the monarchy). The people were known as Tahuantinsuyo's. Our guide pointed out that people of the Roman Empire were not all called Caesars (or perhaps he found it hard to pronounce caesarians? - Ed)

For all of that, I shall take the easy option and continue to use the term Inca when describing them to you, which may seem disrespectful, but it is also a lot less typing.

After boarding the bus Mike and Ron fell for what must be the oldest joke in modern Cusco. The guide asked; 'who wants to see the sexy woman'?

Naturally enthusiastic, but ever so diplomatic with daughters in tow, Ron and Mike confirmed that this would be an acceptable way to start the tour!

This next photo shows us arriving at SAQSAYWAMAN. Clearly the guide had mispronounced the name of the Temple of the Sun slightly, or perhaps he read it out too fast? Or just maybe, that smile on his face was telling a different story.

We spent about one hour walking around this temple, with more very impressive foundations, but the top side had again be raided by those dastardly Catholics to build more churches and monasteries at the bottom of the hill in town. Built, we were always told, by the Inca people, which is hardly surprising given that the Spanish had taken control.

It remains a shame that the Spanish destroyed so many excellent pieces of ancient architecture which have clearly stood the test of time from natural disasters etc, just not the test of mankind's behaviour! 

By the way, our guide is of the view that the Spanish found it easy to take control of Ecuador, Peru and then Bolivia and parts of Chile (Inca territory) because after the last Inca died his two sons fought over which should be the next Inca. Franciso Pissaro (from Spain) took advantage of this civil battle, probably played them off against each other while plotting to kill both, which he did. This is how they explain that only hundreds of Spaniards took control of a population of perhaps 12 million.

Looking back down on Cusco from the temple where you enjoy a complete view of the Cusco valley, with the main city centre in the foreground.

Next, we returned to town to see the Basillica and then another ancient Inca site (Koricancha), described as the centre of Cusco, which you may recall is their centre of the universe, so very important to them (but again, not to the Spanish who tore much of it down and gave the the fingers by build both a church and a monastery on top of the ruins!) 

This was taken inside Koricancha.

Some of the Inca foundations remain, presumably recognised as being excellent engineering by the Spanish, so we could see more of the incredible quality stone masonry, with consistent gaps that even Toyota would be impressed by, noting also that the Inca did not use mortar to hold stones in place. There has been little or no movement in the Inca foundations even though the area has suffered three very large earthquakes since they were mostly built (very slowly; decades).

The Basillica (cathedral), which is not in the photos on my phone sorry as none were allowed, was very impressive inside and much bigger than you expect based on impressions from the square. (this next image shows yet another church across the square with the cathedral behind me).

Religious orders typically spend enormous sums of money on their church's etc, and the Catholics seem to be the biggest spenders based on my travel experiences. Lots of gold and silver used, very detailed carvings, plenty of art works etc.

After lunch we went to the tour company ITTA who were organising our trek along the Inca trail. They lectured us, nicely, about what to expect on the trail and how to prepare (no mention of cerveza - Ed). They gave us a pack which the kind porters are willing to carry up to 10kg on our behalf, which is most of our gear. We will carry items to deal with cold or rain, photos, drinks etc.

There was a mixture of excitement and anxiety in the room with several people concerned about being tail enders. The guides said we should not worry about sore lungs, it is the whip which hits the slowest person that will hurt the most. More importantly he said 'we already have altitude, what you must bring is attitude'. So we will.

We have been out for another lovely meal, there is no shortage of good restaurants, and we are now back for final packing and sleep, until 5am! 

You will know we made it when we next reach wifi.

PS: I changed the photo to a better one from our lunch spot yesterday.

Cusco, the centre of the Inca universe

We arrived in Cusco yesterday afternoon which gave a pleasant, relaxed approach to day one, as encouraged by the guides after such a rapid change in altitude. We are now at around 11,000 feet.

