Pi$$ed in Puno & a Not-So-Healthy Entrance to Bolivia

One of the great things about travelling in a group is that there is a fair amount of birthday celebrations. Our return from Lake Titicaca coincided with the birthday of Biscuit (her real name is Vicki and its a long-ish story for another day), so our guide Kike arranged a spot at a local bar and we hit it with a vengeance. A spot had been put aside for us in the bar and decorated with streamers and balloons, and there was even a cake for Biscuit. Kike kept feeding us with tequila, and as a result everyone had a good time. Simon, Sam and I all pitched in to give Biscuit a special birthday present from the three of us - a lovely striptease and lapdance for the lucky birthday girl. I can confirm that video footage and photos exist, but they shall remain safely stored away in a vault! In the end it was a particularly big night for me, and I really should have taken the hint from the Jenga blocks cascading over at the bar that maybe I had imbibed too much.

As with all alcoholic overindulgence, the real price is paid the next day. As so often with my drinking timing, it coincided with a travel day and a border crossing. I was in a particularly bad state today, with not only vomiting but also diarrhea. Couple that with the altitude, a bus-driver that wouldn't open the onboard toilet, and some of the roughest roads Bolivia could muster, and I wasn't in a great spot!

So it was in such a state that I crossed into Bolivia, and reached the highest capital city in the world, La Paz, at about 3.6km above sea level. Bolivia is the poorest country in South America. It sits on lots of natural resources but a combination of factors, including being landlocked and a lack of industry to refine those resources, means that Bolivia is in a poor economic state.

La Paz also signalled the end of our current part of the trip, i.e. Lima to La Paz, which meant that we were gaining some additions to our group, and losing one. That one wasn't a group member but our leader Kike who had lead us since Day 1 and had guided us through Ecuador and his native Peru. We were all very sad that Kike was leaving and he had become a big part of our everyday lives that it was going to be weird not having him and his cheekiness around.

I was laid up for a couple of days recovering from my big night in Puno so I didn't go into my usual tourist mode whilst in La Paz. There is also a fair bit of crime in the city so I was a bit dubious about taking my camera out and hence I don't have any snaps of La Paz. You're all not missing much though, although in retrospect I wish I had taken some pictures for my own memories. One unfortunate thing about recovering was that I missed the bike ride down the world's most dangerous road. Well that could be a fortunate thing in the eyes of some of my family members, especially Mum. I understand that the road isn't used now other than for tourists hooning down on their bikes, but in its "heyday" there were many cars, trucks and buses dropping over the side, which I understand was a big drop!

I mostly caught up on admin things whilst in La Paz. I caught up on emails, uploaded photos, got photos put on CDs buying a new diary to replace my already filled 1B5 textbook, and checked out the markets in the local vicinity. One particular market excursion was with a new couple that had joined our group, Amit and Nisha. Amit and Nisha are from Manchester and are both pharmacists. They had just finished a trip through Peru and then dashed down to Rio de Janeiro while they waited for this leg of our tour to start. Some of the markets had some great cheap clothing, electronics, DVDs, and weird items like llama foeti. Random! Probably my best pick up was a portable DVD player that came in handy during my recuperation/lazy phase in La Paz.

Our second night in La Paz was spent farewelling Kike at a place called Mongos, and welcoming our new guide, Hugo from Argentina. As I said it was sad to farewell Senor Munoz, but Hugo had beers for us all so that went some way to making us feel better! Hugo loves Che Guevara, and to be honest he looks like him too! Our other additions were a couple of Canadians (Chris from Toronto, so I had to hit him up about that due to the fact I was heading there after my travels to try and find a job, and Benoit a crazy French-Canadian doctor), and two Poms (Sean from Norwich who had been shouted the trip for his 50th birthday, and Sue who spoke fluent Spanish and had been travelling around on her own steam for a while). Needless to say there was the usual bonding session over a few drinks and they all fit in really well.

Our group was now at full strength, and after another night in La Paz we headed off to Sucre via a place in the middle of nowhere called Cochabamba. This was just a place to stop and really isn't much to talk about. Probably the highlight for most of the group was a chance to have a feed of Burger King, as well as catch up on some sleep. We were into Cochabamba over a weekend so there really wasn't much on. One funny thing to come out of Cochabamba was that we spent about one hour trying to hail three taxis to get to a restaurant on the other side of town. It was ridiculous, then to make matters worse the taxi drivers took us to the wrong address, but somehow we managed to find the right place in the end!

So other than some good new additions to our group, the start to the trek through Bolivia hasn't really started off all that magnificently. Still there's a lot more to go, and plenty of things to see and do ahead which should make up for the lacklustre start.

