Machu Picchu

Let's be honest, I am not fond of walking if I don't have to, so the idea of doing a 4-day hike to Machu Picchu when I could get a train in 3-hours seemed barmy. Thankfully Paul agreed, so we chose to get the train and exert ourselves while there by climbing Machu Picchu mountain.

We got a minibus to Ollantaytambo in the Sacred Valley, so the train to Machu Picchu was slightly cheaper than from Cusco.  While waiting for our train, we had some lunch and were joined by a couple of very cute local kids who first played with our salt shaker and napkin holder, then started stroking Paul's beard and finally picked Paul's phone up off the table and argued over who got to play Angry Birds!

The station at Ollantaytambo is pretty cool in that the tracks are level with the platform, so all the tourists can have their pictures taken right next to the train!

The train itself had windows in the roof so you could see more of the awesome scenery.

The final destination is Aguas Calientes from where you can either hike or get the bus to Machu Picchu. We were up early the next morning to get the bus (obv).

It really is incredible.  We spent a lot of time just staring at the ruins and marvelling about how and why the settlement was built there.  And cos we were on our own and not with a tour group, we got to spend as much time as we wanted wandering around, exploring every little bit.  

When we first got there, a group had just arrived at the end of their trek and were celebrating - at that moment I did feel a bit of a pang that we hadn't trekked, but after we embarked upon our climb of the mountain, that all faded away!

The peak in the fifth picture above is Huayna Picchu; only 400 people are allowed up it each day and we missed out, so we climbed Cerro Machu Picchu, which is opposite....and higher!  The ascent is stepped but steep, so it was straightforward but exhausting.  

As we climbed, the view kept getting better and better, which was good motivation to keep going.

Unfortunately, Paul chose that day to show me his new trick:

So by the time we got to the top, we couldn't see a thing for clouds!

Fortunately, by the time we'd eaten our lunch, the clouds had dispersed and we were finally rewarded with this view of Machu Picchu and Aguas Calientes on the right (Huayna Picchu looks tiny!):

After hiking back down, we went to see an Inca bridge, a walk which involved trying not to fall off the edge of a sheer cliff (the bridge is over the gap in the wall in the centre of the picture).

We made up for getting the train (even more!) by walking down to Aguas Calientes instead of getting the bus - a 45-minute descent down very steep steps that really punished our knees!  So much so, we treated ourselves to massages the next day before getting the train back to Cusco.

Our return train carriage was more spectacular than the inward train (even though they were both supposed to be the same i.e. spectacular), with bigger windows and a posh snack (pizza) served on proper crockery with real cutlery.

There was also entertainment in the form of this traditional character who danced around with passengers (haven't worked out what he was meant to be yet).

And then there was a rather bizarre fashion show, whereby the staff who'd just served us our snacks, and some randomly selected passengers, strutted up and down the carriage modelling clothing which they then tried to sell us!  It was highly entertaining and what Virgin Pendolino trains are missing.

Cusco

In Cusco, we stayed at a popular overlander campsite called Quinta Lala.  It was nice to have home comforts such as wifi, hot showers and even a kitchen, plus electricity so we could hook the van up.  We also saw the Dutch couple we'd met in Copacabana, an Irish couple who'd been on the road for a few years and their friends who'd hired a camper to travel with them around Peru.

Cusco itself was a little like La Paz in that it's built in to a valley and up the hillside, so there are lots of steep streets (including one we had to reverse back down after not making it to the top!) but also stunning views.  

Oddly, the combination of colonial buildings and tourists reminded me of Edinburgh.  We got our first proper look at Inca stonework in Cusco at Qorichanka, a former Inca temple that's now part of a church.  It was amazingly perfect (the stones fit together without the need for mortar) and a little taster of what to expect in Machu Picchu.

Also in Cusco, we caved in to Christmas and had Xmas coffees at Starbucks!  

