Machu Picchu

A visit to Machu Picchu was a must. It is the most visited tourist destination in South America and so just like all the other thousands of tourists it was an essential part of our holiday in Peru. Rather than trekking the arduous 4-day Inca trail into Machu Picchu we opted for a relaxing evening in Aguas Calientes, a night in a comfy hotel and an early morning bus up to the site. 

The weather was good to us and the clouds cleared soon after we arrived at 7am. This is the down season in Peru, and so although there were over 20 buses waiting to transport people up to Machu Picchu, there was no queuing and as we set off across the terraces instead of up them like most other people, it really wasn't crowded at all.

This picture shows the winding route taken by the bus on the left and the incredible location of the ruins of Machu Picchu

It was surprisingly tricky to navigate our way around the ruins, deciding which was a grain store, a royal house, a temple, prison or bathroom.

Impressed by the walls. No mortar was used in Inca walls, instead all the blocks were chiselled to fit nicely together.

The ruins are interesting but no more so than many British castles. It is the location that makes Machu Picchu so awesome. One of the greatest pleasures of the visit was simply pausing to appreciate the surrounding scenery.

There are still a few inhabitants. We saw this rabbit-like creature scampering about the place. 

A steep ascent up an adjacent mountain to Machu Picchu from within the site led us to the lesser ruins of Wayna Picchu. They lend fantastic views over Machu Picchu (the top photo was taken from here).  We left our older generation behind for this sweaty, breathless hike up at least a thousand Inca steps, through a tunnel, up a rickety ladder and Inca terraces to a pile of rocks at the top covered with a smattering of tired but exhilirated tourists. 

At the top of Wayna Picchu

There was an alternative option for the route back down to Machu Picchu, signed 'Great Cave'. We thought this sounded interesting and so set off. An hour later we were still descending steeply down the wrong side of the mountain. There was a surprisingly present risk factor considering we were in such a prime tourist location (although we seemed to have left them all behind on the main path). We were presented with a couple of enormous ladders to climb down with pretty sheer drops beneath. 

As we were on the point of giving up and facing the prospect of climbing all the way back up to the top we stumbled upon our great cave. There were some nicely made Inca walls inside the cave but the best thing about it was the slightly less punishing path back around the mountain to Machu Picchu. We arrived back drenched after a downpour in the last 10 minutes of our hike to find the others enjoying coffee and sandwiches (which for the record they had also saved for us) in the cafe.

Another lovely train ride

The train journey from Cusco to Machu Picchu is a bit over priced by local standards ($48 each way) but is well worth it for a relaxed four hours travelling through some spectacular scenery and ending up in Aguas Calientes, a tourist village below Machu Picchu with no road connections.

The big old diesel engine is well polished.
To climb the hills out of Cusco the line has five switch backs where the train changes direction.
Once out of the city the train follows deep valleys beside fast-flowing rivers with a back drop of snow-capped mountains, passing through rural villages and colourfully dressed locals with donkeys or sheep. None of which come out as well on photos.

All in all a lovely way to travel.

Coffee in the Peruvian Andes

Coffee tasting at Quillabamba

This is a bit lengthy. I thought we had an unforgettable couple of days and it is difficult to do them justice.

My first job after university had the bizarre title of 'coffee trainee'. It turned out to be fascinating. Coffee is a bit like wine - aroma, acidity, body, flavour, aftertaste. Chocolate, nuts and berries are all recognisable flavours. Specific origins and types of coffee fetch a premium. Small farmers organised into cooperatives and exporting high quality coffee directly to Europe, North America and Japan through Fairtrade have been very successful in improving their position and their communities as well as protecting the environment. None more so than Cocla, a coffee cooperative about 6 hours north of Cusco in Peru. I had always wanted to visit them but never did during my time working for Twin. There are over 7500 farmers in the cooperative. We arranged to make the trip through Cocla's tourism project. Unfortunately Lynne was ill on the day we set off, so she and Simon stayed behind and we met up with them a couple of days later to go to Machu Picchu.

The road to Quillabamba

It was a great couple of days and one of the highlights of my trip so far. The journey through the mountains from Cusco to the town of Quillabamba was stunning - winding through mountains, through a snowy pass and dropping down thousands of metres to a steamy valley. The first few hours of the road are now paved but the last few hours are not, making it a bumpy, sticky ride. Many times there are sheer drops into raging rivers below and I think we all preferred to look the other way. After hours of travelling on what seemed to be a pretty remote road to us, it was amazing to arrive in the fairly big, bustling town of Quillabamba. Mum and Dad's first ride in a local mototaxi.

