A very busy morning. Go around to talk to various tour companies and get waylaid by Señor Zarate, one of the sons of the legendary local trekking guide, Carlos Zarate. He starts explaining to me in detail the kind of tailor-made tours they do of the Colca Canyon and ends up drawing me numerous maps of trekking routes, explaining why they go to this village and not that one, and telling me that you need at least four days to explore even a part of the canyon properly. His local knowledge is impressive; he knows all the villages, the altitude of each one, the distances between them. He explains a bit about guiding in general – how under President Fujimori, it was a free-for-all: no restrictions whatsoever, fly-by-night carpetbagger companies turning up all over the place, people calling themselves guides without having any experience or knowledge…Then under García, things have become more organised; there’s now technically a minimum wage for trekking and mountain guides, roughly set prices for pack animals, etc.
“I’m a guide: that’s all I want to do,” he tells me. His brother, Carlos, does other things, like cycling tours; their services compliment each other. I decide that if I come back to Arequipa, I’d love to do some serious hiking with this wiry, enthusiastic guy who’s barely taller than me; it’s clear that he knows what he’s talking about. He’s very keen on an alternative day trip out of Arequipa, which takes in Toro Muerto and a couple of less-known villages: “You go by local bus and the people are very nice, very curious. There’s none of this: ‘You’re a gringo, so if you take a picture of me, you have to give me a sweetie or a dollar.’”
Collect my laundry. Exchange two books for one at El Lectór bookshop. Visit a couple more hostels. Pay the outstanding fee for the forthcoming jungle trip at the BBVA bank. Call my housemates again; we’re having to look for a new place to live, and it seems that the only places available for four people are way out of central Cambridge; the whole thing is stressing me out, and no doubt my housemates as well.
Go check out the local market; rumours about that it’s dangerous for tourists, but it’s all a matter of perspective. As long as you leave your gold jewellery and expensive camera behind, no one’s going to hassle you or slash your bag. I love produce markets and this is an excellent one. I wander through the rows of bright fruit, smelly chunks of meat, little eateries serving fresh juices, ceviche, grilled chunks of pork, taking in the smells, the clamour, the wandering minstrels and beggars, a weird man in African robes with a necklace made of teeth and a small skull. Not only do I not get mugged, raped or murdered, but soon I’m the proud owner of a very unhygienic-looking cheese; I’m sure it’s delicious once I scrape off the top layer. Gotta recommend this as a top spot for cheap eats and very local atmosphere.
Lunch at Cevichería Fory Fay. I’m such a creature of habit! I really feel at home in Arequipa and realise that the city’s frenetic energy reminds me of Mexico City – rough around the edges, but with an atmosphere that really grows on you.
Catch a taxi to the main bus terminals – the Terrapuerto and the Terminal Terrestre. Check out bus timetables. Have my extra bit of luggage wrapped in clingfilm and put it on a bus to Lima, to be received by my friend Mike. There seem to be lots of night buses, but unfortunately, each guidebook speaks of fatal accidents, robberies, holdups and assaults, so I’ll have to find out for sure whether it’s a good idea or not, whether there have been any improvements in the last couple of years. I just hate wasting time when I could be travelling.
Though my bus ticket to Puno is super cheap (15 soles for a six-hour ride), I actually have to pay departure tax – it’s just one of those Peruvian anomalies. I find out what an Economico bus is, as opposed to a semi-cama or cama; it means that there’s no air-con or heating, so first we’re roasting in the afternoon sun, and then freezing in the evening as it climbs to an altitude of 3,800m. There are also no toilets on board, but hey – if you need to go, the whole highway is your bathroom! The bus stops in the middle of nowhere and a bunch of people pile out to stand or squat by the side of the road. For women, wearing a skirt is handy. The driving is a bit alarming as well; our driver plays chicken with other road users, often driving on the wrong side until literally the last second, overtaking, undertaking, and sometimes forcing smaller vehicles coming towards us onto the hard shoulder to avoid us. I have a prime seat for this – top, front row. I wonder why no one’s claimed them; in Chile, those would be the first to go.
Spend much of the ride planning my day-and-a-bit in Puno, having been here before and having pumped my tour leader friends for up-to-date info and tips. Really get into “The Runner”; the main character who doesn’t care about most things reminds me of an old friend of mine.
It’s dark and cold by the time we pull into Puno and when checking out bus departures, I spot something of great interest: one of the bus companies seems to be offering trips to Puerto Maldonado, the town in the jungle that I need to get to, which I thought was only reachable by plane or by truck due to hideous roads; maybe they’ve fixed them up…Will find out for sure tomorrow.
The taxi driver is very courteous; he welcomes me to Puno, gives me tips on what to see and even waits by the entrance to my guesthouse to make sure I get in okay.
Dinner is great pizza at Machupizza – a cosy little warren of an establishment, decorated with wall hangings akin to those that I bought on the floating islands last time I was here. The pizza comes with spicy salsa and some kind of garlic sauce and it’s the cheapest meal I’ve had in Peru so far, as well as one of the best. Peruvians do pizza better than Chileans, I have to say…
Not feeling the altitude too much; get a bit breathless running up the stairs and have the hint of a dull headache, but that’s about it.
Very full day tomorrow.
Saturday, 22 May 2010
Thursday, 20 May 2010
Day 43 - Arequipa and onwards to Puno.
I really like the city and wish I had more time here. I’m getting adept at dodging the fleets of little yellow taxi colectivos that zoom up the streets: pedestrian crossings do not give you right of way, and neither do pedestrian traffic lights. I observe, puzzled, how the little cars pay no attention to the latter, though they do obey the sharp whistles of the traffic police. It’s a good thing that most streets are one-way! It reminds me of how people drive in Cairo – chaos on the surface, but somehow everyone figures out whose right of way it is and no one gets hurt. When Heather, Dawn and I were in a taxi in Cairo, they observed our driver’s manoeuvres with trepidation: “Watch out for the wing mirrors! Oh, wait, there aren’t any. (They’d been knocked off way before).”
I dodge the traffic all the way up Bolognesi, across the bridge over the Río Chili and up to the Recoleta monastery. There’s no one at the ticket desk, and no amount of coughing loudly gets any attention. The security guard helps me, rapping hard on the massive wooden doors and shouting, and finally I’m let in. This really is a lovely place to visit – the three cloisters are just beautiful. The first has a cactus garden in the middle, while the biggest one is filled with exuberant vegetation, including large pink flowers. The best thing, though, are the random exhibits in the various darkened halls. The Amazon hall is fantastic – the walls are decorated with maps of the missionaries’ exploration of Peru, including the Peruvian Amazon basin, where I’ll be heading in a couple of days. I like how the inscription on the Amazon part states: “Large and mysterious forest filled with fearsome tribes.”
They brought back animal trophies; the taxidermied creatures are arranged carefully according to whether they’re mammals, birds, reptiles or fish, and I study them carefully, because I hope to be seeing most of them soon. The most impressive are the vividly-coloured cock-of-the-rock birds, the giant anteater, the caiman, and an evil-looking pygmy monkey.
The other hall devoted to the Amazon contains tribal clothing; necklaces made of seeds, shells, teeth; weapons including bamboo spears with a different type of wood for the serrated tip, capes decorated with bright feathers; ceramics, ceremonial drums. Equally good is the pre-Columbian hall, with its collection of pre-Inca pottery, a deformed skull and a couple of mummies, sitting huddled in their display cases.
Am surprised that a couple of the guides (not the Rough Guide) suggest taking a cab here, when it’s only ten minutes’ walk from the centre. Bloody laziness.
Lunch is a real treat; a few days ago, I made reservations at “La Trattoria del Monasterio”, one of Gastón Acurio’s places. ‘Italian food with Areqipeño influences’ is what they call it, and as it turns out, lunchtimes are not too busy. The service is great, the beef capaccio with cheese and a spicy salsa is superb, and so is the rice with super-fresh giant prawns.
The afternoon is spent looking at hostels. Roosebelt recommended Amazing Home, just north of the centre on a quiet little plaza, and it turns out to be excellent. The owner, Alex, is a trekking guide; he showed me around ever so graciously, and even asked me what I thought of the place and what improvements he could make. The biggest vote in his favour was the testimony of a large crowd of American backpackers: “It’s the best hostel I’ve ever stayed in!” piped up one of the girls. Definitely one for the gringos, but a great choice at that. One of the hostel owners complains about the useless/malicious taxi drivers at the bus station, who mislead guests by telling them that the hostel is closed/dirty/expensive, and trying to persuade them to go stay elsewhere. Will mention that in the guide.
I’d had enough of having long hair, so I take my chances with a Peruvian hairdresser. Remembering the disaster in Mexico, I explain to the woman with a gold tooth that I normally have my hair cut like a boy and she shows me some pictures. She does a really good, thorough job, though I get a little alarmed when she whips out an old-fashioned razor used by barbers to tidy up the back of my neck. What price beauty? 15 soles (just over £3).
Try El Turko for dinner because am not quite in the mood for guinea pig – will have that in Cusco. El Turko’s always popular, with locals and tourists, and it’s nice enough, though the chicken doner kebab is dry, the honey on the baklava is watery and the staff harried. Hmm.
