Erin & Regan's South American Adventure

Hola,

We decided to have a day of rest and go to the art museum. Some of the art comes from cultures pre dating the Inca by up to 1000 years or more.

A mortar and pestle

A statue

Another statue

A bottle, note the mans head with open mouth

A bottle, covered in faces

A bottle in the shape of a camel (or was it a llama)

A bracelet of seashells

Incan gold earrings, approx 10cm diameter

All in all a rather dull afternoon for me (Regan). Erin seemed to like it though.

Hola,

Just around the corner from our Hostel (called Estrellita) in Cusco we found this beekeeping shop. It had honey for sale (so of course Erin had to buy some) and it had tutorials on beekeeping and all the gear you would need.

Hola,

From Cusco we took a bus to Urubamba. From there we walked to Tarabumba (6km) thru countryside like this

At Tarabamba we turned left and crossed the Rio Urubamba over a ramshackle bridge

to a small ramshackle village at the foot of the hills upon which the Salineras salt pans reside (our first destination).  The river running down the hills shows signs of the salt.

The salt pans themselves.  They still work these to this day, a worker can be seen in a photo below.

From there we walked for an hour and a half to a village called Maras where we met a taxi driver who wanted to charge us a fortune to drive us to Moray (our next destination).  Instead we opted to walk the 5 kms... the longest 5km we have ever walked, we suspect the sign was lying.

Moray is suspected to be an Incan experimental garden, each terrace has its own micro climate for growing different crops. Erin thinks they look a bit like crop circles. When we were there the Peruvians were in the process of restoring them by hand, no power tools in sight.

This is why South America is so good at football (Soccer), they will put a field anywhere, even in the bottom of a 500 year old Incan ruin.

This was the view from Moray, not bad.

After our longer than 5km walk we decided to pay for a taxi back to the main road (where we caught a bus back to Cusco). The taxi driver was a lunatic.. it reminded me of Camerons driving.

In all we walked for 4 hours, maybe 20 kms. We were stuffed.

Hola,

While in Cusco we visited Qorikancha, a museum which is a church built on Incan foundations. The nuns still live in the white buildings you can see in a photo below.

This pool/bath was carved from a single piece of stone

Hola,

We should probably have posted these earlier, but better late than never I suppose. For those that were not there this was the night Morrison Kent celebrated Erins departure.

We went with a company called Llama Path, who focus on sustainable tourism and making sure the porters get a fair deal. Our guides were Jose (head guide) and Alex (assistant guide, in training)

Jose believes the inca trail is a spiritual journey intended for the various peoples the incas conquered. The idea being that on this journey the incas could indoctrinate those people into their religion. He believes Machu Pichu was a university of idolatry or in other words the centre for religious affairs, where the idols of the conquered peoples were taken (sort of as hostage to force them to take the journey).

Each of the major ruins on the trail have a purpose whether it be to control the flow of people using the trail, to feed the travellers, or as a place to teach spiritual things, and cleanse the body and soul (using the various sacred baths located at each site)

Day1 - An easy walk along the Incan flats (or in other words several small ups and downs.. there is no such thing as flat in these mountains)

The team at kilometer 82 the starting point for the inca trail. From left to right: Francine & Mark (UK), Gerry & Sherry (US), Michael (Ireland / US), Peter (Australia), Me & Erin (NZ) and Stephen & Rachel (UK). I apologise if I have spelt (or even got) any of your names wrong, I am terrible with names!

The first major Incan ruin, this is the snake city, notice 3 levels of terracing in a wavy pattern, this represents the snake. An important figure in Incan spiritual belief. Jose believes this was a control station as it is situated at the intersection of 4 major trails and has guard/lookout towers situated around it.

An incan burial site. The incan worshipped the mountains and buried their dead on the moutainside.

Day 2 - The killer. A 5 hour uphill to 4200 metres then 600m desent to camp. Lunch was half way up the 5 hour climb.

Breaking camp on the start of day 2.

As soon as Jose mentioned a possible side trip Erin just had to go. It was an easy walk, a 2 hour round trip that we probably could have completed in 1 hour, had we walked a little faster.

