May 10 - Death Road

The "Death Road" is La Paz's most recomended attraction by fellow travellers. You can't walk down the street without seeing at least 20 travel agencies selling trips on the Death Road(only two have a good reputation to travel with, going with one of the cheaper ones could mean death). The real question is why is this attraction so popular with tourists.

In the 1930s and 1940s, the Death Road was built by military prisoners from Paraguay to create a link between La Paz and the Jungle. Rising 3,600m in 64km, this road is only 3.2m wide at some points (just wide enough for a truck) and was the only route to the jungle until 2006. The road gets it's well deserved name from the 200-300 people who died on it and the over 26 vehicles lost over the edge, every year the road has been open ... more than died in the war between Paraguay and Bolivia. The reason for these deaths, aside from the narrow road, is that at some points, there is a 600m drop over the edge, straight down. The only bright side to biking it these days is that the road is closed to public transport (due to construction work on the new road, it will be open to public transport for a month in the upcoming weeks).

Because of the reputation of this road, we opted to travel with one of the more reputable companies, Downhill Madness. This company supplied us with dual suspension bikes, full face helmets and a guide who worked as a paramedic in Germany and is well versed in high mountain rescues. Since there is a 3,600m vertical drop over the 64km of road, peddling was not that important as you were able to reach breakneck speeds thanks to gravity. The first half of the trip is on a wide paved road that serves as the alternative for public transport. It isn't until you get on the gravel road that the trip gets scary ... and I mean scary. This road had a lot of loose gravel and the guide stopped every 5-10 minutes to do a head count to make sure no one went off the edge (one of our guys did, but luckily it wasn't a dangerous section of the road and he got back on the bike unharmed). At each stop, in case we weren't scared enough, our guide would tell the story of the person for whom the corner is named.

It seemed every corner had a story about someone dying, and to be honest, most of the accidents are preventable. One such story tells about two guys who were joking around on the trail, bumping into each other and punching each other as they rode, that is until they hit too hard and one went into the wall and the other went off the cliff. Another is about a woman who was backing her bike up to make room for a truck going by, only to find she was too close to the cliff and over she went. We saw a car over the edge of the cliff that went there because the driver was drunk (the trip used to take up to 5 days for heavy trucks, so the drivers would chew coco leaves, drink alcohol and smoke to stay awake). We saw the site of the worst accident (100 people died on a bus that went over the edge), the last death (they think it was due to a heart attack ... no wonder given the height of the cliff). Our driver's only accident on the road was when he was hit off the side ... the car is still there. Neediess to say, these stories definitely made sure our adrenalin was pumping.

Now if the stories of the deaths and the height of the cliffs and the narrow road wasn't enough to scare you, there was even more to frighten you. First of all, because the road was so narrow, they changed the rules of the road so you are driving on the left side. This makes perfect sense, especially since the driver sits on the left and can look out his window to make sure he is still on the road when a truck passes. The problem is that when you are biking, the cliff is on the left side and the safe rock wall is on the right .... which side do you want to bike on? Next you have nice loose gravel and lots of rocks. When you turn left, you're scared of over-steering and going off the edge. When you turn right, you're scared the gravel will be too loose and you will go over the side. When there are no turns, you have to keep avoiding the rocks in the middle of the road to make sure you don't loose control of your bike (I hit a few of them on the way down, and let me tell you, you know you're alive when you hit them). Personally, I had my own unique issue to worry about, a guy who was showing off his mountain biking skills to his girlfriend, going very close to the edge, travelling fast, jumping and skidding his tires ... and he didn't feel he needed to give the person in front (me) 5m of space incase something happened. I seriously thought he was goign to hit my back wheel a few times and send me over the edge.

Now it isn't all doom and gloom on this road. Because you are on the edge of the Andes and the jungle, the view is remarkable. We started out with a beautiful, but cold day at the top (over 4,500m) then drifted into some cloud cover and then exited in the jungle. Rather breathtaking scenery all around us. We even got to cross two rivers (at the bottom where it was flat) by riding through them. At the end we had a nice lunch at a hotel in the jungle (even if the hotel was at the top of the hill in the town, and the road was so steep that the support vehicle couldn't get up it with us inside). Then we got to finish the day off by squeezing in a 15 passenger van (all 12 of us) and going on our lovely 4 hour drive back to La Paz for the night.