Have had some good news about a contra ad regarding one of the jungle lodges near Puerto Maldonado; now to sort out a flight…
I dodge the traffic all the way up Bolognesi, across the bridge over the Río Chili and up to the Recoleta monastery. There’s no one at the ticket desk, and no amount of coughing loudly gets any attention. The security guard helps me, rapping hard on the massive wooden doors and shouting, and finally I’m let in. This really is a lovely place to visit – the three cloisters are just beautiful. The first has a cactus garden in the middle, while the biggest one is filled with exuberant vegetation, including large pink flowers. The best thing, though, are the random exhibits in the various darkened halls. The Amazon hall is fantastic – the walls are decorated with maps of the missionaries’ exploration of Peru, including the Peruvian Amazon basin, where I’ll be heading in a couple of days. I like how the inscription on the Amazon part states: “Large and mysterious forest filled with fearsome tribes.”
They brought back animal trophies; the taxidermied creatures are arranged carefully according to whether they’re mammals, birds, reptiles or fish, and I study them carefully, because I hope to be seeing most of them soon. The most impressive are the vividly-coloured cock-of-the-rock birds, the giant anteater, the caiman, and an evil-looking pygmy monkey.
The other hall devoted to the Amazon contains tribal clothing; necklaces made of seeds, shells, teeth; weapons including bamboo spears with a different type of wood for the serrated tip, capes decorated with bright feathers; ceramics, ceremonial drums. Equally good is the pre-Columbian hall, with its collection of pre-Inca pottery, a deformed skull and a couple of mummies, sitting huddled in their display cases.
Am surprised that a couple of the guides (not the Rough Guide) suggest taking a cab here, when it’s only ten minutes’ walk from the centre. Bloody laziness.
Lunch is a real treat; a few days ago, I made reservations at “La Trattoria del Monasterio”, one of Gastón Acurio’s places. ‘Italian food with Areqipeño influences’ is what they call it, and as it turns out, lunchtimes are not too busy. The service is great, the beef capaccio with cheese and a spicy salsa is superb, and so is the rice with super-fresh giant prawns.
The afternoon is spent looking at hostels. Roosebelt recommended Amazing Home, just north of the centre on a quiet little plaza, and it turns out to be excellent. The owner, Alex, is a trekking guide; he showed me around ever so graciously, and even asked me what I thought of the place and what improvements he could make. The biggest vote in his favour was the testimony of a large crowd of American backpackers: “It’s the best hostel I’ve ever stayed in!” piped up one of the girls. Definitely one for the gringos, but a great choice at that. One of the hostel owners complains about the useless/malicious taxi drivers at the bus station, who mislead guests by telling them that the hostel is closed/dirty/expensive, and trying to persuade them to go stay elsewhere. Will mention that in the guide.
I’d had enough of having long hair, so I take my chances with a Peruvian hairdresser. Remembering the disaster in Mexico, I explain to the woman with a gold tooth that I normally have my hair cut like a boy and she shows me some pictures. She does a really good, thorough job, though I get a little alarmed when she whips out an old-fashioned razor used by barbers to tidy up the back of my neck. What price beauty? 15 soles (just over £3).
Try El Turko for dinner because am not quite in the mood for guinea pig – will have that in Cusco. El Turko’s always popular, with locals and tourists, and it’s nice enough, though the chicken doner kebab is dry, the honey on the baklava is watery and the staff harried. Hmm.
Have had some good news about a contra ad regarding one of the jungle lodges near Puerto Maldonado; now to sort out a flight…
Day 42 - Arequipa.
Actually, the title of this blog’s a bit of a misnomer: I’ve calculated that I’m actually travelling for 12 weeks, so that makes it 84 days, rather than ninety. I’m halfway through.
8am start after sleeping the sleep of the dead. Decide to try and see all the major sights today and leave tomorrow for the less exciting practical stuff. Start by admiring the Compañia and Santo Domingo churches near the Plaza de Armas, with their distinctive carved stone façades.
Find myself walking around some back streets south of the plaza and make a serendipitous discovery. Lured by a ‘free entrance’ sign, I find myself in a fascinating little museum that’s full of clamouring schoolchildren and is not in any of the guidebooks. It focuses on the Inca and pre-Inca desert civilisations of Peru, and there some great examples of Inca weaponry, tribal pottery, feathered ceremonial capes and – best of all – several mummies. Unlike Egyptian mummies, all of these ones are in sitting position, legs drawn up to their chests, skulls resting on bony fingers. Brilliant stuff.
My second serendipitous discovery is the Cevichería Fory Fay (that’s how Peruvian pronounce ‘forty-five’), a very local lunch spot doing seven kinds of ceviche and the world’s most humungous portions of seafood fried rice. I’m not terribly impressed with my predecessor’s choice of eateries: they’ve actually included a Johnny Coyote, a substandard burger joint, and the point is to show our readers eateries which are both cheap AND good, rather than just cheap and bog-standard.
Still on the subject of mummies: I wrap up warm and pop across the road to the museum housing Juanita the Ice Princess. Though you can’t go around by yourself, and have to go as part of a guided tour, the way they’ve organised it is excellent. First, you sit through a twenty-minute National Geographic video of how Juanita was discovered, which was in 1995 on top of the 6,380m Ampato volcano, by the local climber Carlos Zarate and American archaeologist Johan Reinhard (Johan = Juan in Spanish, hence ‘Juanita’). The video shows how she was removed from the icy hold of the mountain after days of painstaking work, and the dramatic voiceover suggests that when this chosen 12-year old girl was sacrificed to the gods of the mountains, she did in fact achieve a kind of immortality, for after five hundred years, she still speaks to us, and through her we hear the Incas.
The guide then leads us around various exhibits, showcasing the kinds of offerings that would have been buried with the child sacrifices. She explains that Juanita, given that she was wearing the Inca robes of white and red (white = divinity, red = power), she must have come from a noble family, for only being given to the gods was an honour that only the most beautiful children from exalted lineage could hope for. During their lives, they would receive the best of everything, then taken to the top of a mountain, they’d be drugged with coca infusion and killed with a single precise blow to the head. She would have gone to her death willingly, believing that she was doing it for her people. I guess it's no more bizarre to do that in the name of a higher power than to exterminate people whose beliefs clash with your own, or to ban your child from celebrating their birthday because you're not sure when Jesus's birthday was.
Finally, we get to see Juanita herself, frozen in sitting position, her hair intact on her skull, kept in a special chamber at -15 degrees Celsius. It’s an arresting sight.
Since this is one of two nights per week when the Santa Catalina monastery is open late, I opt to wander around by myself for a couple of hours, peering into nooks and crannies of this citadel, consisting of many little streets, numerous cloisters, chapels, gardens, and cells where the nuns lived. The original nuns were often daughters from rich families who kept numerous servants after allegedly giving up worldly comforts and dedicating their lives to God and led quite lavish lives until Sister Josefa Cadena put a stop to it in 1871. After that, the residents of the convent never left its walls and it was completely shut off from the rest of the world until 1970.
It’s beautiful – a real paradise for photographers. The afternoon light illuminates interesting corners of courtyards, which themselves are painted in attractive hues of terracotta, deep blue and brilliant white. They make you walk around the complex clockwise, but since I stay on for a second lap when the sun goes down, I’m rewarded with lantern-lit streets and nuns’ living quarters illuminated with candlelight.
Fellow tourists must think that something’s not right with me; my leg muscles are not as stiff as feared, but since I still find it difficult to walk up and down stairs, I’ve perfected a way of scuttling sideways, like a crab. That, and I fall out of doorways.
Meet Patrick and Annemarie for dinner. There’s some sort of protest going on in the plaza; a guy with a microphone rambles on about the death of some guy, while the people sitting behind him light candles and hold up his picture. “They killed his wife and children! No one cares!” He doesn’t say who killed them, but it makes me wonder whether the police are somehow complicit.
We feast on alpaca and ostrich at Zig Zag, recommended by Mike, and it’s very good indeed. Annemarie is off to Bolivia via Puno, while Patrick is leaving on the overnight bus to Nazca. He’s a brave man; night buses are notorious robbery targets. He wants to go to Bolivia, but it’s very difficult for Americans now: they have to get a visa, fill out tons of paperwork and show that they have enough money to cover their stay in Bolivia, which is a joke. It’s payback time for the indignities suffered by Bolivians in US consulates. Patrick and I find a juicery/ frozen yogurt place and pass the time before his bus leaves, chatting about Japan. He spent two years on a Jet program there, teaching English, and I visited my friend Subo when he did the same, so we swap our recollections of that weird and wonderful country.
My walk back is accompanied by a rousing panpipe version of Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” being blasted forth from a garbage truck. I’ll file that under ‘Only In Peru’.
8am start after sleeping the sleep of the dead. Decide to try and see all the major sights today and leave tomorrow for the less exciting practical stuff. Start by admiring the Compañia and Santo Domingo churches near the Plaza de Armas, with their distinctive carved stone façades.
