Jason Harley's Corner of the Web

Met up with Greg and Julia again which was refreshing to have friendly faces to talk to after the last few days experience. It turns out that they had been having similar Peruvian experiences to our Bolivian ones, unfortunatley being mugged in the street (Greg got everything back) and having things stolen out their bags in Arequipa.

On their advice we booked a trip to the Reed Islands on Lake Titicaca were local people basically live on a floating mats of river reeds. The floor actually moves below you as you walk or rather run away from the kids trying to sell you pictures they have coloured in at school. The Islands are really floating tourist shops and of the 40 islands, 20 work with tourists and the other 20 remain untouched. Sad that the purpose of living off the mainland is suppose to be freedom for the people, however the dependance on the tourist dollar is evident.

Puno to Cusco 27th June 2004

Although Puno was more modern than many of the places we had stayed in Bolivia, we had heard great things about Cusco so got a 12 hour bus on towards the Inka Capital.

The advantage of the Inka Express was that it stopped at several important Inka sites rather than rushing past them wondering what they are on the local bus. Raqchi, for instance is the biggest of the Inka Temples and St Peters Church (known as the Cistine Chapel of South America) 1 hour outside Cusco is on a par in its art work and gold decoration.

Cusco 27th June - 1st July

Cusco is stunning, very pretty, it is the base for many tourists undertaking the Inka Trail or visiting Machu Picchu. Therefore it has a non-peruvian feel as the resturants are aimed towards the gringo market. However despite the obvious drawbacks of being somewhere over-ran by tourists the chance to have some good normal food in an Irish bar was not to be missed.

The hostal Zoe sorted out is the best one we have stayed in so far Ninos Hotel (www.ninoshotel.com) is a charity aiming to help peruvian street kids. 15% of rent goes to upkeep an after school club were the kids get help with their homework, activities and a hot meal. Only kids whose parents cannot afford to feed them can access the service. The hostel is top class and all the kids know what is going on so want to say hello to the tourists who are `sponsoring` them.

The Inka Trail (or Trial depending on your point of view) 2nd - 5th July 2004

Day 1 - Inka Trail

Up at 4.45am to be picked up at 5.30am the 4 of us sat there like lemons until we got picked up at 8.30am. Part of Peruvian life is a lack of basic communication skills so our agency had forgot to tell us that the pick up time had been put back. Continuing to work to the Latin Clock we eventually started walking at 11.30am the 82km point - the official start of the Inka Trail.

There were 11 in the party and apart from the 4 of us, Neil from Scotland, Tom from Wales, Ben and Flor from Essex, Genevieve from Canada and some self centered posh bird and her boyfriend. Melissa was our guide and she proved to be fantastic.

By 5 pm we had made it to camp 1 and our tents were erected and dinner was waiting all sorted out by our porters who were fantastic. Aged 18 to 66 they had the strength of ox´s and the stamina of marathon runners and they raced past us with loads of upto 20kg. It had rained all day so leaky tents and wet clothes added to our enthusiasm of walking.

Day 2 - Inka Trail

The plan today was to undertake a hard but short day, getting upto the first pass of 4200m for just after lunch. We had a 7am start in the rain to make a rapid accent. Our porters again, the most amazing people, ran ahead to ensure we got the best camp site. However, we had problems in the coming.

Rain at 3000m is snow at 4200m and while this is the dry season, Cusco had experienced its worse weather in 15 years as the snow had reached the town a few days past. Therefore when our porters had got to within 200m of the pass the snow was 3 ft deep and they had to back track. Running past us shouting ´No Passe?we had to make a decision about whether we could carry on or not. Melissa earned her pay and decided that we should abort the accent (about 800m from the top) and retrace our steps back to 88Km and take the lower Inka Trail. This meant a full days walking and an additional 14Kms. All the groups had to do the same so our porters rushed to the smaller lower camp site to ensure we got tent space and cooking facilities. The 1st pass remained closed for 3 days so we made the right choice.

Day 3 - Inka Trail

We had to get back onto the original track so 7 hours walking mostly uphill was required. Zoe´s legs started to give up and the group walked ahead as she managed at a slower pace. We made it to Winay Wayna at 3pm with Zoe in considerable pain but the 3rd campsite had hot showers to ease the muscles and a small bar to ease the pain further. Everyone was suffering, Julia with blisters and most others with aches and twinges.