The guides encouraged us to lie down for a couple of hours, but we knew better. Two friends had encouraged us to go to Jack's Cafe for great food, so we dropped our bags and headed out for what was indeed one of the better toasted sandwiches one would hope to enjoy (chicken, avocado and mushroom). Becky also had a very impressive hot chocolate, which I wouldn't mind going back for sometime.

After a little rest at the hotel, which by the way is a very impressive place, using an old monastery structure but updated fittings, bathrooms etc to deliver a very nice place to stay (even if the wifi is ridiculously slow), and then we head out to find a local bar and then search for one of the other restaurants that were recommended by our American friends from the jungle. We duly found both of them and chose one for a nice, light meal.

None of the good food spots that we have recognised so far have sales people at the door, so this will become our barometer for future choices. One can get very tired of the repetitive asking by street sales people to consider their offering. We wondered at what point is it rude to test their colloquial English by suggesting that they.... Well you get the point.

Today, as I write, is Friday and we joined a full day tour to the Sacred Valley of the Inca. The first stop felt a little too familiar initially, being a farm, with some alpacas and llamas to feed, but it became more interesting as they showed as local people dying wool solely from natural products and weaving. There wasn't a computer designing patterns nor a machine loom in sight, these ladies weave regional stories and information purely from memory of where the colours are required to be added.

I may be best to replace some photos as they slowly upload, but these ones are helpful.

Valley below us.

You could purchase such items, with notes about the weaver, the region, the wool source etc, so I did, preferring this to the more commercially produced offerings.

Speaking of which, our next stop was a market place at the bottom of the hill. If you have travelled the world it was 'Same Same, but different'. It includes some very nice items and helpful people who deserve sales, plus some uninspiring items and salespeople who are barely interested in anything more than your cash without doing more than rambling at you as you pass.

Back in the bus, then half way along the valley floor, where a very nice river runs (with a name that already escapes me) on its way to join the Amazon river, we stopped at a very pleasant spot for lunch. We have been told it is wise to eat light as low oxygen levels slow the digestive system, so we had soup, mostly vegetables.... And three pieces of light weight looking cakes for dessert!

By the way, the sun is out in Cusco, as is common we are told, and it is ideal for shorts or light trousers plus a T shirt, until the sun goes down when it falls quickly below 10 degrees Celsius.

The final stop along the valley if the most impressive and may well be worth spying on via Google Earth; Ollantaytambo, where three important valleys met and some very impressive architecture was built. 

A scene at street level, below the temple area.

Climbing toward Temple of Sun and Moon. We call it inca trail training. It seems that the good photos, looking up the terraces etc are not on my phone, so you will see them upon our return.

Some of it was built by civilisations prior to the Inca, who ruled from 900-1532, but we were told that the Inca were good at retaining good engineering and trying to improve on it.  Most of what you see is, as I said, very impressive, given how clever we think we are today 500 years later.

Many of the water races that deliver this life resource to various parts of the community still operate today.(photo to follow when it finally uploads!)

Sitting on the the temple, broken by those Catholics. 

Sadly,  what you then learn is that the dastardly Catholic Christians (Spanish origin) came along and started destroying things as part of their process of trying to wipe our previous ruling civilisations! I must apologise to Nigel (Katie's partner) at this point because Katie confirmed that you are from the Catholic side of the road. I am sure your family tree doesn't reach back to these destructive people, but I do hope you never kicked over your siblings' sand castles at the beach?

Walking our first connecting inca trail.

Actually, I owe Nigel two apologies. Whilst at the Inca site an American chap asked 'would you two like your photo together with the Temple of the Sun as a backdrop?'. Spotting an opportunity to further remove myself from being Ron's partner, or some other guy, I said 'sure, thanks' and grabbed Katie around the waist for 'our' photo! (Not on iPhone to upload, sorry).