Find myself walking around some back streets south of the plaza and make a serendipitous discovery. Lured by a ‘free entrance’ sign, I find myself in a fascinating little museum that’s full of clamouring schoolchildren and is not in any of the guidebooks. It focuses on the Inca and pre-Inca desert civilisations of Peru, and there some great examples of Inca weaponry, tribal pottery, feathered ceremonial capes and – best of all – several mummies. Unlike Egyptian mummies, all of these ones are in sitting position, legs drawn up to their chests, skulls resting on bony fingers. Brilliant stuff.
My second serendipitous discovery is the Cevichería Fory Fay (that’s how Peruvian pronounce ‘forty-five’), a very local lunch spot doing seven kinds of ceviche and the world’s most humungous portions of seafood fried rice. I’m not terribly impressed with my predecessor’s choice of eateries: they’ve actually included a Johnny Coyote, a substandard burger joint, and the point is to show our readers eateries which are both cheap AND good, rather than just cheap and bog-standard.
Still on the subject of mummies: I wrap up warm and pop across the road to the museum housing Juanita the Ice Princess. Though you can’t go around by yourself, and have to go as part of a guided tour, the way they’ve organised it is excellent. First, you sit through a twenty-minute National Geographic video of how Juanita was discovered, which was in 1995 on top of the 6,380m Ampato volcano, by the local climber Carlos Zarate and American archaeologist Johan Reinhard (Johan = Juan in Spanish, hence ‘Juanita’). The video shows how she was removed from the icy hold of the mountain after days of painstaking work, and the dramatic voiceover suggests that when this chosen 12-year old girl was sacrificed to the gods of the mountains, she did in fact achieve a kind of immortality, for after five hundred years, she still speaks to us, and through her we hear the Incas.
The guide then leads us around various exhibits, showcasing the kinds of offerings that would have been buried with the child sacrifices. She explains that Juanita, given that she was wearing the Inca robes of white and red (white = divinity, red = power), she must have come from a noble family, for only being given to the gods was an honour that only the most beautiful children from exalted lineage could hope for. During their lives, they would receive the best of everything, then taken to the top of a mountain, they’d be drugged with coca infusion and killed with a single precise blow to the head. She would have gone to her death willingly, believing that she was doing it for her people. I guess it's no more bizarre to do that in the name of a higher power than to exterminate people whose beliefs clash with your own, or to ban your child from celebrating their birthday because you're not sure when Jesus's birthday was.
Finally, we get to see Juanita herself, frozen in sitting position, her hair intact on her skull, kept in a special chamber at -15 degrees Celsius. It’s an arresting sight.
Since this is one of two nights per week when the Santa Catalina monastery is open late, I opt to wander around by myself for a couple of hours, peering into nooks and crannies of this citadel, consisting of many little streets, numerous cloisters, chapels, gardens, and cells where the nuns lived. The original nuns were often daughters from rich families who kept numerous servants after allegedly giving up worldly comforts and dedicating their lives to God and led quite lavish lives until Sister Josefa Cadena put a stop to it in 1871. After that, the residents of the convent never left its walls and it was completely shut off from the rest of the world until 1970.
It’s beautiful – a real paradise for photographers. The afternoon light illuminates interesting corners of courtyards, which themselves are painted in attractive hues of terracotta, deep blue and brilliant white. They make you walk around the complex clockwise, but since I stay on for a second lap when the sun goes down, I’m rewarded with lantern-lit streets and nuns’ living quarters illuminated with candlelight.
Fellow tourists must think that something’s not right with me; my leg muscles are not as stiff as feared, but since I still find it difficult to walk up and down stairs, I’ve perfected a way of scuttling sideways, like a crab. That, and I fall out of doorways.
Meet Patrick and Annemarie for dinner. There’s some sort of protest going on in the plaza; a guy with a microphone rambles on about the death of some guy, while the people sitting behind him light candles and hold up his picture. “They killed his wife and children! No one cares!” He doesn’t say who killed them, but it makes me wonder whether the police are somehow complicit.
We feast on alpaca and ostrich at Zig Zag, recommended by Mike, and it’s very good indeed. Annemarie is off to Bolivia via Puno, while Patrick is leaving on the overnight bus to Nazca. He’s a brave man; night buses are notorious robbery targets. He wants to go to Bolivia, but it’s very difficult for Americans now: they have to get a visa, fill out tons of paperwork and show that they have enough money to cover their stay in Bolivia, which is a joke. It’s payback time for the indignities suffered by Bolivians in US consulates. Patrick and I find a juicery/ frozen yogurt place and pass the time before his bus leaves, chatting about Japan. He spent two years on a Jet program there, teaching English, and I visited my friend Subo when he did the same, so we swap our recollections of that weird and wonderful country.
My walk back is accompanied by a rousing panpipe version of Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” being blasted forth from a garbage truck. I’ll file that under ‘Only In Peru’.
Day 39 - 41 - Colca Canyon.
I was a bit apprehensive about handing over a week’s budget for three days in the Colca Canyon, but figured that since it’s my first time in the canyon, I should explore it with people who really know it, so I gritted my teeth and signed up with Colca Trek. And how glad I am that I did!
There are eight of us: an Italian family consisting of a middle-aged couple, their grownup son and his four-year old boy, Diego; Alex the Ukrainian Canadian from Toronto, originally from Kiev; Anne-Marie, a Dutch flight attendant who’s taken four months off work to travel around South America; Patrick from the States, who works for Homeland Security and myself. Our guide, Roosevelt, turns out to be an energetic and enthusiastic young man, originally from Cabanaconde in the canyon, who knows the area very well.
“Why are you called Roosevelt? It’s an unusual name, isn’t it?”
“Not really. I was named after my uncle.”
“But why was he named Roosevelt?”
“My grandfather liked the American president.”
Roosevelt has a cousin named Clinton. “I’ll name my son ‘Obama’”, he jokes.
Our first stop is by the side of the road, where a herd of vicuñas is grazing pretty close to us. Roosevelt explains to us how the wild creatures are shorn one a year (and only twice in their lifetimes) and how only two shops in Arequipa are authorised to sell items made of vicuña wool.
Then we deviate from the path taken by most tour groups, go off the road over some hill ground and walk down to see the otherworldly rock formations – giant stone cones of volcanic origin, shaped by the fierce wind and the heavy rains. It’s a little like Bryce Canyon in the States. I wander among the giants, climb on the smaller ones, peer down into the valley below. The middle-aged Italian lady is affected by the altitude and Roosevelt has to help her back to the bus after she’s finished dry heaving. The altitude has less of an effect on me than before; it no longer feels like I’m moving through treacle, though I get breathless when I hike back up the hill to the bus too quickly. We’re above 3,500m.
We pass a bofedál - a green area with small lagoons and waterlogged soil; the vegetation here holds water all year round, and supports various birds as well as the vicuñas.
When the road climbs higher, it gets seriously cold. We stop at the Miradór de Los Volcanes – a viewpoint from where you can see all the major volcanoes in the area. Local women with weathered faces sit over their colourful woollen wares, wrapped in so many layers of clothing, they look round. The area around is covered with apachatas – rock pile offerings to the gods of the mountains, some made by locals, some by tourists. I make my own offering. If the gods are satisfied with a few rocks piled on top of each other, that’s getting off easy; back in the day, they used to sacrifice children, first drugging them with herbal concoctions and then dispatching them with a blow to the head. One of them, Juanita the Ice Princess, is in the famous museum in Arequipa, having just come back from a ‘holiday’ in Chicago.
As the road descends through the mountains, we pass some women and children dressed in colourful traditional garb, selling handicrafts by the road. The children all have baby alpacas with them – really cute white woolly creatures with huge eyes and a perpetually hacked off expression on their little faces.
Chivay, the biggest town in the Colca Canyon, is our lunch stop. The canyon is populated almost wholly by indigenous tribes, and Roosebelt draws our attention to the women’s hats – some are white and flat, while others are intricately embroidered with an eight-pointed star on the top. The former are the Coyahuas and the latter are Cabanas. Traditionally, babies’ skulls were deformed in the name of beauty, so back in the day, flat hats would’ve been worn by women with flat heads.
We’re herded into Los Portales for feeding time at the ‘gringo zoo’. The food’s decent, actually – a mix of traditional stuff like rocotos rellenos and alpaca stew and the ubiquitous nuclear yellow Inca Kola. I actually rather like it; it’s like liquid bubblegum.
There’s a wedding procession walking along one of the dirt streets; the couple at the front of it are dressed in traditional finery and the bride has money tucked into the ribbon around her hat – a very practical wedding gift.
The dirt road winds along the edge of the canyon, along a sheer drop. On the other side loom tall green mountains and the little towns are surrounded by Inca terraces. I’ve never seen anything like it. Who knows, maybe if Chile’s Mapuche were weaker, then Chile, too, would still have the remnants of ancient agricultural practises… Roosevelt confirms that the majority of the people in the canyon still live traditional lives, mainly as farmers. The canyon got electricity nine years ago, and mobile phones last year. We pass a man on a mule, talking on a mobile phone, then an elderly yet sprightly sheep herder, her face deeply wrinkled like a raisin. Roosevelt speaks to her in Quechua and then informs us that she’s eighty-five. “People here live until they’re ninety, a hundred,” he informs us. It’s a rough life, though, and I guess they carry on working out of necessity. Reminds me of the lobster fishermen on Juan Fernández, who still go out to sea when they’re in their eighties.