Climbing up hill, in the hot sun, at altitude is hard.. believe me.

At least part of the climb is under some nice bush.

The last part of the climb to Dead Womans Pass

The view down from the top.

We made it, finally, 4200 metres.

And now, back down the other side.. *sigh*

They have toi-toi here!

At least the views are spectacular

Day 3 - The longest day, starts with a bit of a climb, then some down, then some up, then some down, then a long incan flat, then a whole lot of down.

A waypoint for incan runners. The incas has no written language (as far as we know) but used a series of strings and knots to count supplies, people, etc. The Inca (king) used these counts to govern his people.

More spectacular views.

The second large ruin. 3 spiritual baths are present here, also an altar for sacrafice.

After lunch on the second part of the trail we spied a skink

This part of the trail includes a tunnel carved out of the rock.

The third major ruin, 5 spiritual baths and a temple in the shape of a scorpion (similar to the snake in Incan belief).

Oh look, more steps downwards.

We took *another* side trip, this time to the Incan farm land.. remember there is no such thing as flat land here, so, the Incas built some. Each terrace contains a drainage system consisting of a layer of large stones, covered by smaller stones, then sand, then the rich dark soil. These guys were very clever.

The last major ruin before Machu Pichu, this one has 11 baths and a much larger temple. Included are some photos of us instead, due to popular demand (Ross).

4th day - Up at 3:30am, a quick breakfast and then off to the checkpoint. We wanted to be the first there so we could be the first on the trail to make it to the sun gate at sunrise. All the other groups camped here had the same idea but we managed to get the drop on them all.

Unfortunately after 3 days of perfect weather day 4 decided to rain. So, no sunrise and not such a picture perfect postcard view of Machu Pichu.

Depending who you ask, this is either the sun temple, or the tomb of the Inca who built Machu Pichu. Jose believes it is both.

Some of the stone work is quite amazing. They often built with the existing rock, some say because they worshipped the rock and stone, I think maybe it was just easier.

The rain cloud did give some impressive views.

Ok, 3rd side trip. This time we climbed this crazy tall hill for a view of Machu Pichu through the clouds.

After 10am the crowds of people started to pour in .. all wearing thier plastic ponchos, in every concievable colour, available everywhere for around 2 soles.

Last side trip, this time to the Inca bridge. It appears they had to build up the side of the cliff face with square bricks before placing the bridge across the gap, incredible.

And that as they say is that. By the end I was quite sick of ruins, and walking, especially walking. Erin was still ready to take yet another side trip, 2 hours there and 2 hours back but luckily we did not have time.

One final note for all those contemplating the Inca trail, it is hard, harder than you might think, especially due to the altitude and the fact that everything is either up, or down, and neither is actually easy. Up is hard and slow. Down quickly becomes tiresome and painful on your knees.

Two of the group had to be carried by the porters most/all of the way from day 2 onward and all of our group had sore knees by the end. Erin and I had 2 walking poles each which I definately recommend, it allows you to take some of the strain off your knees.

So, if you are thinking of doing it I recommend training for it, it is far better to endure some pain training at home than to have a hard time on the trail iteself. You want the trail to be fun, not torture.

We started our day by going for a wander up to San Cristobal church, on the way there we passed some inca stone work (the ground floor of many buildings in Cusco are inca stonework). We were prohibited from taking photos of the interior of San Cristobal, and its exterior is not all that interesting.

On the way to the church we saw these interesting Inca rock walls, now part of a hostel you can stay in.

At San Cristobal there are twelve niches like this one. This wall supposedly forms the base of one wall of an Incan palace.

The local people lead llama around the place for tourists to have a photo with them, we stole this photo when they were not looking. You can see Cusco in the background.

One of the more expensive hotels in the city (we are not staying here) uses this cool looking doorway as its main entrance.

The famous 12 sided/pointed rock. This rock was the keystone of the original Incan building, it is 2 metres deep. The other stones are only 1 metre at most. 

Some interesting city works. These poles appear to be preventing the collapse of a wall/building.

The plaza near to our hostel has the faces of the mythical founders of Cusco, Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo.

An interesting fountain on one of the main avenues.