After a banana milkshake and no lunch we were good to go with our first activity - coffee tasting. I really enjoyed myself, I had forgotten that it can be quite therapeutic. Dad spluttered his way through and mum passed on it and opted to take photos instead. I was pleased to pick out my favourite coffee in the tasting - Cafedirect's Machu Picchu, which is supplied by the coffee farmers in the cooperative. 

The local cooperative shop

The caffeine hit was a welcome pick up as after a tour of the milling and coffee store (which mum and dad being farmers probably engaged in more than the average tourists) we went to a shop run by the cooperative in town. They are producing and selling locally coffee, cocoa, honey and coffee and chocolate liquors. They are basically looking at everything that is produced by the farmers and at how they can add value to it. The cocoa griding and chocolate making facilities and equipment for making the liquors have been funded through the Fairtrade premium. 

Next we went to a women's cooperative who have learnt to make bread and pastries and are selling them in town and in their local villages along with coffee and honey. It sounds simple but it's making a big difference to their lives. We had a fantastic couple of hours speaking to the lady who headed it up. Their training had been funded by the Fairtrade premium, again through Cocla. Her and her husband farm six hours away by communal taxi (service twice a week) followed by a two hour walk. Their little village had just been connected to electricity for the first time in December last year. She described how it had changed her life - no longer stumbling around in the dark with just a candle to prepare everyone's breakfast from 4am. 

The day had been pretty exhausting but very inspiring. We stayed with a local family in the town. As we headed out for a meal in the evening there was not another tourist in sight, just lots of friendly locals - quite a contrast from Cusco.

The next day, we were off early on dirt tracks into the beautiful mountains to visit a local coffee farmer and his family. We crossed a rickety wooden bridge scrambled up steep little tracks between coffee and banana plants and arrived at their home - modest but lovely. We were their first foreign visitors and they were very proud to show us around. We spent a delightful couple of hours with them, they served us fresh trout from a pool diverted from a stream on their farm, roasted us green coffee beans in a pan over a fire and showed us their family food supply of guinea pigs (around 100 of varying ages running around the kitchen and in cages). Bar oil, rice and sugar, they are pretty much self-sufficient.

An amusing aside: the trout pool that mum nearly landed in when she slipped and slid down past the banana plants like she was on a ski slope, stopping just short of the water to everyone's amusement (and slight disappointment that the trouts' visitor didn't quite arrive).

Their 15-year old son, Kevin, was a football fanatic and it turned out, somehow or another, knew about English football back to the 1970s. He had a good time giving Dad a run for his money on football trivia. Mum promised to get him a Liverpool shirt to send over.

They are organic farmers and in a setting like this, the need to produce food and make a living in a way which is in harmony with the ecosystem, could not be more apparent. I think it made us all think about farming in the UK. 

From Quillabamba, rather than returning to Cusco to travel to Machu Picchu, we were to take the 'alternative' route. This involved an incredible journey with a lovely taxi driver through the mountains on tracks with drops down to the side of over 1000 metres (the usual route was closed due to landslides so we had to make this beautiful diversion). We then took a train for around an hour from a village called Santa Teresa to Aguas Calientes (town at the foot of the mountain up to Machu Picchu). After a couple of days of chatting to wonderful local people, peace and incredible views, we suddenly found ourselves crammed in a train carriage with lots of smelly, disgruntled backpackers. They had walked an 'alternative' Inca Trail or were looking for a cheaper route in to Machu Picchu than the $100 round trip from Cusco and were appalled that they had to pay $8 on this train and were in a separate carriage from the locals - who after years of battling over tourists filling up all the places on the trains, have been given separate carriages to travel on and a cheaper rate - fair enough I think. Unfortunately, it was a plonk back down to earth to be in the vicinity once more of some of our fellow travellers, I felt quite ashamed of them. 

A furore outside the train caused by a change in the ticketing system

I would really recommend heading to Quillabamba if you're in Cusco and feeling adventurous. There are lots of amazing walks, Inca trails and Inca ruins in this region, their are hardly any tourists and the people we met were lovely and inspiring.