Personal Grooming

Some of the more observant among my readers will have noticed that the most unemployed part of my toilet bag would have to be my razor. As a result of laziness and a "just cause I can" attitude, I managed to grow a reasonably bushy beard over the last few weeks of travelling. It has been great not having to shave, but after a while the beard gets a little annoying, especially when it starts to get all messy, food (and vomit on the odd occasion) gets caught in it, it gets itchy, and it's not so good in the warmer climes. Since I was mostly bearded when my tour started, none of my group really knew what I looked like without a beard. I decided to give them a taste of the real Andy and clip most of the beard off to leave a handle-bar moustache. I had last grown one in November 2006 as part of Movember and was quite keen to sport one for a few weeks. So without further adieu, here are some before and after snaps. Enjoy.

Lake Titicaca (giggle, hehehehe) - Part 2

For some reason I couldn't insert any more pictures in the last post. So here are the remainder of the pictures, in a really weird order cause Blogspot is screwed up and won't let me move them!

Lake Titicaca (giggle, hehehehe) - Part 1

A bright, sunny day welcomed us today for our trip out onto Lake Titicaca and our overnight homestay at Amantani Island. At 3.8km above sea level it is the highest commercially navigable lake in the world and is also the largest lake in South America. We were picked up by the tour company (who were taking us on our trip out on the Lake) in these little rickshaw-like carts. It was a lot of fun being whisked through the narrow streets of Puno, dodging cars and pedestrians, down to the wharf to catch our boat.

The boat ride out to our first destination, Taquile Island, took around about 3 hours and we spent most of it enjoying the rather fresh breeze over the lake, and taking in some sunshine. Our guide for our trip was a man by the name of Juber, although we nicknamed him "Papa Surf" cause he had a hat like Papa Surf wore in the cartoon. I didn't get any pictures unfortunately. The island itself is rather small but it was nice to see the local village, sample some cuisine, and check out the views from the top of the island. One of the funniest things here was these little girls that looked like nuns, as they have these long black head shawls, with tassles at the end. We called them "Evil Nuns" cause they would just swarm you and try to sell you local crafts and textiles. I am not a craft fan at the best of times, so I was a little short with them and made a dash into the cute little local church for sanctuary. Some locals were replacing statues of the Holy Family that they had taken out for recent Easter parades, as is the custom all over Latin America.

After spending a few hours walking around the island, we hopped back onto our boat for the 1 hour journey to Amantani Island and our overnight homestay. There was just a hint of anxiety amongst the group as to what we would experience and the conditions we might have to endure. We were all split up into groups of two for and were randomly "assigned" to a local family to stay with. Prior to our departure from Puno we had a big shopping expedition where we bought items for the family we were to stay with. Mostly it was things that were difficult to get on the island, like pasta, rice, and fresh fruit and veges. Good healthy stuff too. As was the tradition, Simon and I once again were roommates! We went to stay with a girl called Nancy and her family. I couldn't quite work out the definite relationships of the people that were living in the house we stayed at, but I think there were Nancy, her three sisters, Nancy's nephew and niece, Nancy's mother, and her grandfather. Because there are not many economic activities on the island, most of the men go to Puno or further afield to work. Others leave for more selfish reasons, ie getting a girl pregnant and then skipping off. As a result there was a distinct lack of working age men on the island. Chaco, Nancy's nephew, was this cool little four year old kid. We started to play soccer with him, but the game quickly turned to volleyball as he seemed to prefer this. The people on the island speak some Spanish, but mostly they speak Quechua, so the conversations were a little limited.

The island had electricity and running water, although the home we stayed in didn't have the power hooked up. The house was quaint and traditional. It was multi storey, but with various external doors so that the set up wasn't a normal flow through style we are used to. The house was built on three sides of a small court yard, the "kitchen/dining room" being on the opposite side of our room. I think Simon and I had Nancy's room, cause there were pictures of her on the wall. We felt bad for kicking her out! Almost forgot, the toilet was separate from the house also, and long drop styles, so it was back to basics!