People here are used to walking long distances. On the other side of the canyon, there are towns connected by footpaths only, footpaths that were used during Inca times, and to go shopping in Cabanaconde, the last village reachable by motor traffic, people walk for many hours, bringing produce on their mules to sell or to barter. From the pedestrian village of Malata, it’s possible to take an old Inca Road all the way to Cusco; Roosevelt’s done it in five days. Now that would be a heck of a hike…
We see a lot of mules, and only once does someone appear on a horse that daintily picks up its feet. “It’s a Peruvian dancing horse. They were brought by the Spanish and because they lived and worked by the coast, the horses learned to walk in the sand.”
Roosevelt points out large mounds of rocks with entrances, perched high up on the side of a steep mountain. “Those are Wari tombs. Wari came before the Inca and only the priests would be buried in the hanging tombs. That way they were closer to the gods of the mountains.”
It’s dark by the time we get to Cabanaconde and have an early night in anticipation of the hike.
At 7am, Roosevelt leads us through the narrow dirt streets and along more terraced fields until we reach the start of a steep ascent into the canyon. There’s a cross at the top of the path, decorated with red wild flowers – it’s the Jesus of the mountains. “The people here go to mass on Sunday but they also make offerings to the gods of the mountains.” The vegetation reminds me of the Copper Canyon in Mexico – the cacti, the heat, the scent of flowers in the air. We stop periodically to take photos and to marvel at the canyon’s beauty as it opens up before us and as each new lookout seems to be batter than the previous one. Looking down from the path is vertigo-inducing.
As we get closer to the oasis – a lush patch of green and the turquoise of swimming pools at the bottom of reddish-yellow cliffs – we pass scores of baked gringos. I can’t believe that some tour companies do the canyon trip in one day, with people doing the hike under the scorching sun. Patrick, Alex and I beat the mules carrying our luggage down to the oasis, but only just. The last part is a very narrow path covered with scree and I’m very cautious because my knee is beginning to feel the strain of the steep descent.
The Oasis or Sangayo (‘paradise’ in Quechua) is just wonderful. Roosevelt pitches our tents and cooks our food as we frolic in the pool – each of the five properties here has one, fed by natural springs. There are other tourists here, staying in the basic grass huts. After lunch, only the non-Italians accompany Roosevelt on a short excursion; four year-old Diego has found a boy his age to play with – a rarity in this community of five families – and the rest of the family is staying with him.
A short hike out of the oasis takes us to the hanging bridge across a shallow but fast river far below. Roosevelt points out two dark birds diving into the water – rare torrent ducks: “They’re fishing for trout”, and names the various plants we see. He lived with his grandmother for six years and her knowledge of herbology was extensive. He shows us a plant that looks similar to aloe vera: “You can make very strong ropes out of this”. Then aloe vera itself, ripping off part of a leaf, letting the yellowish liquid drip down, and showing us the slimy inside: “My grandmother would use the clear liquid as eye drops.” When we come to a cluster of nopal cactuses, he scrapes some white stuff off the cactus onto his palm; on close inspection, it looks kind of like woodlice rolled in flour. He then squishes one, releasing a spurt of red onto his palm and informs us that it’s cochineal, an insect used as red food colouring and in makeup. “Twice a year, the people here harvest it and sell it to cosmetics companies.” Though locals harvest the cactus fruit (tuna or ‘prickly pear’), the nopales themselves are not eaten, unlike in Mexico, though people do make infusions out of them which are good for the digestive system.
When we see names scrawled on rocks around us, Roosevelt explains that it’s not ordinary graffiti; it’s to do with upcoming elections. He then explains the fiasco that was the previous presidential election, when the corrupt Alberto Fujimori (who fled to Japan during the last year of his presidency) decided to run for president again, was arrested in Chile and now resides in the maximum security prison that he and Vladimiro Montesinos - the Karl Rove to Fujimori’s Bush - originally had built. There’s a possibility that Keiko Fujimori may run for president this time (and win).
Back at the oasis, Roosevelt fills in the gaps in my botanical knowledge. I recognised the fig tree (and raided it), the pink peppercorn tree, the banana tree…There’s a tree sporting large white flowers, hanging down like bells; apparently the leaves, if used as an infusion in the right quantity, have a similar effect to marijuana and are used during various rituals. Too much of it leaves you blind for a couple of days. The pink peppercorns are used as mosquito repellent.
Patrick and I discover that we have a lot in common. He works in Immigration; I was denied entry to the US. I studied in Puerto Rico; he lives in Puerto Rico at the moment.
Alex uses his sophisticated phone with Google Sky Map to help us find the Southern Cross. Roosevelt points out two bright stars near it – ‘the eyes of the llama’, and I know that I’ll never forget it now.
Very early night in anticipation of a 4am start. I’m awake at 2am and can’t fall asleep. We eat breakfast in the dark and set off. Am sweating very soon and grateful for the early start; in the heat, it’d be unbearable. Gradually, Alex falls behind. Patrick is in front, and Roosevelt periodically takes the lead or goes back to check on Alex. The mules (and the Italians riding them) set off later and pass us along the way, near the top. Patrick manages to keep up with them and tells me that it nearly killed him. During yesterday’s descent, we met an eighty-something woman taking her mules to Cabanaconde; she had an enormous bundle strapped to her back and she must’ve been walking for at least five hours, but she wasn’t even breathing hard. We are all very soft compared to the people here. I make it to the top in two hours and forty-five minutes. Roosevelt’s best is one hour five minutes. There’s a marathon held in the canyon every year, with this ascent as the last stretch and last year’s winner made it in just under three hours. Amazing.
As soon as I get to the top, my leg muscles begin seizing up. I just know that tomorrow I’ll barely be able to walk. Serves me right for not stretching. A soak in the hot springs in Chivay helps a little. On the way to Chivay, we make another stop at the famous Cruz del Condor, and see one of the giant birds swoop right over our heads before riding the thermal over the mountains. One of the biggest families of condors lives here, but we’re too late in the day to see any more. We do see the world’s most enormous hummingbird, though.
On the way back to Arequipa I’m so tired, I’m in a catatonic stupor, but can’t sleep, unusually for me. Am digesting my new experience – the canyon, the mighty mountains, the faint ribbons of paths crossing them being the only sign of human existence, the people here living pretty much as they did five hundred years ago.
Roosevelt (who spells his name ‘Roosebelt’, as it turns out) offers to answer all my questions over a drink and we agree to meet at 10pm by the cathedral. I originally regret the decision because I’m ready to drop, but end up having a really good time. We go to Bar 6:16, the posters on the walls a devilish play on movie titles (‘Forrest Damned’, ‘Bad Man’, ‘The Hellfather’) and over a maracuyá sour, he tells me about other good tour companies, good places to eat and drink, his work, my work…He’s going to stay a tour guide for a few years yet, he says, and I get his contact details; he’ll be a good person to know if I come back here, which I hope I do.
There are eight of us: an Italian family consisting of a middle-aged couple, their grownup son and his four-year old boy, Diego; Alex the Ukrainian Canadian from Toronto, originally from Kiev; Anne-Marie, a Dutch flight attendant who’s taken four months off work to travel around South America; Patrick from the States, who works for Homeland Security and myself. Our guide, Roosevelt, turns out to be an energetic and enthusiastic young man, originally from Cabanaconde in the canyon, who knows the area very well.
“Why are you called Roosevelt? It’s an unusual name, isn’t it?”
“Not really. I was named after my uncle.”
“But why was he named Roosevelt?”
“My grandfather liked the American president.”
Roosevelt has a cousin named Clinton. “I’ll name my son ‘Obama’”, he jokes.
Our first stop is by the side of the road, where a herd of vicuñas is grazing pretty close to us. Roosevelt explains to us how the wild creatures are shorn one a year (and only twice in their lifetimes) and how only two shops in Arequipa are authorised to sell items made of vicuña wool.
Then we deviate from the path taken by most tour groups, go off the road over some hill ground and walk down to see the otherworldly rock formations – giant stone cones of volcanic origin, shaped by the fierce wind and the heavy rains. It’s a little like Bryce Canyon in the States. I wander among the giants, climb on the smaller ones, peer down into the valley below. The middle-aged Italian lady is affected by the altitude and Roosevelt has to help her back to the bus after she’s finished dry heaving. The altitude has less of an effect on me than before; it no longer feels like I’m moving through treacle, though I get breathless when I hike back up the hill to the bus too quickly. We’re above 3,500m.
We pass a bofedál - a green area with small lagoons and waterlogged soil; the vegetation here holds water all year round, and supports various birds as well as the vicuñas.
When the road climbs higher, it gets seriously cold. We stop at the Miradór de Los Volcanes – a viewpoint from where you can see all the major volcanoes in the area. Local women with weathered faces sit over their colourful woollen wares, wrapped in so many layers of clothing, they look round. The area around is covered with apachatas – rock pile offerings to the gods of the mountains, some made by locals, some by tourists. I make my own offering. If the gods are satisfied with a few rocks piled on top of each other, that’s getting off easy; back in the day, they used to sacrifice children, first drugging them with herbal concoctions and then dispatching them with a blow to the head. One of them, Juanita the Ice Princess, is in the famous museum in Arequipa, having just come back from a ‘holiday’ in Chicago.