May 9 - Tiwanaku

Today was our last day of the GAP tour, but sadly most people didn't show up for the trip and instead opted to stay in La Paz and partake in a city tour. It was unfortunate that the group felt this excursion was unnecessary as they missed an interesting day, especially since most of them still had another two days in La Paz.

The Tiwanaku site is located about 1.5 hours outside of La Paz (main reason for most people not coming) and was the spiritual and political centre of the Tiwanaku culture, a pre Inca civilization that dated from 600BC to 700AD. With things still being discovered at this site, it was granted UNESCO world heritage status only a few years ago.

Our tour started with two different museums at the Tiwanaku site. The first of these museums housed only a statue and reed boat. The statue was the Megalito Bennetto Pachamama, the source of most of our knowledge of the Tiwanaku culture. This massive statue was carved in the resemblance of Pachamama (Quechwa for mother earth) and is covered with different symbols that have been interpreted to show the 4 seasons, 365 days of the year and symbols for the solstice and equinox. As we soon learned, this is all speculative and most of the information just gets sketchy. There was also a reed boat that was constructed to help show how the rocks had been moved across Lake Titicaca to this site. The plan is to move all the main statues and sun gate to this museum, away from the archeological site, so as to better preserve them.

The second museum was a little better, but was more like a grade 5 science project than a serious archeological museum. This museum’s focus was on the pottery found in and around the archeological site. The guide did her best to explain the findings, making some very bold claims including how some of the pottery represents Spaniards (even though they didn’t arrive for another 1,000 years after the fall of the culture) and Mongolians. As we had seen better museums of indigenous artifacts, this didn’t interest us much, and the bold claims just started to annoy us after a while.

The reason for these bold, unsubstantiated claims is that only 1% of the site has been excavated. The Bolivian government only needs about $10 million to fully excavate the site, but as of now have only received $1 million in funding. As such, our next stop on the tour, the actual archeological site, was an active site where discoveries were being made and excavated while we were there. While walking around you could see the remains of the religious pyramid that quickly faded into the dirt of the hill from which it is being excavated (they told us the culture built it and then buried it before abandoning the site ... yet again, a little far fetched, especially since Machu Picchu was naturally buried under dirt after only 300 years). There were also some bones being carefully excavated from the base of the pyramid.

The site is rather unimpressive at this time, but part of that has to do with having already visited the Inca ruins in the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu. Even though it wsa fascinating to watch them actually excavate a new archeological site, it was more interesting to hear the guide’s interpretations of the ruins and how she presented them as fact (keep in mind only 1% has been uncovered so you can’t make assumptions ... it’s kind of like visiting only the subway of New York and determining that the entire United States is built underground). Some of her assumptions were based on the Sun Gate where she concluded the Tiwanaku culture had determined there were 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, 12 months in a year, and 365 days in a year. Very interesting that they had invented the exact same calendar as the Europeans, especially since the closest culture to have developed a calendar were the Mayans, and they determined there were 20 months in a year (She did say that maybe their culture believed in 20 months, as behind the sun gate there was a wall with 10 large stones in it. She said they moved an idol from one stone to another to mark each passing month).

Her assumptions didn’t end there. The last site we visited, a sunken temple, she claimed was a place to worship the afterlife. She believed that the pyramid was to worship the sun and that above us, the sun temple (at ground level) was to worship the earth and the life we currently are living (forget that she also told us this was the astronomical observatory) and the sunken temple was for worshiping the afterlife (as you can see, they need to do some more excavation). The sunken temple though was incredibly interesting as its walls were adorned with over 100 carved heads sticking out of the wall. All in all this made for the most interesting part of the whole archeological site.

After lunch, we headed back to La Paz for some shopping around the hotel in the artisan markets, and a final dinner with the rest of our group at a lovely French restaurant. Looking back, this was a great group to travel with and the trip offered a wonderful overview of the Inca Empire.

May 5-8 - "This lake's called Titicaca. ...