We were all supposed to go for a walk up a nearby hill at the back of the village to see some ruins, but a soccer match against the locals put an end to that idea. The centre of the village has a large concrete area, roughly the size of a basketball court. It is surrounded on one long side by a terraced wall and on the opposite side by a long town hall. One end of the concrete area is bordered by small stores with homes on the top, the other end was open with a bank dropping away. It was in this concreted area that the battle commenced. As you can imagine, there was plenty of fetching of the ball from the end that wasn't closed in. The first game pitted Sam, Mitsi, Kike, Simon, two Canadian ring-ins, and I against some of the locals. We ended up winning 4-2 which was great, although we lost the next game by the same margin. Man those kids have some skils! The altitude was definitely a big factor as I was breathing like a fat man at times. A few other gringo sides challenged the locals but they were all soundly beaten. There must have been about 100 tourits that had descended on the village for the evening. The final game I was back on the pitch. Our random collection of nationalities played well in the very fading light. I had the dubious honour of being the goalie while it was almost pitch black. Needless to say, with my pitch black goalie skills, we lost on golden goal to a ball I had NO idea where it was coming from. It was all heaps of fun though, and a definitely random highlight of the whole trip.

The match had given us a big appetite so we all headed back to our respective "homes" for dinner. Simon and I had a "romantic" candlelight dinner in the small kitchen that consisted of a maize soup, and some vege-type main that I really can't describe. It was all really tasted though and we got waited on hands and feets. I felt a little embarrassed, but I guess they wanted to treat us as welcomed guests. After we were fed and watered, the family dressed us in local garb, complete with the standard beanies and ponchos, and then it was off for beers and a boogie in the village hall with the locals and bucketloads of gringos.

We had so much fun dancing around and drinking some Cusquenas (local beer). The local boys we had played against in the soccer match, had a band and were playing some traditional music that everyone danced to. I managed to get quite warm with the heavy wool poncho, and the hat, so it was a good excuse to have more than one or two beverages. Most of the other gringos stayed for a token dance and drink, but our group were there right to the end, with Simon and I the last ones, cause we were still drinking, at about 10pm. Sounds early I know, but when most houses don't have power/lights it's late. I guesss in NZ we are used to waking and sleeping when we want cause we have electricity, but in places like this the rise and fall of the sun dictates the pattern of life.

That night I had a great sleep, but was still a wee bit tired the next morning. Overnight I had to make a torch-lit trip to the outhouse after filling up on Cusquenas! We had a delicious breakfast of pancakes with Fanny jam (sounds gross, but it's the brand name!) and a few cups of coffee to wash it down. After saying our goodbyes and thanks to Nancy and her family, we got back on our boat to continue our visit around the Lake. Next stop was with at the famous Uros Islands, which are these amazing floating totora reed islands. Way back when, the local population was sick and tired of getting caught up amongst warring neighbours that they permamently upped sticks so to speak, and moved out on to the lake. Isla Tupiri was the particular island we stopped off at. It was funny walking on the reeds, that had some give but we all in all quite sturdy and well put together. The process works by just piling reeds upon reeds on top of each other. Every few years they put new reeds on top to further solidify the pile. Juber gave us a talk on how important the torota reeds were in Uros life, from the "ground" they walk on, to housing, to clothing, and even to food. I tasted one of the reeds and they weren't too bad. A bit like a tastier and sturdier celery! Merryn even got to try on some local garb, luckily I wasn't forced to. I found it hilarious though that the people lived in these reed huts, but had a solar panel that was hooked up to many appliances, including a stereo! Our brief visit was then topped off with a short reed canoe ride out on the lake. The catamaran type structure worried me a little, but it floated fine and got us back to "land" safely. Perhaps it was the Kermit the Frog looking figureheads!

After some initial apprehension from the group, we all ageed that the trip out to the islands, and particularly the homestay, was a lot of fun. Everyone enjoyed themselves, and I am sure we will take a lot out of the experience. I know I will. For a people who don't have much, the Amantanis really give a lot, and it was the least I could do to give them some money for my hat (as you can see in the photo with Nancy and in the other snaps). The whole experience, as with many similar experiences throughout the whole of South America, has made me conscious of how lucky I am to have the things I have.

Post Picchu and Puno

Now that our Machu Picchu experience was over, it was time to head back to Cusco for a celebratory drink or two or three.... After a train journey from Aguas Calientes to Ollantaytambo, we hopped into a minivan that took us the rest of the way to Cusco. We had managed to buy some Cusquena beer in Aguas Calientes and we began to consume that on the train/minivan journey back. I was so exhausted at one stage that I fell asleep with a newly opened beer in my hands. I was astounded to find that when I woke up, I was still holding the beer and hadn't spilled it! Needless to say, I downed it then and there.

The nap served me well as when we arrived in Cusco we hit the town with a vengeance. To cut a long story short we dressed up in what we called "free spirit pants" and the standard quechua style beanies (as you have seen me wearing in numerous pics) for the evening. The free spirit pants are all garish colours, made out of cotton, and are usually found on European hippies trapsing through Peru on some sort of existential journey. All in all we were taking the piss. Unfortunately I don't have any photos of the oufits so I will have to bludge some off my companions and post them sometime.