As the road descends through the mountains, we pass some women and children dressed in colourful traditional garb, selling handicrafts by the road. The children all have baby alpacas with them – really cute white woolly creatures with huge eyes and a perpetually hacked off expression on their little faces.
Chivay, the biggest town in the Colca Canyon, is our lunch stop. The canyon is populated almost wholly by indigenous tribes, and Roosebelt draws our attention to the women’s hats – some are white and flat, while others are intricately embroidered with an eight-pointed star on the top. The former are the Coyahuas and the latter are Cabanas. Traditionally, babies’ skulls were deformed in the name of beauty, so back in the day, flat hats would’ve been worn by women with flat heads.
We’re herded into Los Portales for feeding time at the ‘gringo zoo’. The food’s decent, actually – a mix of traditional stuff like rocotos rellenos and alpaca stew and the ubiquitous nuclear yellow Inca Kola. I actually rather like it; it’s like liquid bubblegum.
There’s a wedding procession walking along one of the dirt streets; the couple at the front of it are dressed in traditional finery and the bride has money tucked into the ribbon around her hat – a very practical wedding gift.
The dirt road winds along the edge of the canyon, along a sheer drop. On the other side loom tall green mountains and the little towns are surrounded by Inca terraces. I’ve never seen anything like it. Who knows, maybe if Chile’s Mapuche were weaker, then Chile, too, would still have the remnants of ancient agricultural practises… Roosevelt confirms that the majority of the people in the canyon still live traditional lives, mainly as farmers. The canyon got electricity nine years ago, and mobile phones last year. We pass a man on a mule, talking on a mobile phone, then an elderly yet sprightly sheep herder, her face deeply wrinkled like a raisin. Roosevelt speaks to her in Quechua and then informs us that she’s eighty-five. “People here live until they’re ninety, a hundred,” he informs us. It’s a rough life, though, and I guess they carry on working out of necessity. Reminds me of the lobster fishermen on Juan Fernández, who still go out to sea when they’re in their eighties.
People here are used to walking long distances. On the other side of the canyon, there are towns connected by footpaths only, footpaths that were used during Inca times, and to go shopping in Cabanaconde, the last village reachable by motor traffic, people walk for many hours, bringing produce on their mules to sell or to barter. From the pedestrian village of Malata, it’s possible to take an old Inca Road all the way to Cusco; Roosevelt’s done it in five days. Now that would be a heck of a hike…
We see a lot of mules, and only once does someone appear on a horse that daintily picks up its feet. “It’s a Peruvian dancing horse. They were brought by the Spanish and because they lived and worked by the coast, the horses learned to walk in the sand.”
Roosevelt points out large mounds of rocks with entrances, perched high up on the side of a steep mountain. “Those are Wari tombs. Wari came before the Inca and only the priests would be buried in the hanging tombs. That way they were closer to the gods of the mountains.”
It’s dark by the time we get to Cabanaconde and have an early night in anticipation of the hike.
At 7am, Roosevelt leads us through the narrow dirt streets and along more terraced fields until we reach the start of a steep ascent into the canyon. There’s a cross at the top of the path, decorated with red wild flowers – it’s the Jesus of the mountains. “The people here go to mass on Sunday but they also make offerings to the gods of the mountains.” The vegetation reminds me of the Copper Canyon in Mexico – the cacti, the heat, the scent of flowers in the air. We stop periodically to take photos and to marvel at the canyon’s beauty as it opens up before us and as each new lookout seems to be batter than the previous one. Looking down from the path is vertigo-inducing.
As we get closer to the oasis – a lush patch of green and the turquoise of swimming pools at the bottom of reddish-yellow cliffs – we pass scores of baked gringos. I can’t believe that some tour companies do the canyon trip in one day, with people doing the hike under the scorching sun. Patrick, Alex and I beat the mules carrying our luggage down to the oasis, but only just. The last part is a very narrow path covered with scree and I’m very cautious because my knee is beginning to feel the strain of the steep descent.
The Oasis or Sangayo (‘paradise’ in Quechua) is just wonderful. Roosevelt pitches our tents and cooks our food as we frolic in the pool – each of the five properties here has one, fed by natural springs. There are other tourists here, staying in the basic grass huts. After lunch, only the non-Italians accompany Roosevelt on a short excursion; four year-old Diego has found a boy his age to play with – a rarity in this community of five families – and the rest of the family is staying with him.
A short hike out of the oasis takes us to the hanging bridge across a shallow but fast river far below. Roosevelt points out two dark birds diving into the water – rare torrent ducks: “They’re fishing for trout”, and names the various plants we see. He lived with his grandmother for six years and her knowledge of herbology was extensive. He shows us a plant that looks similar to aloe vera: “You can make very strong ropes out of this”. Then aloe vera itself, ripping off part of a leaf, letting the yellowish liquid drip down, and showing us the slimy inside: “My grandmother would use the clear liquid as eye drops.” When we come to a cluster of nopal cactuses, he scrapes some white stuff off the cactus onto his palm; on close inspection, it looks kind of like woodlice rolled in flour. He then squishes one, releasing a spurt of red onto his palm and informs us that it’s cochineal, an insect used as red food colouring and in makeup. “Twice a year, the people here harvest it and sell it to cosmetics companies.” Though locals harvest the cactus fruit (tuna or ‘prickly pear’), the nopales themselves are not eaten, unlike in Mexico, though people do make infusions out of them which are good for the digestive system.
When we see names scrawled on rocks around us, Roosevelt explains that it’s not ordinary graffiti; it’s to do with upcoming elections. He then explains the fiasco that was the previous presidential election, when the corrupt Alberto Fujimori (who fled to Japan during the last year of his presidency) decided to run for president again, was arrested in Chile and now resides in the maximum security prison that he and Vladimiro Montesinos - the Karl Rove to Fujimori’s Bush - originally had built. There’s a possibility that Keiko Fujimori may run for president this time (and win).
Back at the oasis, Roosevelt fills in the gaps in my botanical knowledge. I recognised the fig tree (and raided it), the pink peppercorn tree, the banana tree…There’s a tree sporting large white flowers, hanging down like bells; apparently the leaves, if used as an infusion in the right quantity, have a similar effect to marijuana and are used during various rituals. Too much of it leaves you blind for a couple of days. The pink peppercorns are used as mosquito repellent.
Patrick and I discover that we have a lot in common. He works in Immigration; I was denied entry to the US. I studied in Puerto Rico; he lives in Puerto Rico at the moment.
Alex uses his sophisticated phone with Google Sky Map to help us find the Southern Cross. Roosevelt points out two bright stars near it – ‘the eyes of the llama’, and I know that I’ll never forget it now.
Very early night in anticipation of a 4am start. I’m awake at 2am and can’t fall asleep. We eat breakfast in the dark and set off. Am sweating very soon and grateful for the early start; in the heat, it’d be unbearable. Gradually, Alex falls behind. Patrick is in front, and Roosevelt periodically takes the lead or goes back to check on Alex. The mules (and the Italians riding them) set off later and pass us along the way, near the top. Patrick manages to keep up with them and tells me that it nearly killed him. During yesterday’s descent, we met an eighty-something woman taking her mules to Cabanaconde; she had an enormous bundle strapped to her back and she must’ve been walking for at least five hours, but she wasn’t even breathing hard. We are all very soft compared to the people here. I make it to the top in two hours and forty-five minutes. Roosevelt’s best is one hour five minutes. There’s a marathon held in the canyon every year, with this ascent as the last stretch and last year’s winner made it in just under three hours. Amazing.
As soon as I get to the top, my leg muscles begin seizing up. I just know that tomorrow I’ll barely be able to walk. Serves me right for not stretching. A soak in the hot springs in Chivay helps a little. On the way to Chivay, we make another stop at the famous Cruz del Condor, and see one of the giant birds swoop right over our heads before riding the thermal over the mountains. One of the biggest families of condors lives here, but we’re too late in the day to see any more. We do see the world’s most enormous hummingbird, though.
On the way back to Arequipa I’m so tired, I’m in a catatonic stupor, but can’t sleep, unusually for me. Am digesting my new experience – the canyon, the mighty mountains, the faint ribbons of paths crossing them being the only sign of human existence, the people here living pretty much as they did five hundred years ago.
Roosevelt (who spells his name ‘Roosebelt’, as it turns out) offers to answer all my questions over a drink and we agree to meet at 10pm by the cathedral. I originally regret the decision because I’m ready to drop, but end up having a really good time. We go to Bar 6:16, the posters on the walls a devilish play on movie titles (‘Forrest Damned’, ‘Bad Man’, ‘The Hellfather’) and over a maracuyá sour, he tells me about other good tour companies, good places to eat and drink, his work, my work…He’s going to stay a tour guide for a few years yet, he says, and I get his contact details; he’ll be a good person to know if I come back here, which I hope I do.
Saturday, 15 May 2010
Day 38 - Arequipa.
Surprisingly awake and rearing to go when the bus pulls into the Arica terminal at 6am. It’s a balmy morning and there’s a breeze coming from the ocean. Ignore the touts shouting out: “Arequipa!” even though that’s my next destination; I know exactly where I’m going.
