Tomorrow we leave on the hike to Machu Picchu and shortly thereafter on the kayaking adventure. Not sure when the next post will be after this one. I am slightly apprehensive about the latter. 12500 feet elevation and well below freezing temperatures with very basic home-stays as accomodation. The last time we really had such a "back-to-basics" adventure was when we went trekking in the Ethiopian mountains on the border with Eritrea. And this year is my 60th birthday !!!!
Mike and Maggie arrived safely yesterday so now we are six. Maggie was hit hard by the altitude sickness so we decided it must be in their genes as she and Sharon were the only ones really affected.
Toured various other Inca sites yesterday and today. Most of the guides are quite Indo-centric (understandably) and seem rather bitter about the Spanish legacy. Also visited some of the colonial churches which amply reinforced the notion of Catholic excesses. They almost made me yearn for modest English parish churches or the austere but tranquil Egyptian mosques. Not bad for a fourth generation atheist.
Slight currency crisis today when all ATMs rejected our debit card and the change agencies rejected our crumpled dollar bills. One exchange place eventually accepted them so all was well - we are solvent once more. And my laundry came back on time so all is well.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Mountain bike survival
Yesterday was one of the highlights of the trip so far, an all-day mountain bike expedition through the Sacred Valley. This is a commercial pic - http://www.inkasadventures.com/photos_news/n4d.JPG
We had anticipated a benign amble but it was pretty serious stuff with semi-technical descents on rocky, near-single track trails down some rather daunting mountain sides. Everybody did well – I was surprised how ambitious Sharon was, given how understandably spooked she was after her bad bike wreck last year. The guide was excellent and the bikes varied from adequate to quite good. I did ask him how often they changed the brake cables as our lives arguably depended on them. Other than on some short, sharp ascents, I was surprised how unaffected we were by the altitude. Quite encouraging for the impending Machu Picchu hike and the Lake Titikaka kayaking.
There were two particularly unique sites on the way. One was the Inca terraces near Moray. http://www.photoseek.com/peru/03PER-05-28-Moray-terrace.jpg These looked like an ampitheatre but are supposedly temperature-varying terraces that the Incas designed as a greenhouse. The archaelologists are still debating their purpose, however.
The other were the Inca Salinas. http://lh4.ggpht.com/_4p-JbVHBZus/RtmvznYAofI/AAAAAAAABBs/6iUlwjR1Wy4/IMG_1180.JPG There is a terrestrial creek of salt-water that is used to “irrigate” pools that then evaporate allowing the salt to be “mined”. There are thousands of these terraced pools that covered the mountainside. Truly remarkable. I am curious as to the source of the sodium chloride.
Last night we stayed in a quite up-market hotel that had been booked to placate us after the rather “bait and switch” stunt pulled by ExplorAndes on the Cuzco hotel. I am, as I said, re-training myself to go with the flow. The important thing is that our love affair with Peru is developing quite nicely.
We had anticipated a benign amble but it was pretty serious stuff with semi-technical descents on rocky, near-single track trails down some rather daunting mountain sides. Everybody did well – I was surprised how ambitious Sharon was, given how understandably spooked she was after her bad bike wreck last year. The guide was excellent and the bikes varied from adequate to quite good. I did ask him how often they changed the brake cables as our lives arguably depended on them. Other than on some short, sharp ascents, I was surprised how unaffected we were by the altitude. Quite encouraging for the impending Machu Picchu hike and the Lake Titikaka kayaking.
There were two particularly unique sites on the way. One was the Inca terraces near Moray. http://www.photoseek.com/peru/03PER-05-28-Moray-terrace.jpg These looked like an ampitheatre but are supposedly temperature-varying terraces that the Incas designed as a greenhouse. The archaelologists are still debating their purpose, however.
The other were the Inca Salinas. http://lh4.ggpht.com/_4p-JbVHBZus/RtmvznYAofI/AAAAAAAABBs/6iUlwjR1Wy4/IMG_1180.JPG There is a terrestrial creek of salt-water that is used to “irrigate” pools that then evaporate allowing the salt to be “mined”. There are thousands of these terraced pools that covered the mountainside. Truly remarkable. I am curious as to the source of the sodium chloride.
Last night we stayed in a quite up-market hotel that had been booked to placate us after the rather “bait and switch” stunt pulled by ExplorAndes on the Cuzco hotel. I am, as I said, re-training myself to go with the flow. The important thing is that our love affair with Peru is developing quite nicely.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Our sort of place
Cuzco is definitely a William/Sharon-type place. We can be travel posers yet again and pretend that we are aging-hippy backpackers. Lots of coffee shops, internet cafes and street cafes highly suitable for elevenses (see Pooh Bear for clarification if you do not know what that means).
Cuzco was an Inca stonghold until the invasion of the Spanish colonials who then trashed the place. There are still quite a few buildings built on Inca foundations. Truly amazing how they jig-sawed all the huge diorite blocks together with no mortar. And diorite is an igneous rock that is very hard indeed. You can see it here www.unique-southamerica-travel-experience.com/images/inca-stonework-copia.jpg Equally interesting is how the Inca empire was only 100 years old when it sucumbed to Pizarro and his boys. Short and sweet.
