New continent, new country, new language, new everything! We’ve definitely had some clear moments of cultural whiplash on this trip so far (hello going from Japan to Edinburgh in the middle of the Fringe Fest!), and going from the US to Peru is another doozy.
The first visual signals here remind me of parts of Indonesia or India: oodles of electricity wires dripping from posts, dogs everywhere, crazy traffic with seemingly no rhyme or reason (to my Western eyes anyway). There are also a surprising number of half-finished buildings of brick or adobe with steel rebar posts sticking up waiting for the next floor.
As we travel around, we fall under the spell of this marvellous country and our initial puzzlement gives way to appreciation. The people are really friendly and relaxed and the food is ridiculously good. The cultural history is full of reverence for the natural world and I love the stories of animals (snakes, condors and pumas) and landscape features (mountains and waterways) being the connection points between this world and the underworld.
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| Flying from Lima to Puerto Maldonado |
There are 3 main phases to our trip here: jungle, mountains and desert…
Jungle: Puerto Maldonado, Peruvian amazon
It’s crazy, muggy hot at the Tambopata River. We travel upstream for 2 hours by speedboat to a remote lodge, staying in little cabanas that have no power in the evenings (no fan!). We do a boat trip leaving at 3am to see macaws at their clay-lick, an evening jungle walk to spot plants and animals, a late night boat trip to see cayman, and a walk to a lake followed by a slow canoe trip to spot otters and birds and fish for piranhas (Aelie is one of the few in our group to catch one!). Then we take the boat back downstream to another spot, walk an hour to a lake and canoe across it to an even more remote lodge from which we do nighttime and early morning canoe trips to keep spotting wildlife.
While we were there I was 100% uncomfortable with heat, sweat and poor sleep 100% of the time, but luckily that memory has faded and I’m left with how remarkable it was to see these creatures in the wild and how lovely our guide, Yuri, was. Sim absolutely lapped it up and Aelie was really resilient despite the lack of usual comforts.
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| There’s the occasional huge tree looming out of the forest |
Some standout moments include spotting our first capybara, seeing macaws at their clay-lick, Sim cradling a baby cayman, Aelie catching her piranha, spotting otters and lovely sunsets over the lakes.
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| Macaws |
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| Sim’s friend, Fred, the baby cayman |
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| Rainbow! |
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| Glorious sunset views out over the lake |
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| Otter family, rendered drawing-like by the zoom on my phone camera |
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| Sim absolutely loved it! |
Mountains: Machu Picchu, the Sacred Valley and Cusco
Next we fly to the highest altitude any of us has ever been - Cusco at 3,400m. We’ve been taking altitude sickness medication in preparation but even so, we immediately hop in a car to drive down the valley to a lower altitude to help us acclimatise in the lovely town of Ollantaytambo for a few days. There we start getting used to the magnificent views of mountains at every turn. I’m in heaven!
We also visit our first of many ruins and have a delicious pachamanca lunch, which involves meats and vegetables baked in an earthen oven with hot stones.
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| Ollantaytambo Archaeological Park |
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| Pachamanca lunch - that’s our food cooking under there! |
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| Delicious! I love the range of potatoes and other root vegetables that are common here |
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| Can’t beat those views |
Then we’re off on the train to Aguas Calientes in readiness for our trip to Machu Picchu. We walk to a nature reserve in the afternoon and take a dip in a freezing cold waterhole. Then we’re up at the crack of dawn to try and beat the crowds to the well known site. The day starts with a bus ride up the mountain on a road of switchbacks, impressive views all the way. Our guide, Hernan, expertly leads us around Machu Picchu, which is believed to have been a kind of holiday estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti in the 1400s (at this point it occurs to me how many of the places we’ve visited have been holiday homes for the wealthy and powerful!). It’s another of those moments where I can’t quite believe what I’m seeing. This place is so iconic, seared into the visual mythology of this planet; it’s hard to believe I’m temporarily a part of ‘that view’.