Arica feels different from the rest of Chile, probably because it’s right near the border of Peru and Bolivia; there are far more indigenous faces here, and things seem more chaotic. I make for the international terminal next door and clamber into a taxi colectivo with four other women; at CH$3000, it’s slightly pricier than the bus, but it’s a lot quicker, as the driver helps you with the border formalities. We’re off to the Peruvian city of Tacna, from where I’m due to catch another bus to Arequipa.
The other passengers are Peruvian ladies coming home; they chat to me and look out for me at the border crossing, advising me where to go and watching over my luggage. The Peruvian border guard ignores the wild boar pate that I’m carrying across the border but is very interested in my mouthwash for some reason.
Beyond the border lies a wide, dusty plain dotted with what appears to be rectangular huts, woven out of some plant, and square little brick buildings which look like outhouses, but I’m not sure what they are. Near Tacna, there are fields and fields of flat-leafed cactus, which looks like it’s cultivated; maybe it’s like the nopal in Mexico.
Tacna itself is a dusty sprawl of adobe buildings in between giant sand dunes. On one of the massive sand dunes someone’s taken the trouble to lay out the town’s emblem and other designs in what looks like darker rock. You can definitely tell that you’re in a different country: the traffic is more chaotic, and the bus terminal is awash with smells of spicy food. I change my remaining pesos into soles and manage to get a bus ticket on Arequipa straight away. The nice agent even walks me across the road to the Buses Flores terminal and offers to help with my luggage, though I don’t let her; she’s my height and looks far more fragile.
As our journey through the desert progresses, I’m so glad that I’ve splurged on the posher double-decker bus with air-con rather than paying half for the clasico; the trip takes almost seven hours due to being frequently stopped by police (they check our travel documents and luggage), road works, and the fact that you really can’t speed up on long stretches of the road – though mostly empty, it winds along hairpin bends with sheer drops along the side. No wonder there are so many roadside shrines to the dead. At one point, mist comes down so thickly that you can’t see more than a few metres in front of you, and the bus slows right down, though I can see other cars dashing by in the opposite direction at higher speeds.
Much of the landscape is a moonscape – reddish hills and dusty desert, where the only sign of civilisation are electricity pylons. When we pass through a couple of little town, I notice that the designs on the giant sand dunes are actually made of a dark cactus, clearly planted especially.
Some puzzling billboards. One says: “Papa no corres, vuleve a casa.” (Daddy, don’t run away, come home.” I wonder if there are many absent fathers in Peru. Another billboard warns against having too many children: “How are you going to love them all?” This is a Catholic country, right? I wonder what alternatives they’re suggesting.
Arequipa takes me by surprise. For some reason I was expecting a sunny, chilled-out city like somewhere in Andalucía, but the first thing that hits you is the smell of diesel fumes, closely followed by the cacophony of street sounds. I take a cab to my place – Los Andes, right by the Plaza de Armas; the chatty driver gives me tips on what to see.
Am a bit light-headed, possibly because I hadn’t had a proper meal in 24 hours, so my first priority is food. I play Russian roulette by choosing a rocoto relleno, which looks like a bell pepper stuffed with meat – some of them are mild, and some are explosively spicy. Mine is so spicy that it brings tears to my eyes and I gulp air like a fish.
I make my way through the city’s chaos to get my bearings; last time I was in Peru, I was travelling with Mike, and when I travel with someone who knows the place, I tend to switch off the ‘guidebook writer mode’ and not pay much attention to where everything is. I take in the beautiful stone churches, which I’ll explore in more detail later, and the really impressive white stone convent, which takes up more than a block; here I find La Trattoria, the Gastón Acurio restaurant that my friend Pete recommended and make a reservation for my last day.
Gastón is a Peruvian culinary superstar, and his food is some of the best I’ve ever eaten; he has branches all over the place, including Spain, and now the States as well – San Francisco or New York. He makes Jamie Oliver look like a peasant. End up having dinner at another of his places – Chicha – which does traditional Arequipa food, but really, really well. Look wistfully at the wonderful-looking cocktails – different takes on the original pisco sour – and go for a chicha morada (purple corn drink) instead because we are at an altitude. Pig out on ceviche and traditional food – a posh rocoto relleno, awesome pork crackling, and something delicious and gelatinous attached to bone, which I can’t identify but which turns out to be a pig’s trotter.
The original plan was to stay in Arequipa for a couple of days, but since a three-day trek into the Colca Canyon only runs on Saturdays and Tuesdays, I have no choice but to explore the city when I return.
Arica feels different from the rest of Chile, probably because it’s right near the border of Peru and Bolivia; there are far more indigenous faces here, and things seem more chaotic. I make for the international terminal next door and clamber into a taxi colectivo with four other women; at CH$3000, it’s slightly pricier than the bus, but it’s a lot quicker, as the driver helps you with the border formalities. We’re off to the Peruvian city of Tacna, from where I’m due to catch another bus to Arequipa.
The other passengers are Peruvian ladies coming home; they chat to me and look out for me at the border crossing, advising me where to go and watching over my luggage. The Peruvian border guard ignores the wild boar pate that I’m carrying across the border but is very interested in my mouthwash for some reason.
Beyond the border lies a wide, dusty plain dotted with what appears to be rectangular huts, woven out of some plant, and square little brick buildings which look like outhouses, but I’m not sure what they are. Near Tacna, there are fields and fields of flat-leafed cactus, which looks like it’s cultivated; maybe it’s like the nopal in Mexico.
Tacna itself is a dusty sprawl of adobe buildings in between giant sand dunes. On one of the massive sand dunes someone’s taken the trouble to lay out the town’s emblem and other designs in what looks like darker rock. You can definitely tell that you’re in a different country: the traffic is more chaotic, and the bus terminal is awash with smells of spicy food. I change my remaining pesos into soles and manage to get a bus ticket on Arequipa straight away. The nice agent even walks me across the road to the Buses Flores terminal and offers to help with my luggage, though I don’t let her; she’s my height and looks far more fragile.
As our journey through the desert progresses, I’m so glad that I’ve splurged on the posher double-decker bus with air-con rather than paying half for the clasico; the trip takes almost seven hours due to being frequently stopped by police (they check our travel documents and luggage), road works, and the fact that you really can’t speed up on long stretches of the road – though mostly empty, it winds along hairpin bends with sheer drops along the side. No wonder there are so many roadside shrines to the dead. At one point, mist comes down so thickly that you can’t see more than a few metres in front of you, and the bus slows right down, though I can see other cars dashing by in the opposite direction at higher speeds.
Much of the landscape is a moonscape – reddish hills and dusty desert, where the only sign of civilisation are electricity pylons. When we pass through a couple of little town, I notice that the designs on the giant sand dunes are actually made of a dark cactus, clearly planted especially.
Some puzzling billboards. One says: “Papa no corres, vuleve a casa.” (Daddy, don’t run away, come home.” I wonder if there are many absent fathers in Peru. Another billboard warns against having too many children: “How are you going to love them all?” This is a Catholic country, right? I wonder what alternatives they’re suggesting.
Arequipa takes me by surprise. For some reason I was expecting a sunny, chilled-out city like somewhere in Andalucía, but the first thing that hits you is the smell of diesel fumes, closely followed by the cacophony of street sounds. I take a cab to my place – Los Andes, right by the Plaza de Armas; the chatty driver gives me tips on what to see.
Am a bit light-headed, possibly because I hadn’t had a proper meal in 24 hours, so my first priority is food. I play Russian roulette by choosing a rocoto relleno, which looks like a bell pepper stuffed with meat – some of them are mild, and some are explosively spicy. Mine is so spicy that it brings tears to my eyes and I gulp air like a fish.
I make my way through the city’s chaos to get my bearings; last time I was in Peru, I was travelling with Mike, and when I travel with someone who knows the place, I tend to switch off the ‘guidebook writer mode’ and not pay much attention to where everything is. I take in the beautiful stone churches, which I’ll explore in more detail later, and the really impressive white stone convent, which takes up more than a block; here I find La Trattoria, the Gastón Acurio restaurant that my friend Pete recommended and make a reservation for my last day.
Gastón is a Peruvian culinary superstar, and his food is some of the best I’ve ever eaten; he has branches all over the place, including Spain, and now the States as well – San Francisco or New York. He makes Jamie Oliver look like a peasant. End up having dinner at another of his places – Chicha – which does traditional Arequipa food, but really, really well. Look wistfully at the wonderful-looking cocktails – different takes on the original pisco sour – and go for a chicha morada (purple corn drink) instead because we are at an altitude. Pig out on ceviche and traditional food – a posh rocoto relleno, awesome pork crackling, and something delicious and gelatinous attached to bone, which I can’t identify but which turns out to be a pig’s trotter.
The original plan was to stay in Arequipa for a couple of days, but since a three-day trek into the Colca Canyon only runs on Saturdays and Tuesdays, I have no choice but to explore the city when I return.
Days 36 & 37 - San Pedro de Atacama.