The streets are generally narrow with balconies that look rather like the Egyptian mashrabea hareem balconies. In spite of dire warnings about pick-pockets, bag slashers etc, the tourism boom has certainly cleaned things up in Cuzco, tho´presumably at a price. One still has to be street-savvy but at no time have we felt in the least intimidated. It is taking a while to get used, once again, to the vaguries of the developing world. A phone system that is mysterious at best, time-keeping that is equally tenuous and an incessant (but very gracious) cadre of High Andes Indians wanting to sell us one trinket or another.
Equally vague is our travel agent, ExplorAndes, but if all goes according to plan, we mountain bike in the Sacred Valley tomorrow and then go to a huge regional market on Sunday, returning to Cuzco on Sunday afternoon before leaving for Macchu Picchu on Monday. I suspect that it will be rather a “back-to-basics” adventure only to be topped by the subsequent Lake Tittikaka kayaking when we will be staying with families living on the Lake. I CAN do it !!!!!
Cuzco was an Inca stonghold until the invasion of the Spanish colonials who then trashed the place. There are still quite a few buildings built on Inca foundations. Truly amazing how they jig-sawed all the huge diorite blocks together with no mortar. And diorite is an igneous rock that is very hard indeed. You can see it here www.unique-southamerica-travel-experience.com/images/inca-stonework-copia.jpg Equally interesting is how the Inca empire was only 100 years old when it sucumbed to Pizarro and his boys. Short and sweet.
The streets are generally narrow with balconies that look rather like the Egyptian mashrabea hareem balconies. In spite of dire warnings about pick-pockets, bag slashers etc, the tourism boom has certainly cleaned things up in Cuzco, tho´presumably at a price. One still has to be street-savvy but at no time have we felt in the least intimidated. It is taking a while to get used, once again, to the vaguries of the developing world. A phone system that is mysterious at best, time-keeping that is equally tenuous and an incessant (but very gracious) cadre of High Andes Indians wanting to sell us one trinket or another.
Equally vague is our travel agent, ExplorAndes, but if all goes according to plan, we mountain bike in the Sacred Valley tomorrow and then go to a huge regional market on Sunday, returning to Cuzco on Sunday afternoon before leaving for Macchu Picchu on Monday. I suspect that it will be rather a “back-to-basics” adventure only to be topped by the subsequent Lake Tittikaka kayaking when we will be staying with families living on the Lake. I CAN do it !!!!!
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Pictures (on sites) of Amazonian exotica
These are pictures (on sites) to some of the things we saw in the Amazon basin. We had no real chance to see the really exotic staff such as the tapirs, giant armadillos and jaguars. You generally have to stay silent in a hide for hours on end. Our photos will have to wait till we get back …. then they will be uploaded to Picassa.
Leaf cutter ants
http://artfiles.art.com/images/-/David-Dennis/Leaf-Cutting-Ants-Photographic-Print-C12816629.jpeg
Capybaras
http://www.hedweb.com/animimag/capybara.jpg
Hoatzin (stinky bird)
http://www.discovergalapagos.com/PhotoJournal/hoatzin.jpg
Strangling fig tree
http://paulmirocha.com/resources/images/fineart/matapalo.jpg
Walking palm
http://www.johnhbradley.com/photos/081605capahuaripastaza/img_2129.jpg
Scarlet macaw
http://www.cityparrots.org/media/Parrot_Macaw_frontpicture.jpg
Leaf cutter ants
http://artfiles.art.com/images/-/David-Dennis/Leaf-Cutting-Ants-Photographic-Print-C12816629.jpeg
Capybaras
http://www.hedweb.com/animimag/capybara.jpg
Hoatzin (stinky bird)
http://www.discovergalapagos.com/PhotoJournal/hoatzin.jpg
Strangling fig tree
http://paulmirocha.com/resources/images/fineart/matapalo.jpg
Walking palm
http://www.johnhbradley.com/photos/081605capahuaripastaza/img_2129.jpg
Scarlet macaw
http://www.cityparrots.org/media/Parrot_Macaw_frontpicture.jpg
Amazon Journey
OK this is the first report from the Amazon. This trip is certainly not for the faint of heart but we are surviving. The lodge, four hours up river, exceeded expectations and was comfortable. I was going to provide links to all the critters and weird stuff that we saw but the internet is so slow here that I soon gave up. In fact, our little group was not the quietest and so we probably saw far less than the serious naturalists.
On the way up we saw a big family of capybaras (huge rodents) and several cayman (crocodiles). One really weird bird was the stinky-bird (hoatsin) that has a stomach similar to a cow and was thought to be a prehistoric remnant but DNA proved it to be related to the cuckoo!!!!!!.
Other odd things were the famous leaf cutter ants that consume 10% of the forests foliage, the walking palms that move 80 cm per year (maybe related to Tolkein´s Ents?) and the strangling fig trees that eat other trees.
After the Amazon trip we flew to Cusco in the High Andes where we are now. Hotel is marginal ..... we should have sprung for a more up-market one but the travel agent really does not know who you are and what you want. Sharon suffered badly from altitude sickness (circa 12000 feet, straight from sea level) but seems OK now. We plan to hang out here for a couple of days before we leave to go mountain biking in the Sacred Valley.