A church built on the Incan ruins called Qorikancha. We are going to see this tomorrow.

These photos were taken from a small airplane over the Nazca desert, the lines you can see are the famous Nazca lines. That little trip cost us US$55 each! but also included a night in a hostel in Nazca, and the trip to see pottery works, gold works, and the mummies.

The pottery and gold works were little more than an excuse to extract money from tourist, although the gold man spent most of his time singing his speech and replies to questions, he was at least a happy fellow.

The Astronaut

The Monkey

The Condor

The Spider

The Hummingbird

Cant recall, it has a really long zig zaggy neck you cannot see in the photo

The Hands

The Tree

Both the above, with road and truck to show scale. You can also see the massive geometric shapes in the background.

We found some ruins on the outskirts of Nazca (15mins walk from the hostel). I believe its Incan, there was a guy there who told some other tourists not to climb on the ruins, we stayed on the path like good little gringos.

The sights on the way back from the ruins. Erin - mum boganvillia grows like a weed here! The monkey was a pet in someones back yard. The river is all dried up.. its a desert after all. The second driest in the world, we think.

On our return from the Nazca lines we had a little excitement, the police were forcing cars off the road and took our taxi drivers licenses..  (Regan was freaking out at this point, Erin was much more relaxed) he kindly dropped us back at our hostel via the back roads, including driving across the river as shown in the photo. We found out later there was a race, I hope he got his licenses back.

The view from our hostel in Nazca

A mummy in its tomb. Apparently grave robbers dug these guys up, took all the gold and left them on the surface, so theyre not so well preserved.

These are the shelters over the tombs. They dont need anything else because it never rains.

These next three were ones the archaeologists dug up in 2000 (perhaps) when they opened 50 tombs, these guys get their own display cases.

The mummy of a baby.

Pottery, buried with the mummies.

An adult.

This oven is in a restraunt in Cusco, we had dinner here last night.

It rained a little in Cusco. We joined all the tourists and took a photo of the rainbow over one of the many churches here.

We will update you all after the trek to Macchu Pichu.

Hola,

We successfully bought 2 tickets to Ica, and then caught a taxi to Huacachina (an oasis in the desert). (see photo, taken from the top of a huge dune which took forever to walk up and was hot and dry and sandy! (and Regan complained the whole way))

We stayed in Hostel Rocha a family run hostel with pet cats, and parrots, one which was obsessed with the football and chased small children, odd. The only problem was that they decided to party until all hours, strangely it was Erin who managed to sleep.

That afternoon we went on a dune buggy tour, which is where they try to scare the crap out of you by driving over really steep dunes, unexpectedly, it was great. We also went sand boarding, which was so much fun we took no photos at all, ha ha ha, except to show the amount of sand which was trapped inside Regans pants! He mentioned it so many times we had to take a photo - hope you appreciate how much sand was in his pants (E).

After a sleepless night (for Regan!) it was on to Nasca...

Hola,

From Pisco we booked a tour to Islas Ballestas and the Paracas National Park.

The bus picked us up from the Plaza de Armas in Pisco, dodgy looking thing, the seat in front of me (Regan) was broken and the passenger was basically leaning on me for the whole trip (25 mins).

We finally arrived at the docks, and got into the dodgiest looking speed boat of the lot. The passengers just all piled in and the thing had such a lean I didnt think it would survive the first wave. Luckily they realised this also and re-arranged the passengers.

On the way to the islands we were lucky enough to spot some dolphins, apparently you dont see them every day. We also stopped to see "la Candelabra" a carving in the rock face of a cliff which is more than 160 metres tall, 70 metres wide and 60 centimetres deep. (see photo)

From there we went to the Islas Ballestas, we were accompanied by a long line of birds (kilometres perhaps, see photo) they flew mostly in a straight line but every so often flew in spirals and such to avoid waves.

At the islands we saw many, many, many, many, many birds. So many in fact that every 4-5 years they make a special trip to harvest the guano which is used in french cosmetics. (see photos)

Also present were sea lions, star fish, crabs, rock spiders, and other marine life. (see photos) The rock of the island also forms a number of shapes, the best of which (IMO) is the face (see photo).