The one hour journey back to Cusco allowed some to drift in and out of consciousness but it also showed us several rural communities and small villages, all of which show signs of eking out a living, simple structures, but nothing more. 

Regular readers will no longer be surprised to learn that Ron and I were dragged off kicking and screaming to yet another bar before dinner. This time it was Museo de Pisco (think cocktails). Pisco is a little like a white grape based rum, and thus can be mixed with almost anything according to the menu! Seen cocktails and one cerveza made for an agreeable entre and then we head to INKAZUELA for dinner, as recommended, and the recommendation was a good one, where the ladies kindly paid for dinner.

Tomorrow we have a half day tour around Cusco, which are already becoming familiar with, but I am sure they will take us to some highlights of the city's history to saving us hunting them out.

Time in the Jungle

By now readers will know that there is no junglewifi.com and almost no cellphone signal. This must be the first time since the Internet began, that I haven't been able to reach it. Marie would be pleased and, in a strange way, I am too. (We now find that Cusco wifi is of poor speed!)

As I write, offline, we are in the tropical rain forest of Peru (aka 'The Jungle' as the locals call it, removing some of the glamour. I'll bet the travel marketing folk would be disappointed). We are located in Puerto Maldonado, for those who actually have WiFi and would like a look. After searching this name, take your mouse, place it over then Madre de Dios (mother of god.... But fortunately not 'holy mother of god') river and head down stream a little. A little depends a lot on the scale of zoom on your web browser, but we are on the same side of the river as Puerto Maldonado (or we were at the time of writing), with Lago Salvado 'down river and inland' from us.

For the second, or maybe third time, in Peru, we observed half finished buildings where the lower levels were clearly finished but concrete pillars or reinforcing rods protruded above the roofline of the structures, looking rough and unfinished. we speculate that this is the objective, perhaps in response to lower taxes for incomplete properties? If so, it is a silly policy because it leaves much of the community, often second world in appearance, looking worse than it needs to. It was another example of those moments when I think; 'if I was president for a day...'

Prior to our arrival here we were well prepared with shorts, T-shirts, sunscreen and rain jackets. 'Expect 32 degrees Celsius, and rain (being a rainforest, and all). The main accommodation block plays out this rumour well with mosquito net walls and plenty of cooling fans on the ceiling. (And beer in the fridge - Ed). In reality we have had 12 DegC, plenty of wind, and no rain. Go figure.

Becky has taken to bringing an extra blanket to pre dinner drinks, Katie is often wearing all the clothes from her bag (Mum would be proud to know she alternates the layers to look like a changed wardrobe) and the wool that Ron and I thought was excess in our bags is in permanent use.

There are plenty of friendly, chatty, guests from various parts of the world who we have walked and talked with since our arrival, but several had struggled to pigeon-hole our group, generally offending me as they tried. 'So, you nice young ladies have two fathers?' (Nice!). 'So Ron is your father, and Mike is... Your Uncle?'. I am still waiting for someone to offer 'brother', or I would even accept cousin, but so far the ageing process must be more obvious than I realised.

The one good outcome is that the skin dissolving volume of DEET that we brought along, to frustrate the Mosquitos, is barely being used because the Mosquitos are tucked up in their own warm sleeping bags and aren't interested in biting humans. I wonder whether I should have visited a meteorologist before leaving rather than a travel doctor?

This lack of Mosquitos has made it very difficult for K, B and M to make fun of R's 'jungle suit' of matching trousers and shirt, let alone get photos for you all.

So what does one do in 'the jungle'?

Our guides make a real effort, through a programme of adventures, to show us the local environment. On the first night we boarded a river boat (the type many of you may have been on, so skinny that floating looks impossible, with an outboard motor) to go hunting for Caiman. We also used river boats to reach our other walks, except for the night walk around the accommodation. 

The caiman hunt was fun, but you didn't need Steve Irwin along for protection because most that we found would fit nicely in my back pack, but wildlife is always better than zoo life.