The night was great fun, heaps of drinks, white-guy dancing and bad Spanish. A 5:30 morning ensued and was inevitably followed up with not waking till 2:30 in the afternoon! Tried to do some further sightseeing at that stage, but most places were shutting up by the time got all organised. It was a shame cause I missed seeing the Santo Domingo church and monastery, which is constructed over an older Incan temple. Our guide Kike said it was one of the must-see spots in Cusco. The Incan temple, the Temple of the Sun (or Koricancha in Quechua), was the holiest shrine in the Incan religion. It was pretty poor organisation from me as the church was right next door to our hotel. Oh well, I guess it's a good excuse to go back to Cusco again someday, as I would love to! Simon & I did manage to catch the Inca Museum which was interesting and gave a nice overall account of the rise (and fall) of the Incan empire and the Quechua people. It was mostly all familar as I had picked it up over my many visits to museums throughout Peru, but it was nice to bring it all together. The rich history of Peru, especially the Incan and Conquista, fascinates me and it is one of the major things I will take out of my time in Peru.

Next stop on the tour was Puno in southern Peru. Puno is on the shore of Lake Titicaca, which is the area from where the Incas originated. Puno is the main stop off point for people heading off to see the famous floating reed islands and spend the night at homestays with native families on some of the normal-earth based islands! Puno itself is a bit of a hole, but not quite at the level of Pisco and Nazca. The first day "in" Puno was spent mostly on bus travel from Cusco, which took 7 hours, and an early night as the next day entailed a 8am start to head out on the Lake.

Magical Machu Picchu

Not even a 5am wake up could contain the group's excitement about getting back up to explore Machu Picchu with our guide Miguel. After jumping on the "Bus of Shame" we arrived at the ruins to see it clouded in, which gave it a mystical and magical feeling as we walked through the ruins with the clouds enveloping us. Already at about 6:30am there was a large number of tourists already at the site, and we were told that the numbers would keep increasing. The reason for the early start was to get up there and have our tour around before the hordes arrived.

Miguel gave us an initial 30 minute talk at a spot overlooking the ruins. He spoke of the history of the place and the significance in Incan culture (both of which there are many theories on), the fact that the Spanish conquistadores never found it high in the hills, and the "discovery" in 1911 by Hiram Bingham an American academic/explorerer (Think Indiana Jones). An interesting note here is that when Bingham stumbled across the ruins, they were covered in vegetation and a local farmer was grazing stock on the slopes! The locals clearly hadn't forgotten about the place.

Our tour of the ruins took about 2.5 hours, during which the clouds burned off to bathe the site in sunlight. By the end of Miguel's tour I had definitely noticed that the numbers of tourists had increased rapidly. The main points of interest we took in were the Intihuatana ("hitching post of the sun"), the Temple of the Sun (the only round building at Machu Picchu), the Temple of the Condor, the Room of the Three Windows, the Royal Tomb, the king/lord's house (including his toilet) and the Water Fountain. To be fair I heard so much information on the places that we stopped at that it was hard to take it in. Not only were there the major stops, but all around us were residential houses, agricultural terraces, plazas, stairs, along with a few local llamas.

As with a lot of Incan construction they integrated their buildings into the surrounding rock. A prime example at Machu Picchu is the Temple of the Condor. Hopefully the photos below show how this has been achieved with the rock on the floor representing the head and beak of the condor, and the rock at the back representing the wings of the condor.

Without creating too much work for myself and typing out all the facts, details and figures on Machcu Picchu any old Google search will turn up a wealth of knowledge and info on the ruins. So if you want to know more I encourage you to do so. There are many varying theories of why it was built and what is was for so far be it from me to add to those. Personally though, for whatever rhyme or reason for building the place, it was an inspiring site. The journey there was exciting, trudging along the Inca trail with the goal of Machu Picchu at the end, but being there was amazing. It is hard to express in words how impressive the city is, surrounded by hills and clouds. No wonder that it is now one of the new 7 Wonders of the World!

Our tour finished at about 9:30, so we were then free to explore the ruins for as long as we wanted. Simon, Mitzi and Sam decided to climb up Huayna Picchu, which is the hill you see in all the pictures of Huayna Picchu. Apparently it takes about 45 minutes to climb to the top - they blitzed it in 22! After three days of sweatiness, trekking and being surrounded by people, I decided to stay nice and clean, comfy, and headed off for some contemplation and quiet time away from everyone. It was great to wander through the ruins on my own, and I found a nice spot to sit and enjoy my own company while overlooking the site. I also headed off to an old Incan bridge that was about 10 minutes away from the main ruins. You used to be able to walk across the bridge, but due to a fatality a few years ago it's now off limits.