Cusco

Overlooking Cusco 

We got up horribly early to catch two separate flights both leaving at around 5.30 from Lima to Cusco. We set off on time leaving my mum and Sue and Dennis to catch their delayed flight.  As we got near to Cusco in thick cloud, I half woke up to the engines roaring and the pilot announcing that if weather conditions didn’t improve, we would return to Lima as he couldn’t make contact with the airport to land.  Fortunately after a bit of circling we landed in the rain without incident.

As we were nearly an hour ahead of the others we jumped in a taxi to a hostel which we had reserved upon the recommendation of a scruffy Welshman who was going through a tricky patch with his Peruvian wife and currently living in the hostel where we stayed in Lima. Cusco is at 3,330 metres above sea level and as we trudged up steep allies through the rain to the hostel which cars cannot reach, we could tell the air was a lot thinner. The hostel, though not appalling, had ladders to the rooms, shared bathrooms, many cats and an overemphasis on alternative therapies. Our own therapy was to leave our backpacks there while we went to find a nicer hostel. After a bit of running around we found the perfect place, got ourselves booked in and conveniently bumped into a taxi load of parents who had had a completely seamless journey; even the rain had stopped by this point. 

The rain never came back and we had a great time (debilitating sickness aside) exploring cobbled streets lined with magnificent Inca walls, fine colonial architecture and endless, vibrant craft and alpaca wool shops.An Inca wall where tourists can always be found having their photos taken. One of the rocks has twelve corners which apparently makes it very special, it also features in the design on Cusquena beer bottles. 

An evening stroll panting our way uphill to a lovely view point over Cusco.

Due to health concerns, our eating options were limited (any more veg with tripe or raw fish were out) but luckily we found a German restaurant supplied by its own dairy and run by a nice man who took a special shine to Sue. He recommended she drink ‘happiness tea’ and eat plain food, which she then did for the rest of the holiday. We’re not sure what was in the happiness tea but it seemed to do the trick and Sue has bought a special mug (area for herbs at the top) to try and recreate the experience back home.  I was very impressed by the option of hot milk with honey for 60p per half litre.

There are lots of lovely places overlooking the main square to enjoy a coffee or hot chocolate.

The scale of tourism in Cusco is quite unlike anything we have experienced thus far on our travels.  You cannot walk 5 metres in the centre without being offered a painting, a woolly hat, a massage or the opportunity to take a photo of a child in traditional dress with an alpaca (small llama). In the mornings an endless stream of modern tourist buses whisks people off into the hills on trips to the Sacred Valley of the Incas or to Machu Picchu. Despite all this, Cusco retains a certain charm and we like it.

General Malaise

 Ill health caused by a South American version of Delhi belly has struck down all of our visitors so far at one point or another. In fact only Simon’s dad has survived his trip without the need for a course of antibiotics.

On this trip everyone missed out on a day’s adventuring at some point or another due to the fear of going more than five minutes without access to a toilet. Dad’s case, at least to begin with, was somewhat different. We found it difficult to pinpoint his symptoms, there were so many, until we tracked down some Sorojchi pills in Cusco. Taken to prevent altitude sickness, suggested symptoms included ‘general malaise’. This seemed to fit the bill perfectly and after a few hours on them he had perked up no end, leading mum to suggest that perhaps he should buy a large supply to bring back to England.Perked up

Other moments of general malaise

We're back on the blog

We’ve had a great couple of weeks with parents, Sue, Dennis and Lynne in Peru. Starting off in Lima, we’ve been to the beach and then up into the mountains. Dodgy stomachs aside, we all had a fantastic time. They headed home a couple of days ago and we set off around the enormous Lake Titicaca to Bolivia.
It’s been a few weeks since we’ve updated the blog, we’ve been busy, but we’ll hopefully get up to date in the next few days. We’ve started off with a few new entries below.

Lima

After our banana work visit in southern Ecuador and finishing off all the writing up in northern Peru, we got on a supposedly luxury overnight bus to Lima. After battling through the night with our bus hostess (who in fairness served us tasty chicken and rice, hot drinks and breakfast whilst on the move) to turn the air conditioning on, we finally arrived in Lima. It was far better than I had remembered it, since February is about the only month when the capital city is free from a grey sea mist.