The next morning (day 2), at the highly irregular hour of 5am we were up to head to Lago (lake) Sandoval, for more wildlife hunting,seeing many bird species, a larger black caiman, a 3 toed sloth and many happy monkeys, but no otters or anaconda. We did get a good anaconda story though, involving the survival of a dog and his owner. I don't think our guide was making unreasonable excuses when he described the difficulty imposed by the low temperatures.

By midday we were back, to eat and fall asleep, before donning our walking gear again to head of to see the rainforest canopy via a sequence of swing bridges between two towers 32m high. As you might expect we all thought this was rather cool, and debated whether or not Ainsley or Marie would have happily tackled the bridges or not; do you think they wish they were here right now? We will show them the photos and ask later.

Again the volume of wildlife was low, probably as a function of the cold. Our guide tried to call them out with his cell phone by playing their bird calls from the phone. Kate whispered to me the birds are probably laughing at him, declaring that this iTune is so 2012!

However, excitingly (?) after our guide failed to coax Tarantula's out of their nests we were all pleased to find one using the accommodation at the 'hut in the trees' for those people wishing to sleep a night in the canopy (with a Tarantula - Ed). They are indeed big spiders, probably measured in kilograms rather than grams!

Our night walk was predominantly uneventful, save a few insects, and a troll that grabbed Katie's leg from a deep hole, but as with other expeditions it was good to be out in the wild.

Day 3 saw us head off on a visit to a local riverside farm. This was a great way to spend the morning and our guide got us very involved in their lifestyle, farming and trying the various products (various fruits, sugar cane, herbs and coconut). I hope this family is paid a little cash for having us traipse through their lives.

in the afternoon we went piraña fishing in a local pond, advised to just cut our finger and just stick your arm in the water! After and hour with rod, line, hook and bait we had all experienced bites but would have been quite comfortable leaping out of the boat to swim home (if the water hadn't been clay brown in colour). Late in the game our guide caught both a catfish and a piraña, which whilst it has a damaging set of teeth is more like a large goldfish than a Hollywood movie star.

As the temperatures improved, a little, we have seen more monkeys playing in the trees outside our accommodation. No walk required.

The accommodation has been very good. The food has been very good too. Well organised, helpful staff and good rooms. Electricity use is limited, loo paper is not to be flushed! (culture) the showers don't knock you over and the bar man could easily sell a few more drinks if he 'tried', but these are not criticisms, just observations, because we have had a very pleasant experience at Hacienda Concepcion (Inkaterra facility).

Speaking of a few drinks, which we have spent a reasonable period of time researching, the girls have tried two different 'Pisco' (local) drinks, Pisco Sour (the more famous, including egg white) and another with ginger ale (preferred) and we have all sampled Caiparina, Cerveza Casquena and South American red wine, all of which are happily consumed.

Our local guide, Ivan ('Evaan'), has been very good and reminds me how valuable being multi lingual is, and how important tourism is to many of the world's communities. Peru may well look like a desert from the air but we were pleased to hear that Ivan describes Peru as doing reasonably well and that the young were finding jobs.

We are now in Cusco and subject to wifi signals we will update again later.

RMKB grab a snapshot of Lima

After one of those 'travel sleeps' where the body is ready to go at 3am, but has absolutely no interest by 8am, we had breakfast on level 21 of the hotel (Estelar) before meeting our tour guide at 9am to see key aspects of Lima.

It is now 5pm and we think we have done pretty well, our brains 'over-filled' with information and, as it happens, entertainment. (Y uno cerveza -Ed)

We will need more photos (upon our return) to pad this story, but our guide, Barbara, took us past various respected city squares (such as Plaza Mayor, birth place of Lima, where some runners and musicians seemed to be preparing for activity), suburbs (rich and poor) museums and religious institutions. Ainsley, you would be proud of us, we attended church twice (on a Sunday), were well received, beatified and delivered into sainthood all before lunch. Interestingly nobody put their hand up for confession.