OK ... this keyboard is driving me nuts so that´s all for now.
On the way up we saw a big family of capybaras (huge rodents) and several cayman (crocodiles). One really weird bird was the stinky-bird (hoatsin) that has a stomach similar to a cow and was thought to be a prehistoric remnant but DNA proved it to be related to the cuckoo!!!!!!.
Other odd things were the famous leaf cutter ants that consume 10% of the forests foliage, the walking palms that move 80 cm per year (maybe related to Tolkein´s Ents?) and the strangling fig trees that eat other trees.
After the Amazon trip we flew to Cusco in the High Andes where we are now. Hotel is marginal ..... we should have sprung for a more up-market one but the travel agent really does not know who you are and what you want. Sharon suffered badly from altitude sickness (circa 12000 feet, straight from sea level) but seems OK now. We plan to hang out here for a couple of days before we leave to go mountain biking in the Sacred Valley.
OK ... this keyboard is driving me nuts so that´s all for now.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Missive from Lima
This is a quickie. Flight out from Houston to Lima was a veritable cattle truck and two hours late. Not up to Continentals usual standards. Bed therefore was 2 am this morning. Walk'about in Lima on our own today. Wonderful seafood lunch in a cafe on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific. $20 per head incl. beers, coffee etc. The Peruvians know how to make expresso as well as the Italians do. Drinking alchohol and caffeine with gay abandon for the time being as they both become verboten at high altitudes.
Found out the hard way that 75% of the ATMs do not accept our card for some strange reason but we will survive using those that do. Tommorow at 6 am we get picked up for the flight to the rain forest. Do not anticipate any communications between now and when we get to Cuzco, about 4 days hence. We shall be too busy searching for forest monkeys.
This is a Spanish keyboard so do not be surprised at weird or absent punctuation.
Found out the hard way that 75% of the ATMs do not accept our card for some strange reason but we will survive using those that do. Tommorow at 6 am we get picked up for the flight to the rain forest. Do not anticipate any communications between now and when we get to Cuzco, about 4 days hence. We shall be too busy searching for forest monkeys.
This is a Spanish keyboard so do not be surprised at weird or absent punctuation.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Peru trip & house move: 15 June 08
Blog the first …. I shall probably not figure out the formatting right away and I certainly am not going to wordsmith these posts to make them grammatically correct.
I still am bewildered to find ourselves in the situation of last-minute preparations for a three-week trip to Peru and moving house at the same time. Regarding the latter, we have a contract on our San Antonio house, most of our stuff (and there’s a lot of it) goes into storage and we plan to rent an apartment or condo in Austin for a year of so while we decide what we want to do when we grow up.
The house sale went faster and easier than we had anticipated. We got 96% of our asking price within six weeks of listing; that’s not bad in today’s market even though we clearly asked less than we would have done a year or so ago. Boxes, boxes, boxes …. assuming our next place will be smaller than this one, we are supposed to be downsizing but while its easy to get rid of stuff you do not like, its hard to trash those things that have memories, however “not needed” they might be. Once again we test the definitions of “need” and “want”. Valerie, take note.
Peru will be an adventure: hiking, kayaking, mountain-biking and all at altitudes of about 10,000 – 13,000 feet in the middle of the Andean winter plus a trip to the rain forest. We are limited to 44 pounds per person so packing enough cold-weather gear for all those activities is proving to be a challenge. Add in obsessing about the notorious GI problems that Peru is famous for, compounded by the prospect of packing up when we get back to San Antonio …. no wonder my sleep habits have become erratic. However, the decision on whether to take comfortable, slow-drying underwear or less-comfortable, fast-drying versions is put firmly into perspective.
I still am bewildered to find ourselves in the situation of last-minute preparations for a three-week trip to Peru and moving house at the same time. Regarding the latter, we have a contract on our San Antonio house, most of our stuff (and there’s a lot of it) goes into storage and we plan to rent an apartment or condo in Austin for a year of so while we decide what we want to do when we grow up.
The house sale went faster and easier than we had anticipated. We got 96% of our asking price within six weeks of listing; that’s not bad in today’s market even though we clearly asked less than we would have done a year or so ago. Boxes, boxes, boxes …. assuming our next place will be smaller than this one, we are supposed to be downsizing but while its easy to get rid of stuff you do not like, its hard to trash those things that have memories, however “not needed” they might be. Once again we test the definitions of “need” and “want”. Valerie, take note.
Peru will be an adventure: hiking, kayaking, mountain-biking and all at altitudes of about 10,000 – 13,000 feet in the middle of the Andean winter plus a trip to the rain forest. We are limited to 44 pounds per person so packing enough cold-weather gear for all those activities is proving to be a challenge. Add in obsessing about the notorious GI problems that Peru is famous for, compounded by the prospect of packing up when we get back to San Antonio …. no wonder my sleep habits have become erratic. However, the decision on whether to take comfortable, slow-drying underwear or less-comfortable, fast-drying versions is put firmly into perspective.
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