Lima is a huge, sprawling city with dramatic cliffs dropping down to the Pacific in the fancier part of town, Miraflores. The local authorities have done a great job of making the whole cliff tops into a public space, starting with a lovely tribute to lovers, the Parque del Amor, and followed by one long park with bike tracks, jogging routes and a skate park. This is flanked by very modern, exclusive apartment blocks. We spent a couple of days in this area, cooking for ourselves at the hostel, which has a novelty value these days (pancakes on Shrove Tuesday) and jogging along the cliff tops.

We set off to the airport on local buses to meet our parents and the contrast was striking as we drove through miles of poor housing and shanty towns perched precariously on desert-like hillsides.

As we awaited mum, dad and Lynne to walk through arrivals, Simon was tasked with finding us a bargain taxi. He returned just before they came through, having seemingly located a people carrier for half the price of anything else. It was fantastic to see everyone and after an initial reunion we welcomed them to Lima by marching them out of the airport after Simon’s taxi contact for a quarter of a mile past all the swanky taxis to a dilapidated estate car. Four of us crammed in the back and Dad in the front with his knees touching his chin. As we dropped down the cliff road towards Miraflores the car was making loud banging noises. It was all part of the fun which they were to learn as squeezing all five of us into little taxis became the norm for their holiday.

We enjoyed exploring Lima, it was sunny and warm and we had some delicious food overlooking the sea. Although they were a bit alarmed by their first Peruvian £1.50 meal deal which included mixed vegetables and tripe (mum was aghast that she had chosen this over a vegetable omelette option which Simon and I enjoyed).

Hitting the beach at Cerro Azul

Most of the beaches south of Lima are privately owned by apartment complexes frequented by wealthy Limeños at the weekends, but we got a great tip from a Peruvian friend about a little town where this hasn’t happened around 70 miles south of Lima.

We spent a few days in a lovely apartment with a much used hammock relaxing by the sea.The setting was so different to Europe with desert stretching as far as we could see around an enormous bay. We saw dolphins each evening from a rickety but charming pier, full of locals with single lines dangled into the sea to catch small fish.

Our families sampled with trepidation their first (and last) ceviche (fish marinated in lime, chile and onion). Mum and I had a lovely encounter with locals at a fruit trailer as we tasted local fruits and bought a few bits (including delicious fresh figs) as they quizzed us on England and what they deemed to be our astronomically high minimum wage. My standard beginning to many sentences in Spanish throughout the holiday was ‘my mum says…’ as she was so keen to chat to everyone and doesn’t speak any Spanish.

All but dad ventured into the sea for a surprisingly bracing paddle – comparable to the English North Sea in the summer. We didn’t go far out as the waves were crashing down and dominated by surfers and body borders. We climbed up a cliff on the last evening to see a lovely sunset.
Having missed anything impressive over carnival, we were pleased to see that there was to be a local dance-off featuring Peruvian folk dancers from all over the country taking place one afternoon. The dances were really colourful and energetic. The poor people had to jump around for nine minutes in the hot afternoon sun, several of them dressed in bull costumes. One group included a live goat while another featured an impressive dancing five year old, who only wilted in the last few minutes.

Having taken a private minibus to the beach, we all returned by our normal mode of transport – the local bus. Mum and Dad had the front seats so were in prime position to enjoy how Peruvian drivers take on a traffic jam. A single line of standstill traffic becomes four lines of traffic whenever vaguely possible, weaving along the dusty verges in amongst pedestrians, sign posts, food stalls and oncoming traffic.

The biggest fountain park in the world!

On our final night in Lima before flying off to Cusco we decided to explore the historic old town and on the way see one of Lima’s biggest parks, which we knew to have some kind of water display. The park was packed with locals and once we had paid our £1 entry fee and received a map of the fountains it became clear this was one of Lima’s premium attractions though it is not mentioned in any of the guide books. A notice told us that this was in fact officially the largest collection of fountains in the world. Some of the best fountains were highly interactive - families could run in and out of jets of water and there were even changing rooms for sorting out drenched children. If I had been a few years younger I would have undoubtedly been one of the most sodden.
As night fell, the fountains looked even more spectacular. The jets that created a tunnel for us to walk through were lit in a lovely red light. The highest fountain, at sixty metres, had multi-coloured lasers shining through it.
The fountain park was a lovely surprise and we enjoyed a great couple of hours wandering around with all the locals and gazing at the fountains. From there we headed into the old town which has some nice churches, buildings, squares and pedestrian walkways which were similarly chock-a-block with Peruvians out for a Sunday evening stroll.