Luckily, on the bus to San Pedro, we have the air-con on most of the time, so I manage to sleep, on and off. The sun begins to rise as we drive out of Antofagasta, illuminating the dirt-brown plain and the early morning mist on the equally brown mountains. A processing plant in the desert is belching black smoke. More trash everywhere. In the distance, there’s the odd dust trail left by a truck passing through. We stop for a slow freight train. The baby in the seat behind me is squalling for the umpteenth time. Change buses in Calama.
The closer we get to San Pedro, the more stunning the scenery. It’s not for everyone, but to me, the surrounding moonscape – the bare reddish mountains – is just beautiful. San Pedro is like a small green oasis in the desert, its one-storey adobe houses hidden amidst the greenery. I’m staying at Hostal Sonchek; my first choice, Takha Takha, where I stayed last time, is booked up. They all look alike, these hostels – greenery in the inside courtyards, a few benches or hammocks, some cats dotted about the place, and no-frills rooms without heating.
San Pedro is my home in the north of Chile. I really like the chilled-out vibe, the dirt streets, the good food and the incredible scenery within reach. Last time I was here, I went sandboarding, swimming in the salt lakes, I visited the highland villages and the geysers at dawn, and went stargazing. San Pedro (or the Atacama Desert) has some of the clearest skies on earth, which is why I’m deeply disappointed that on the one night I’m here, it’s cloudy and the stargazing’s cancelled. The French guy who runs it is amazing; he’s got several high-powered telescopes set out in his backyard; his explanations are very entertaining and best of all, you get to look through all the telescopes, and where there’s only one star to the naked eye, you see a cluster; you can see the craters on the moon, and I still remember the wonder I felt – the fluttering feeling in my stomach, when I first caught sight of the tiny golden Saturn with its rings clearly visible. It didn't seem real.
I pay a visit to Martin of Cosmo Andino; last time I ended up joining a couple of their tours and their reputation is still the best in a town where every other place is a tour agency or a restaurant. Even though I’m on a ‘mini-vacation’, I still enquire about any changes since last time; we gossip about mutual acquaintances, and I sign up for the 4am visit to the geysers. Even on a ‘mini-vacation’ I can’t seem to sleep in.
The mundane stuff does get done, though: I drop stuff off at the laundry; exchange “Slaves of new York” (bleak but spot-on) for “The Subtle Knife”, which I’ve read already but love; write postcards to my inmates beneath the pink peppercorn trees in the plaza and post them, and visit La Estaka – still one of the most innovative places to eat which actually has good service. When I’m persuaded to eat at La Esquina by an English-speaking tout, I’m just amazed that they’re still open in a town where everything is so competitive: even though I’m the only customer, the staff stand around talking for about five minutes without greeting me or giving me the menu, then the soup takes years to arrive, and though it’s good, I finally have to then go up to them to get their attention. Suggested tip is 10%. I think not.
When I’m waiting for my pickup at 4am, a large black dog bounds up to me and seems ecstatically happy to see me. When I walk past Takha Takha later on, I see the same dog there, and realise that it’s the puppy from two years ago; I made friends with the family of dogs who lived in the garden, and the puppies would come and sit on my lap at night when I sat in the garden to watch the stars. In fact, the entire family walked me to the bus station when I was leaving.
Can’t sleep on the way to the geysers; it’s a two-hour bumpy ride and am feeling nauseous, unusually for me. A whole fleet of minibuses is there before sunrise; cold and slightly dazed from the altitude (4500m) we wander between the fumaroles and geysers spitting out jets of boiling water like ghosts in the mist. It’s an amazing sight, caused by intense volcanic activity: underground rivers are heated up enough to spew out steam which turns to water upon hitting the cold air. We have to be careful where we walk, because there have been several cases of boiled tourist.
Coca leaf tea for breakfast, and then we move on to the hot springs. Here there are several mighty geysers which have killed several people, as well as a pool fed by the natural hot springs. I realise later that I diced with death because I didn’t stick to the safe path (I didn’t even notice that there was a path); I could’ve easily fallen through the fragile ground and become a boiled egg. The hot spring are one of the highlights of the trip; at first you’re very very cold, stripping off in sub-zero temperatures and then you plunge into wonderfully hot water! The shallow end’s the warmest; here you can’t stay in one place because every now and then, you get semi-scalded by jets of hot water. Not many people can say that they’ve had a soak in a hot tub at a height of 4500m.
We go back a roundabout way, following dirt tracks through the mountains. There’s a lot of wildlife – mostly vicuñas, the smallest of the llama family and the ones with the finest wool. A vicuña wool poncho goes for $10,000 in the States because you only get around 200g of wool from a single creature and you can’t domesticate them. They graze not far away from the road, unafraid.
We stop at a tiny highland village; normal population: 40; current population: five people, a dog and two baby llamas; you can pay to feed them milk out of a baby bottle. There’s a little whitewashed church and the adobe brick huts have thatched roofs. A local is doing a roaring trade selling grilled llama kebabs. I have to get one, of course, though the going price of CH$1700 is pretty steep. It’s tender, flavourful meat. I notice that the people who were fussing over the baby llamas a minute ago are having no trouble enjoying the llama skewers either.
For our last stop, we follow a stream along a hill overgrown with massive candelabra cacti and through thick growths of reeds. It’s a bit of a scramble down, but it’s worth it for the waterfall at the end and the view of the narrow canyon through which you can hike back all the way to San Pedro apparently – it’s only 20km.
I may have caught too much sun because my head is burning up as if I have a fever and I have a craving for ceviche. It may be a bit silly, getting Peruvian-style ceviche when Peru’s only a day away, but I don’t care. Sleep in the afternoon and then bid San Pedro farewell again, hopping on an all-nighter to Arica in the north.
The closer we get to San Pedro, the more stunning the scenery. It’s not for everyone, but to me, the surrounding moonscape – the bare reddish mountains – is just beautiful. San Pedro is like a small green oasis in the desert, its one-storey adobe houses hidden amidst the greenery. I’m staying at Hostal Sonchek; my first choice, Takha Takha, where I stayed last time, is booked up. They all look alike, these hostels – greenery in the inside courtyards, a few benches or hammocks, some cats dotted about the place, and no-frills rooms without heating.
San Pedro is my home in the north of Chile. I really like the chilled-out vibe, the dirt streets, the good food and the incredible scenery within reach. Last time I was here, I went sandboarding, swimming in the salt lakes, I visited the highland villages and the geysers at dawn, and went stargazing. San Pedro (or the Atacama Desert) has some of the clearest skies on earth, which is why I’m deeply disappointed that on the one night I’m here, it’s cloudy and the stargazing’s cancelled. The French guy who runs it is amazing; he’s got several high-powered telescopes set out in his backyard; his explanations are very entertaining and best of all, you get to look through all the telescopes, and where there’s only one star to the naked eye, you see a cluster; you can see the craters on the moon, and I still remember the wonder I felt – the fluttering feeling in my stomach, when I first caught sight of the tiny golden Saturn with its rings clearly visible. It didn't seem real.
I pay a visit to Martin of Cosmo Andino; last time I ended up joining a couple of their tours and their reputation is still the best in a town where every other place is a tour agency or a restaurant. Even though I’m on a ‘mini-vacation’, I still enquire about any changes since last time; we gossip about mutual acquaintances, and I sign up for the 4am visit to the geysers. Even on a ‘mini-vacation’ I can’t seem to sleep in.
The mundane stuff does get done, though: I drop stuff off at the laundry; exchange “Slaves of new York” (bleak but spot-on) for “The Subtle Knife”, which I’ve read already but love; write postcards to my inmates beneath the pink peppercorn trees in the plaza and post them, and visit La Estaka – still one of the most innovative places to eat which actually has good service. When I’m persuaded to eat at La Esquina by an English-speaking tout, I’m just amazed that they’re still open in a town where everything is so competitive: even though I’m the only customer, the staff stand around talking for about five minutes without greeting me or giving me the menu, then the soup takes years to arrive, and though it’s good, I finally have to then go up to them to get their attention. Suggested tip is 10%. I think not.
When I’m waiting for my pickup at 4am, a large black dog bounds up to me and seems ecstatically happy to see me. When I walk past Takha Takha later on, I see the same dog there, and realise that it’s the puppy from two years ago; I made friends with the family of dogs who lived in the garden, and the puppies would come and sit on my lap at night when I sat in the garden to watch the stars. In fact, the entire family walked me to the bus station when I was leaving.
Can’t sleep on the way to the geysers; it’s a two-hour bumpy ride and am feeling nauseous, unusually for me. A whole fleet of minibuses is there before sunrise; cold and slightly dazed from the altitude (4500m) we wander between the fumaroles and geysers spitting out jets of boiling water like ghosts in the mist. It’s an amazing sight, caused by intense volcanic activity: underground rivers are heated up enough to spew out steam which turns to water upon hitting the cold air. We have to be careful where we walk, because there have been several cases of boiled tourist.
Coca leaf tea for breakfast, and then we move on to the hot springs. Here there are several mighty geysers which have killed several people, as well as a pool fed by the natural hot springs. I realise later that I diced with death because I didn’t stick to the safe path (I didn’t even notice that there was a path); I could’ve easily fallen through the fragile ground and become a boiled egg. The hot spring are one of the highlights of the trip; at first you’re very very cold, stripping off in sub-zero temperatures and then you plunge into wonderfully hot water! The shallow end’s the warmest; here you can’t stay in one place because every now and then, you get semi-scalded by jets of hot water. Not many people can say that they’ve had a soak in a hot tub at a height of 4500m.