The bus ride from Cusco to Puno, on the shore of Lake Titicaca, took about six hours through some unbelievable scenery. The road followed a wide fertile valley that formed the perfect example of the Andean plateau. Small, adobe villages dotted the landscape, broken by glacial rivers and dried river beds with their exposed gravel basins. There was one stop along the way at the highest point on the pass where remarkably there were, yet again, stands selling various crafts and other items. It also, for some strange reason, had the cleanest public bathrooms in all of South America. I mean you could have eaten off the toilet.

We arrived in Puno quite late in the day with only enough time to have lunch at 4:30 and dinner at 8. So needless to say the only thing we did in Puno was eat.

The next morning we started our trip out to the islands around Puno. As we were spending the night on these islands, we stoped at the shops near the dock to pick up some gifts for the people we would be staying with. Most of the shops at bus stations only stock snacks, but these people have gotten used to gringo's buying gifts and they stocked their stands with fruit, rice, sugar and colouring books, along with the usual chips and pop.

The ride out to the first island was on a lovely picnic boat with an engine that overheated all the time. In fact for the whole 3 hour journey, one of the people operating the boat was sitting beside the engine cooling it with water. While he was cooling the engine, we wound our way through some of the reeds that grow in the shallower regions of the lake (the lake also descends to over 400m). Once out of the reeds, we saw some of the most beautiful water scenery I had ever seen. The water, a deep blue colour that almost matched the sky, made it look like all the islands were floating in the sky. To add to it you had the snow covered Cordillera Real mountain range off in the distance showing the far side of the lake.

The first island that we stopped at was Isla Taquile. Like most of the islands on the lake, this one was covered by terraced farm lands which, from a distance, make it look like someone took a pencil and drew lines across the island every few centimeters. We disembarked from the boat at one end of the island and then proceeded to wind our way around the island until we reached the main village where we learned about the people on the island and had a chance to explore the local market. This isolated island has created an interesting culture among it's 2,000 residents. For starters, the men's hats designate their status in life. If you have a brightly coloured hat, you are a leader. If you have a full red hat (which looks like a nightcap which you see in every illustrated edition of "The Night Before Christmas" ... they just sit on the top of your head just enough to make sure it doesn't fall off) you are married. And if you have a half red and half white hat, you are a single man (you live with your girlfriend before getting married on this island usually for a few years to make sure it will work out .... there is no divorce on the island. But be careful, if you have a child, you're getting married, no if ands or buts). The most interesting thing is that the men are the ones who do the knitting on the island, and as such are the ones that make their hats (when you go to the market, there is a women's craft level that has only half the amount as the men's).

Another interesting fact about the island is that it was the home of an exiled former communist leaning president of Peru. Because of his influence on the island, they have developed a very socialist society that actually has it's own rules and laws different from that of the rest of Peru. They superficially abide by those rules (take the mayor .... he really has no power on the island ... it's more of a "I feel like calling myself the mayor" type of job). As such, they have a very cooperative society. All the food is pooled together and everyone takes what they need, if you need a house, the whole island comes and builds it with you (it takes only a day or two to build a three bedroom house), and if you don't abide by the rules, you are exiled from the island (and if you don't leave, no one will talk to you or help you - a fascinating micro-society in the middle of the country.

After lunch, and dscending over 500 steps (ouch to Sandy with her bad knee) we got back on the boat to head to Isla Amantaní, the indigenous island where we spent the night. The ride over there provided us, yet again another beautiful view of the lake. When we arrived, we were greeted by a large party of the women who lived on the islands .... our mamas for the night.

Our mama's name was Flora, but when we found out she was sixteen, we opted to call her our sister. Her house was quite a way up the hill (40 minute walk) but when we got there we were happy we had gone that far since the night's activities were next door at the comunity centre. After we got settled at Flora's place (only Sandy and I stayed with her) she gave us hats, which she knitted herself, for us to wear. The purpose of these hats were not only to keep us warm (it was cold, and I'm from Canada so I know what cold is). Since all the gringos look the same, she could just look for her hat to find us. Armed with our hats, we headed off to play some soccer against the local people, and were told the only way we could beat the locals would be to score many points in the first two minutes, because after that we would be tuckered out by the altitude and they would dominate for the rest of the game. Needless to say, we lost.