One of the cool aspects, at least for me, was when we visited a monastery and were presented with a local saint, Santa Rosa, whose tomb is now on site, but the items that caught my attention for the marble death bed statue of her from 1665, and then the library with its many books that were at least twice the age of modern NZ! (This photo is of us in one of the monastery gardens).




Outside this monastery there was plenty of loud brass music playing and people getting into costume for the parade that marks a week through until the celebration of Independence Day. Awesome colours and very uplifting music. More on this below.

After our double dose of religion (church and monastery) we headed off to a private museum reported to hold the greatest single collection of Peruvian and North Coast artefacts. Here we learned of the many civilisations that pre-dated the Inca, who may be a bit grumpy about the 'air time' achieved by the Inca brand, such as the Inca Trail given that some of them were around much longer, such as the Mochica 200-800AD.

Apparently all of the communities that pre-dated the Spanish Conquest did not have a written language and so all information and stories were told in art form, especially using ceramics, some of which tell very interesting stories indeed, but I will leave the story telling to your respective partners to explain!








After our tour, and a cliff top, seaside, lunch:




We headed back toward our hotel knowing that we would cross paths with the festival proper, which lived up to expectations with loud joyful music and bright coloured clothing. I was a little surprised to see that Disney comic characters such as Genie, from Aladdin, played a role in delivering Peruvian independence.












The festival is still blasting outside my window as I write. They know how to throw a big party.

We are off to find dinner shortly, if we can make it through the crowds and find restaurants that a open.

We are off to 'the jungle' tomorrow morning. I have no idea if Jungle WiFi exists, but one day we will get the messages out to you.

Beunas Tardes.

Lovelies Land in Lima

After long flight schedules from different parts of the world (London, Dunedin, Wellington) we have all arrived in Lima after 24-28 hours on the move. Ron, Mike, Katie and Becky, RMKB, which sounds a bit like RuMiKuB if you say it fast enough, are set for their adventures. I think I shall use initials in future blogs when referring to all of us.

R & M were delayed out of Auckland due to 'technical issues'. We debated whether this meant slow to refuel, re-attaching the wing or just trouble waking the pilot from his siesta. It could also have been a function of an incredibly rude man boarding the plane with his daughter in tears, who may have needed settling? We took off about 45 minutes late.

K & B came via Paris (no time for shopping), R & M via Santiago. I can't comment on Paris, but Santiago airport reminds Kiwis just how good our airports are at home with respect to clean, functioning, almost attractive facilities. Santiago airport simply gets the job done. The best way to summarise it, is that it is probably publicly owned.

The girls reached he hotel, and the bar, first, and we met them there an hour later. We are staying at the Estalar in Miraflores district for those who are keen to jump on google maps.

First impressions of the traffic are a little like Mexico. Road markings are wasted paint, but traffic flow works, with reasonably regular use of the horn to assist.

We have enjoyed a nice meal at a restaurant nearby (after rejecting a typical food hall scenario that could just as easily have been in Auckland, Sydney or London) and we are now all ready to crash for a decent sleep before heading off on our tour of Lima tomorrow.

Onboard

Safely on board and introduced to the barman (note the orange juice for me)

All set

Well, that is quite cool, even old guys can use technology. Clearly the effort to build a Blogspot was successful, as was our effort to find beer. More updates will appear as cool stuff happens.
As Ron has pointed out to his wife, technology can be corrupted from time to time, so, if any images should appear on this site with people looking like us, but unwisely surrounded by beautiful ladies, it is probably someone else's Blog crossing over with ours in the blogosphere.
M & R

Peru, here we come

OK, I hope this works, it is Saturday 20 July 2013 and I am heading for the airport to begin my travel to Peru, with good friends Ron Lewis, Katie Lewis and Becky Lewis. If this works I shall try and continue with a blog during our trip.