We go back a roundabout way, following dirt tracks through the mountains. There’s a lot of wildlife – mostly vicuñas, the smallest of the llama family and the ones with the finest wool. A vicuña wool poncho goes for $10,000 in the States because you only get around 200g of wool from a single creature and you can’t domesticate them. They graze not far away from the road, unafraid.
We stop at a tiny highland village; normal population: 40; current population: five people, a dog and two baby llamas; you can pay to feed them milk out of a baby bottle. There’s a little whitewashed church and the adobe brick huts have thatched roofs. A local is doing a roaring trade selling grilled llama kebabs. I have to get one, of course, though the going price of CH$1700 is pretty steep. It’s tender, flavourful meat. I notice that the people who were fussing over the baby llamas a minute ago are having no trouble enjoying the llama skewers either.
For our last stop, we follow a stream along a hill overgrown with massive candelabra cacti and through thick growths of reeds. It’s a bit of a scramble down, but it’s worth it for the waterfall at the end and the view of the narrow canyon through which you can hike back all the way to San Pedro apparently – it’s only 20km.
I may have caught too much sun because my head is burning up as if I have a fever and I have a craving for ceviche. It may be a bit silly, getting Peruvian-style ceviche when Peru’s only a day away, but I don’t care. Sleep in the afternoon and then bid San Pedro farewell again, hopping on an all-nighter to Arica in the north.
Thursday, 13 May 2010
Days 34 & 35 - from Pucon to San Pedro de Atacama.
Catch the early morning bus from Valdivia to Pucón. The weather’s getting warmer and sunnier, the further north I travel. You can see all of the Villarica volcano. Am welcomed by Cristian’s mum and the dogs, since Cristian’s off climbing mountains in the north of Chile, in Parque Nacional Lauca.
Collect the rest of my gear, use the day to repack with a view to sending one bag of stuff to Mike’s in Lima as soon as I get to Arequipa, and to start booking accommodation in Peru. Try to make up for the relative malnutrition of the last few weeks by filling up on wholesome vegetarian food and fruit juices at Trawén and ¡ecole!.
The two friendly German girls staying at Tree House are travelling around the world for a year; they’ve just come from Peru and are keen to give me tips. They couldn’t do the most popular Inca Trail because of the mudslide, but they did the jungle one instead and tell me it was awesome. They’ve just come back from the volcano climb and tell me how brilliant it was. When they learn that I write for the Rough Guide, they chorus: “We love the Rough Guide; we’re travelling with it right now!” I modestly take credit for all the good work the Rough Guide’s ever done: “Always happy to meet our fans!” They say that having talked to other travellers travelling with either the Rough Guide or the Lonely Planet Shoestring guide, the consensus is that the LP ‘is shit’ by comparison. “One tip, though – their Getting There and Away section is better.” I take that on board.
Take the overnight bus to Santiago, having told Cristian’s mum that I’ll see her at Cristian and Sophie’s wedding in Portsmouth in July. The ride is hot and airless. One of the disadvantages of travelling by posher Tur Bus is that you have no control over climate conditions, and if the driver decides to turn up the heating and switch off the air-con, then sauna it is. On cheaper buses you can fling open a window. The fat guy next to me keeps snorting in his sleep and I keep elbowing him.
I have three hours to kill in Santiago before hopping on my 24-hour bus to Calama in the north, in order to then connect to San Pedro de Atacama. Where does a hungry Anna K go for breakfast? Why, to the fish market, of course! I've loved the Mercado Central ever since Mike introduced me to it in 2005, and I will argue with anyone who dares suggest that machas a la pamesana (razor clams baked with parmesan) washed down with hot fishy broth is not the ideal breakfast!
I squeeze into the Metro along with the morning commuters, get off at Universidad de Chile and walk up Paseo Ahumado, taking the typical morning scene: businessmen plugged into I-Pods having their shoes shined, sellers flogging copies of the latest laws or frying honey-roasted peanuts in street carts…I find a little eatery open away from the centre of the market – the centre’s for tourists – and sate my appetite for early morning seafood.
When I get back to the bus, bearing in mind that I’ve got a long bus journey ahead of me, I make sure that I’ve got Immodium within reach. True, I’ve never had food poisoning anywhere but the States and Spain, but as the saying goes, “Keep your friends close but your anti-diarrhetics closer.”
I zone in and out during the bus journey. We pass by vineyards, which are then replaced by dusty hills covered in low green bushes and studded with candelabra cacti. Pink peppercorn trees grow by the road, reminding me of my trip into the Elqui Valley, a little further north, two years ago. We went to a pisco distillery plant and that’s where I experienced my first earthquake – just a few seconds of feeling as if you’re in a dodgy lift.
Trash is everywhere. Plastic and cans are blown all over the landscape, especially when we near a city. We pass through Ovalle, La Serena, Copiapó, getting five minutes to stretch our legs and grab something to eat. I snooze, trace our progress in my Chile road atlas (I love maps!) or I read “Slaves of New York”. It’s very rare for me to be reading something for hours, uninterrupted; there’s usually too much to do and I feel guilty about taking time out. But on a bus journey like this, I can’t do much more. I’ve already gone through my guidebooks to Peru, circling all the places I need to visit on the city maps and salivating in anticipation of Peruvian street food. The preliminary work is done.
I'm stopping in San Pedro de Atacama for just under two days - to catch my breath, go star gazing and psyche myself up for the second part of my journey.
Collect the rest of my gear, use the day to repack with a view to sending one bag of stuff to Mike’s in Lima as soon as I get to Arequipa, and to start booking accommodation in Peru. Try to make up for the relative malnutrition of the last few weeks by filling up on wholesome vegetarian food and fruit juices at Trawén and ¡ecole!.
The two friendly German girls staying at Tree House are travelling around the world for a year; they’ve just come from Peru and are keen to give me tips. They couldn’t do the most popular Inca Trail because of the mudslide, but they did the jungle one instead and tell me it was awesome. They’ve just come back from the volcano climb and tell me how brilliant it was. When they learn that I write for the Rough Guide, they chorus: “We love the Rough Guide; we’re travelling with it right now!” I modestly take credit for all the good work the Rough Guide’s ever done: “Always happy to meet our fans!” They say that having talked to other travellers travelling with either the Rough Guide or the Lonely Planet Shoestring guide, the consensus is that the LP ‘is shit’ by comparison. “One tip, though – their Getting There and Away section is better.” I take that on board.
Take the overnight bus to Santiago, having told Cristian’s mum that I’ll see her at Cristian and Sophie’s wedding in Portsmouth in July. The ride is hot and airless. One of the disadvantages of travelling by posher Tur Bus is that you have no control over climate conditions, and if the driver decides to turn up the heating and switch off the air-con, then sauna it is. On cheaper buses you can fling open a window. The fat guy next to me keeps snorting in his sleep and I keep elbowing him.
I have three hours to kill in Santiago before hopping on my 24-hour bus to Calama in the north, in order to then connect to San Pedro de Atacama. Where does a hungry Anna K go for breakfast? Why, to the fish market, of course! I've loved the Mercado Central ever since Mike introduced me to it in 2005, and I will argue with anyone who dares suggest that machas a la pamesana (razor clams baked with parmesan) washed down with hot fishy broth is not the ideal breakfast!
I squeeze into the Metro along with the morning commuters, get off at Universidad de Chile and walk up Paseo Ahumado, taking the typical morning scene: businessmen plugged into I-Pods having their shoes shined, sellers flogging copies of the latest laws or frying honey-roasted peanuts in street carts…I find a little eatery open away from the centre of the market – the centre’s for tourists – and sate my appetite for early morning seafood.
When I get back to the bus, bearing in mind that I’ve got a long bus journey ahead of me, I make sure that I’ve got Immodium within reach. True, I’ve never had food poisoning anywhere but the States and Spain, but as the saying goes, “Keep your friends close but your anti-diarrhetics closer.”
I zone in and out during the bus journey. We pass by vineyards, which are then replaced by dusty hills covered in low green bushes and studded with candelabra cacti. Pink peppercorn trees grow by the road, reminding me of my trip into the Elqui Valley, a little further north, two years ago. We went to a pisco distillery plant and that’s where I experienced my first earthquake – just a few seconds of feeling as if you’re in a dodgy lift.
Trash is everywhere. Plastic and cans are blown all over the landscape, especially when we near a city. We pass through Ovalle, La Serena, Copiapó, getting five minutes to stretch our legs and grab something to eat. I snooze, trace our progress in my Chile road atlas (I love maps!) or I read “Slaves of New York”. It’s very rare for me to be reading something for hours, uninterrupted; there’s usually too much to do and I feel guilty about taking time out. But on a bus journey like this, I can’t do much more. I’ve already gone through my guidebooks to Peru, circling all the places I need to visit on the city maps and salivating in anticipation of Peruvian street food. The preliminary work is done.
I'm stopping in San Pedro de Atacama for just under two days - to catch my breath, go star gazing and psyche myself up for the second part of my journey.
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