After returning to the dock, we waited for an hour or so (probably so we would buy things) and then took another bus (better than the first) to the Paracas National park where we visited a small museum and walked out to see the flamingos (which had all migrated).

Next, on to "la Catedral" a natural rock formation. We walked along the beach (which had lizards on it! see photo) to see the cave inside and then back up and around to view it from a platform (see photos).

Erin decided to ride "on" the bus, Regan (sensibly) stayed inside the bus (while freaking out and really wishing Erin would get back in side the bus but knowing he had no chance in hell of convincing her to do so. BTW it was only about 300m for the mothers that are freaking out about now - Erin). (see photo)

There are 3 shapes present in the rock formation, to the top right is the incan woman with her hat and poncho. To the left is the shape of an elephant, and above and to the right of the elephant is a face (not as good as on ballestas, IMO)

From there, to lunch at Lagunillas the most expensive place ever, possibly because only tourists come here, starved from a long day touring, and they wont let you go for an hour. Anyway, we had the chips (10 soles!) and then went for a walk. The pelicans which are about the right height to take off your nuts, walk freely around the township (which actually consists of 4-5 restaurants and nothing else).. the dogs steer clear of them. (see photo)

At last they took us home. That night we had our Pisco sour (well deserved) at a restaurant we were hustled into (that´s another thing they do here, they have people, usually young girls, out on the streets with menus trying to get you to eat at their place .. however in this case it was a "cool" very persistent guy). That night was the same night Erin got to know "el baño".. not good :(

Tomorrow, to Huacachina!

Hola,

Upon arriving in Pisco we checked into the Hostal Belen (see in photo) they charged a somewhat exhorbitant price of 35 soles per night (around NZ$26). Notice the cool little tuk-tuk taxi thing in the foreground, these are absolutely everywhere.

Here in SA they seem to have replaced indicators with the horn, they also use the horn to signal they are coming, when it looks like youre about to step out in front of them (a good thing) or, it is a signal to ask if you want a ride. When in a taxi, the road rules are not apparent, they change lanes darting in front of traffic (both oncoming and otherwise) and sometimes randomly stop abruptly to allow pedestrians (or other bigger cars) to go.

Two more photos, this time of the old church (the yellowish building) and another cool looking one, we think is a church also, painted with blue and white stripes.

On our first day here we went to the candelabra, ballestas islands and Paracas national park...

After a shaky start were here! The first hurdle was leaving NZ - one cancelled flight due to Wellingtons fantastic weather threw the whole airport into turmoil. Through good luck we were rebooked on an Air NZ flight and made it to Auckland in time for our flight to Santiago. We were fortunate to be able to spend a few extra hours with Regans parents.

The flight to Santiago was pretty uneventful except a wheat free meal for Erin did not eventuate. We waited for 8 hours in Santiago which was especially long for Regan as he couldnt sleep on the plane.

The flight to Lima was much shorter at 3 hours but Erin was still hungry because there was yet again no special meal :-( (Good for the waistline though!)

We got through customs and managed to find our bags after a bit of a trepidatious wait only to search fruitlessly for a sign with our name on it. Tambo Pacaya did not come through for us. So Erin rang to find out what had happened. Regan was glad Erin had spent all those boring hours learning Spanish. Erin found out how much and what type of taxi to get. We asked a security guard to help us which stopped us being hounded by other taxi drivers.

The taxi driver then proceeded to tell us how dangerous the area was as we got further and further away from civilisation. The houses all looked like compounds with razor wire surrounding them and big metal gates. We were both hoping we were actually going to the hostel....

After asking for directions the taxi driver finally dropped us off. The hostel owner was very friendly and helpful (somewhat of a relief). We found our room and then got into bed. We were both so wired that it took a good half hour to go to sleep.

This morning we met two nice Croatian girls at the hostel who are at the end of their trip. They thoroughly recommended Colombia so we are thinking hard about our plans.

This morning we went shopping which will be much easier when we know how much things should cost. They see us and the price magically increases!

We are very keen to learn more Spanish asap.

We are now in Pisco and about to go and get some dinner and a Pisco sour.

More updates and hopefully some photos soon.