Day 4 - Inka Trail

The highlight of the trip is seeing the sun rise through the Sun Gate over Machu Picchu so a 5.30am start for a final 1 and 1/2 hours walk, some of it up 70 degree steps. Either these Inka´s did not want their town to be found or they did not understand the word ´Flat? Zoe made good progress coming in only 15 minutes behind the main group but was unable to do much of the walk around the ruins when we made it down to the main site. It is truly stunning although only 500 years old it is very interesting. Well worth the hike although a day trip via bus might have been a better option. The train back to Cusco and it was straight to bed covered with ´Deep Heat?

Cusco continued 6th July 2004

We arranged to meet the Inka Group in the Irish Pub to celebrate our completion so after each borrowing a spare pair of legs from the hostal reception. In addition, the 3 Irish Lads from the Amazon boat, Sid, Lenny and Paul also turned up as they were in Cusco meeting friends.

Arequipa 7th - 10th July 2004

A short flight (35mins) from Cusco saved us 12 hours on a bus we ended up in Peru´s second city which is home to 4 million people and Group C of Copa America 2004 (click the picture above for the link) which included Brazil and Chile so after spending most of the day in bed we spend the next day exploring the Santa Catalina Convent (www.santacatalina.org.pe/) which until 1970 had been closed to the outside world for nearly 400 years.

We met up with Tom from the Inka Trail and headed for the football match as we´d got tickets for Costa Rica vs Paraguay and Brazil vs Chile in the Copa America 2004.

The stadium had been built especially and had a full 45000 spectators. Overall both matches were boring, Costa Rica deserved to win the first but fell foul to a dodgy penalty on 87 minutes. As for Brazil, the give the big stars a holiday and basically are using the competition as warm up for their Olympic squad so the biggest names were Arsenal´s Edu and Roma´s Manchini. Chile had a good penalty rules out and missed the retake and Brazil luckily got a 91st minute winner.

So 1-0 for both matches which was obviously good enough for an excuse to go out and celebrate so we had arranged to meet Stephano and Gerry (people we´d met in Bolivia after the peeping tom incident) and danced the night away till 2am in DeJaVu bar. They both live in North London and are great fun so hopefully friends to share the memories when we get back to the UK.

Colca Canyon 9th and 10th July 2004

An early start with hangover and overnight bag for the 4 hour drive to Chivay, where the Colca Canyon starts. It runs twice as deep as the Grand Canyon so we were not disappointed when we saw it. However, the evening was taken up by a visit to the local hot springs - bathing outside in 35C water - bliss - before a local folk show (more pan pipes).

One of the reasons people come to the Colca Canyon is to see the rare Condors. These birds have a 3m wingspan and glide effortlessly 10m from the masses of tourists taking videos.

Nasca 11th -12th July 2004

I don´t know how she does it but Zoe has got us in a hotel with a pool for less than 17 pounds a night. We took a small spotter plane over the famous Nasca lines in the morning. The Nazca area is one of the dryest in the world so the lines date from 800BC to 600AD and have been preserved by the dry desert climate (it only rains on 3-5 days a year). The lines are said to be linked to the stars or to aliens and the scale is amazing - they only were discovered in the 1920s when commercial airlines flew over them as they can´t be seen from the floor.

We had to bring everything forward by 48 hours as our plans to spend as little time in Lima as possible have been scuppered by a National Strike. We were warned that all the roads will be blocked on the 14th of July so we got to Lima on the 13th to save any delays.

Lima 13th - 15th July 2004

Everyone had warned us about Lima and with 8 million people it is one of the poorest and most dangerous cities in South America. Our hostel plans backfired but we eventually found a home-stay in the Miraflores area. This part of Lima turned out to be far nicer than we had been led to believe and this coastal part has a modern english sea-side resort feel to it, not unlike Bournmouth. However, the area with its posh resturants and cinemas will be our only insight into Lima as the Tourist Information inform of ´Peligro?(Danger) if you wonder into other suburbs.

The end of South America 15th July 2004

We are moving north, back over the equator to Central America for the next 3 months starting in Guatemala. South America has proved to be beautiful, with fantastic food and great experineces. Bolivia and Peru offered us culture and the real South America, were Argentina and Brazil gave us the passion of their tango shows, football, the Amazon and friendly people.

Will we be back some day?

Oh yes, there is so much to this continent and we have only scratched the surface.