Criminal, I know, but we are missing all the Christmas cheer!  The view from the balcony of the central square and cathedral helped ease the guilt.

Uros - Lake Titicaca's floating reed islands

From Puno, we went on another jaunt on Lake Titicaca, this time to visit a community that lives on floating islands made of reeds. Yes, they really are as mad as they sound - artificial islands made of reeds which people live on. An American guy we got talking to couldn't believe his eyes when he saw them - he only decided to visit them because of the strike in Puno and had been expecting a regular island. Instead, he saw this:

The Uros islands are the lake's most popular tourist attraction - they came about when the Uros people sought refuge on the lake to escape from the Incas. People still live on the islands today, although the guide book says it's possible that the people on the islands we visited (there are 70+) go back to the mainland at night to sleep.

Still it was fascinating; a 20 minute boat journey brought us to what was literally a floating community of dozens of islands, each with maybe half a dozen houses. The boats of tourists alternate between the different islands to spread the tourist love.

When we got to our island, we were given a talk about how they're made and maintained, with the help of a model.

There's some sort of earthy base that's anchored down and reeds are put on top. Fresh reeds are laid every fortnight or so, as they rot from the bottom. It felt very sturdy - I was expecting it to be a bit wobbly but it wasn't.

We also got to ride on what the guide described as a Mercedes Benz - a dragon-shaped boat made of reeds (and lots of plastic bottles) - the traditional mode of transport (minus plastic bottles back in the day), although ours had to be pushed along by a motor boat!

The community has everything like schools and a hospital, although the kids have to go to the mainland once they reach secondary school.

We went to what was described as the 'capital' but was really another island to buy souvenirs and have lunch.  

They had a trout farm there, so Paul and I had fried trout for lunch (we ate a lot of trout around Lake Titicaca!).  Despite it being quite a touristy experience, we enjoyed it - something we won't see elsewhere and it killed an afternoon of being blockaded in Puno.

Puno blockades

Peru often has blockades or strikes where various groups decide to protest about their particular bugbear by blocking the roads and generally stopping the rest of the population getting on with their lives.  We had been warned at the border there was one of these blockades into and out of the first large town we would drive through, Puno, so it seemed like a good plan to camp just before we reached the town and hope that the blockade would finish soon. 

Just before we got to our planned stop we came across what seemed to be a small rock fall across the road with boulders and rubble covering the opposite lane. About 50m further up the road we realised this wasn't a rockfall at all, but the start of the blockades, which had started sooner than we'd expected. The actual blockade was a pile of rubble across the road manned by 5 or 6 men. We were a little apprehensive; it was dark and we didn't really know what to expect so, after trying to communicate with the strikers and not really understanding what the quick-talking locals were saying, we decided the safest course of action was to retreat! This gave us a chance to observe some other vehicles approach the blockade, negotiate and then be allowed to pass through. Gathering our courage we decided to try again and this time offered the strikers the only Peruvian money we had with us, 5 soles (about a pound). We didn't think this would be enough to buy our way through but it turned out to be fine as they cleared enough rubble out of the way to let us through.

We had just finished congratulating ourselves on a situation well-handled when we realised 50m further on up the road there was another pile of rubble and another group of people. The only problem this time was we didn't have any soles! This time the protesters were easier to understand and actually seemed in quite a jovial mood. We explained our lack of money and offered them some Chilean coins we had hanging around instead. After a bit of banter they decided they would accept this and let us through with a shouted chorus of 'Pase!' 

We continued on another 5 or 6 miles to Puno, constantly having to avoid more scattered rubble, unmanned blockades and other traffic swerving around with high beams on, also trying to avoid the obstructions. The next blockade we came across had a distinctly different feel to it. It was manned by several obviously drunk teenagers and by an older drunken man who came running up brandishing a hammer as we approached. This time our foreign money wasn't accepted so we decided this was as far as we were going to get and pulled over to camp just before the blockade. However it soon became apparent that several other locals weren't very impressed with the group's actions and as the queue of other vehicles got longer the voices got louder until there was enough people around to allow several vehicles to force their way through the blockade. Some of the lorry drivers who had got through then approached us and offered to help us do the same, an offer we accepted. 