By the time I had wandered back from the bridge and the others had returned from their Huayna Picchu expedition, the amount of tourists had grown to an annoying level, especially the loud and milling about types who are the prime candidates to take the train to Machu Picchu. We decided to jump back on the bus down to Aguas Calientes and unfortunately end our Inca Trail and Machu Picchu experience...

...an experience I will never forget.

The Inca Trail - Day 3

An 8 hour hiking day beckoned us today as the group decided to take Plan B. Most people who walk the Inca Trail take four days to reach Macchu Picchu, as they camp at Winaywayna on the third night, get up at the crack of dawn (she must be a skanky lady cause she gets a lot of that...sorry bad joke), and stumble around in the dark with torches to get to the Sun Gate ("Intipunku" in Quechua) and watch the sun rise over Macchu Picchu. Miguel, our guide, said that it is normally clouded over so you don't see jack. So in our collective wisdom we ditched Plan A in favour of Plan B. In a nutshell, Plan B was to trek all the way to the Sun Gate from our second night campsite and arrive at Macchu Picchu in early afternoon to a guaranteed view of the ruins. The bonus was that we got to spend the afternoon at Macchu Picchu and as long as we wanted the next day, we could sleep inside (albeit on the second floor of a restaurant!), and hit the hot pools at Aguas Calientes to ease our aching joints.

Although a long day of trekking, the journey wasn't too arduous in an upwards sense. We climbed up to the third and final pass of the trail at Phuyupatamarca and along the way visited the ruins of the same name. Next followed about 4,000 Incan steps (accoring to the experts who I assume have counted them all...) down towards Winaywayna. Trudging downhill got pretty tiring after a while and all I wanted to do was arrive at the next stop. The old knees started to take a pounding and it was again that the sticks we bought on Day 1 came into play. Following the steps was a seemingly neverending downwards zig-zagging path that felt like it went on for hours. Finally we arrived at Winaywayna in time for lunch - a hearty feed of papas fritas (fries) and beef patties. I also splashed out on a bit of civilisation at this stage as I bought a coke and some popcorn which was a delght to the culinary senses.

Following lunch and a brief visit to the nearby ruins (see photo below), we headed off for the leg to the Sun Gate. The morale of the group was pretty high as we wereall excited about finally getting a glimpse of the magical Macchu Picchu (and cause we had full bellies!). Most of the trek to the Sun Gate was flat aside from a brief, and in my case, extremely sweaty, ascent at the end. As a Kiwi and keen for a Hillary-esque moment I was the first one of the group to arrive, and stepping out from behind the Sun Gate I had the first view of Macchu Picchu. I was buzzing out, and when the site came into view I couldn't believe that I was finally here.

The view was amazing as the ruins were bathed in sunshine. Cecile and Merryn were the next to show up and after getting some photos taken by a kind stranger we waited for the remainder of the group to arrive. Needless to say everyone was pretty excited and after a lot more photos (both for us and on behalf of other groups) we picked up our feet and headed down the mountain towards the jewel in the Inca Trail crown.

Upon arrival at the site we hung mostly around the Hut of the Caretaker of the Funeral Rock. I sat there just taking in the ruins and still feeling rather surreal that I was there. It was mid/late afternoon when we arrived so there weren't too many tourists around the ruins which allowed us to breath them in without too much distraction. Our big in depth tour of the city was due to take place the next day so after hanging around the hut for an hour and taking some photos we headed down the hill to Aguas Calientes.

The descent was more stairs, much to our chagrin. At the bottom Cecile, Simon and posed for the compulsory exit shot to balance up the entrance shot. The total trip down took about an hour and a half later when we arrived at Aguas Calientes a little grumpy (cause of the stairs), tired and stinky. Nothing a trip to the hot pools didn't solve (although the stinky part is still debatable). The main pool smelt like urine but we wisely spent our time in some of the smaller hot pools that had sandy/gravelly bottoms. It was a weird feeling and I wondered why the water didn't seep away. Fluid physics has never been my strong point. Our accomodation, as mentioned earlier, was on the second floor of an Italian restaurant (complete with little ginger kitten scrounging for food), although the porters still fired up their cookers out the back and served us a tasty feed. After dinner we said our thanks to the cooks, porters, and assistant guide, Gato (who was really called Sergio), as they were leaving us. We managed to rustle up some cash for tips and they probably headed off to blow it all at the pub. Bedtime clocked in at 10pm as we were due to get up at 5am the next morning to catch the bus back up to Macchu Picchu for our tour and day at the ruins.