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| Views from the train from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes |
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| Aguas Calientes |
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| Taking a refreshing dip in a glacier-fed rock pool! Aelie stayed way longer than either Sim or I could manage |
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| Views from the bus to Machu Picchu |
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| There it is! |
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| Excellent guide, Hernan |
After Machu Picchu, we travel to an unassuming town in the middle of the Sacred Valley called Urabamba. It’s a bit off the tourist track and we’re grateful to be in a place that seems to exist for itself and it’s residents rather than us blow-through tourists. I’ve found a local family with kids who speak English for some play dates for Aelie, so we spend some time with them. Sim does a big hike to some ruins and a waterfall one day while Aelie and I explore the town, and I have a wonderful experience learning how to dye alpaca wool another day. We also visit the remarkable Maras salt mines and the ruins at Moray, believed to be a site of agricultural experimentation, and Pisac.
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| Markets in Urabamba |
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| Cute face peering at us on the local collectivo bus |
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| Maras salt mines |
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| Old lady chillin’ in the town of Maras |
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| Moray Archaeological Park |
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| Pisac Archaeological Park |
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| Stunning valley near the Pisac ruins |
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| Alpaca wool dyeing |
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| Don’t mind me. I’m just taking my alpaca for a walk |
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| Crushing moss to dye wool |
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| Post boiling and pre-rinsing |
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| Hilda, instigator of the Andean Colors social enterprise to support single mothers |
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| My finished wool with expert guides, Noemie and Hilda |
After that we spend a few days in Cusco. Aelie and I lux out with a manicure for her and massage for me while Sim does another hike, and we visit just a few more ruins (Tipon and Saqsaywaman)! I’m particularly taken by our guide at the latter when he passionately speaks about the Incans’ incredible engineering and knowledge of how to protect towns from landslides and compares this with their contemporary governments who have been unable to protect it’s citizens from more recent slips. My main feeling from all the ruins is a sense of wonder at the innovation and smarts of these previous cultures and, in the same moment, I’m not sure why I’m so surprised.
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| Plaza Mayor de Cusco |
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| Lovely views along the narrow, steep streets of the San Blas neighbourhood |
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| Views of the city from San Blas |
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| School kids dancing in a parade |
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| Tipon Archaeological Park |
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| Saqsaywaman Archaeological park with Cristo Blanco in the background |
Then we board a bus for an overnight trip down the mountains to the desert!!!
Desert: Nazca and Huacachina
Our transportation is a double-decker bus with large, plush seats that recline to nearly horizontal and foot rests to elevate your lower legs. I’m not a great sleeper at the best of times so I take a sleeping tablet for this one and am oblivious to most of the craziness. But before I log off, I piece together a vague notion of the landscape we’re travelling through from the utter hazard that is going to the bathroom in this madly lurching vehicle!
We wake to a magnificent final stretch of switchbacks down an ochre, almost Martian landscape that sweeps down to the flat planes below. We arrive in Nazca and are whisked away to a small airport where we wait and wait and wait for other passengers to make up the right weight balance in our light aircraft. From there we take off and fly over the Nazca lines, mysterious geoglyphs in the desert made of shallow depressions in the ground where pebbles have been removed to leave different-coloured dirt exposed.
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| Our plane for the flight over the Nazca lines |
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| The Astronaut |
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| Dog |
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| Spider |
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| Cat |
There are many theories about why they were created - to communicate with the gods, to represent constellations, for spiritual worship, to indicate the location of water or fields. Either which way, quite spectacular, though the banking that the pilot does to give everyone a decent view makes Aelie and I pretty nauseous and I’m glad I’ve pre-prepared the plastic bags that are provided for upset tums 🤢
Following this, we have lunch in the town and then hop back on another bus to Ica and from there, a taxi to Huacachina, a cute little oasis in the desert set to a fantastic backdrop of large sand dunes. We manage to scramble midway up a dune to view the sunset and hundreds of people zooming around in buggies, sand boarding and paragliding.
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| Huacachina oasis |
We’re off the next morning to Lima where I’ve booked us lunch at one of the many gastro-restaurants - a little treat after the uprootedness of the last few days. I’m particularly impressed by the stunning coastline here!
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| Lima has a stunning coastline! |
We love you, Peru! Definitely a bunch of highlights here.
Next stop: Buenos Aires and Iguazú Falls
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