Once we were through this particular blockade we found a quieter stretch of road and decided to stop for the night. 

Early the next morning we continued our journey into Puno. The further we got, the denser the abandoned blockades got and the more rubble, broken glass and burnt out tyres were in the roads. It looked like a war zone but there was always a route through the carnage, probably cleared by people driving the road overnight. 

We decided to head in to town to try to have a look around and to buy the Peruvian vehicle insurance we were supposed to have. However when we got close to the centre people started to stop us and warn us not to go any further as there were blockades manned with people who smash the windscreens of any vehicles that came close. All routes we tried to take through town seemed to be blocked and so in the end we decided to park up and walk into town, something all the locals were also doing.

Once we got into the town centre, apart from the odd gaggle of riot police, everything seemed strangely normal; the shops were open, people were walking about calmly. At one point we were eating a snack in a cafe when the owner suddenly jumped up and pulled down all the shutters on the outside of his shop just before the protesters marched up the street, but even this was pretty calm and more like a carnival atmosphere than anything more. We even went out to watch them. 

Although the protest was supposed to end that day it became obvious we wouldn't be able to leave for a while so we decided to head to the town's (and Lake Titicaca's) biggest tourist attraction, the floating reed islands of Uros (see Christine's separate post). 

When we got back we had to join the long queues of pent up traffic trying to leave the town. It was chaos. Because there was so much debris in the road the vehicles were weaving everywhere. At one point the queue of traffic leaving town had managed to swap lanes with the queue coming into town, so we were both on the wrong side of the road. 

Sometimes we had to get out to help remove debris from the road and the route often involved crunching over sections of broken beer bottles but we finally managed to escape Puno and the blockades with all four tyres intact!

Isla del Sol

Our problems getting in to Peru meant we had a second chance at Copacabana and the Isla del Sol. First time round, Copa had been really quiet because it was mid-week and the weather was awful. This time, we were there on a glorious Saturday afternoon and the difference was amazing! People flock to Copa from La Paz for the weekend - Paul and I joined in the fun by hiring a swan-shaped pedalo on Lake Titicaca for half an hour.

We were surprised by how knackered we were after that, until we remembered that we were at 3,800m. Not as unfit as we feared after all!

We were up early on the Sunday morning to get the 8.30am ferry to the Isla del Sol, where the Incas believe the sun was created. We landed on the north of the island where there are some interesting Inca ruins (and what's believed to have been a table for sacrifices).

The Isla del Sol is also home to the Titi Khar'ka rock from which the lake gets its name. The rock is meant to be shaped like a puma (Titi Khar'ka means Rock of the Puma) but we couldn't figure out which rock it was exactly. I think it's somewhere in this picture.

We then ended up hiking 3 hours across the island to the south, where most of the restaurants and hostels are. Why we decided to walk so long when we are not big fans of walking I don't know. Navigational issues also meant we couldn't have lunch until the end of the trek, which led to hungry Christine and therefore grumpy Christine. A £3 Snickers from a shop along the way helped get us there, but also meant we only had 200Bs or £20 to cover dinner, accommodation and breakfast for both of us.

There are no ATMs on the island so I thought we were going to have to miss either dinner or breakfast, but after tapping away on her calculator, the owner of the first hostel we went in to said we could have an en suite double room including dinner AND breakfast for 200Bs. And when Paul found 20 Peruvian Soles (£4.50) in his wallet, we even got two big bottles of beer! We were pretty satisfied with that deal, especially given the view we had from our balcony.  

The next day, we walked down to some ruins on the south of the island. 

And then the route to the ferry port took us down an Inca staircase.

And to think, if the Peruvian customs dude hadn't been such a twat we would never have visited the island.