As we had a hour or so before dinner, I opted to join a group of people who were going to climb one of the mountains on the island - Pachatata (father earth ... the other mountain was Pachamama). From the top of the mountain I had a wonderful view of the sunset over Lake Titicaca and some old ruins from a pre-Inca culture, the Tiahuanaco culture. The hike down was rather difficult in the dark, but I was well rewarded with a great dinner that Flora and her sister cooked (Flora lives with her sister and sister's children. Her parents moved to Puno while her younger sister went to school. Her sister's husband now lives in Arequipa ... about 10 hours away ... to work. The rest of her family, 9 in total, are spread all around Peru in search of work).

After dinner we got ready for the Incatec .... a chance for us to dress up in the indigenous costume and learn how to perform one of their local dances to traditional pan flute music. As Sandy and I did not have the traditional costume, Flora provided it for us and came up to our room to help us put it on .... or rather she dressed us. Oh, I forgot to mention, the rooms were small....we couldn't stand up in them. This combined with the fact we stretched 2 feet over Flora, posed a problem with Flora dressing us. In the end, my poncho looked great (I need one), and Sandy's skirt, blouse, belt and hat looked comical. The dance was tons of fun, and thanks to Flora, we managed to learn how to do it. Everyone was quite entertained by how we looked and only one could pull it off - Nina who, thanks to her blond hair, looked more like Heidi than an Inca.

After a freezing cold night, we got up and headed back to the boat to make our way to the Islas Flotantes, a collection of floating islands just off from Puno. The people who live on the islands moved out there hundreds of years ago in search of safety from conquering tribes in the area, including the Incas. They are constructed from reeds found on the lake and in total house a couple of hundred people. The people on the island we visited provided us with a demonstration of how the islands were built and showed us in some of their houses.

In order to construct a floating island, you start with sod from the bottom of the lake, then laying reeds on top, tie it all together, until you have an island. As the reeds rot away, you lay more down to keep the island floating. One of the most important things is to make sure you anchor your island (which can have as many as 10 houses on it ... these houses only last a few years as they are also made out of reeds) because if a wind storm comes up, you'll float away. One of the guys told us a story about not checking his anchor lines and woke up 5km away from his village. Now when you step on the islands you can tell they are made of reeds as every step is squishy, and apparently it is quite entertaining to see the kids take their first steps on dry land as they aren't used to the earth not giving way.

After our visit we headed back to Puno for a free afternoon where I finally got to visit the Naval Museum. I was quite excited to visit it since, as a sailor, I had always been fascinated by the highest navigable lake in the world, and the site of the only land locked country with a navy (Bolivia, and I don't blame them since every country around them has attacked and taken more than half of their land away from them). This museum was probably the smallest museum in the world. With only one room, it had a few ship models and some information on the Yavari Project (two boats that were built in England, shipped to Peru, taken by llama over the mountains in 2,766 pieces and put back together to become the first steamships on the lake ... it only took six years). It was rather comical, but I was quite happy to have been there since it has fascinated me for so long.

The next morning we made our way to La Paz and crossed the border from Peru into Bolivia. The bus ride was magical, following Lake Titicaca almost the whole way. The entertaining part was at the border. Manuel, our GAP guide, doesn't have a visa to work in Bolivia, so we were forced to pretend we didn't know him, and thus got no help from him. We managed to get across the border without any issues, but after you pass Copacabana in Bolivia, you have to get off the bus and take a ferry across the lake to get to the other side (the bus goes on one ferry and you go on another .... after seeing the boat that carried the bus, we are lucky it made it across). Here there was another border guard who caught Manuel and questioned him quite a bit looking for money. Thankfully Manuel just quit his advertising job at BBDO and was able to convince the guard that he was in fact in advertising. As we found out the next day, the group before us had their guide arrested and deported. He was forced to take a taxi and go the long way around the lake to get back into Bolivia and meet up with his group.

May 3-4 - Cuscotopia - The Sequel

We arrived back in Cusco early in the evening from our 4 day hike and spent most of the evening unpacking and putting our stuff in the laundry. For dinner that night we headed to a great restaurant recommended by multiple people. Sadly dinner left a sour taste in my mouth as two things happened. First, Kathleen brought about her "high maintenance" side when she looked at her lasagna and made sure everyone knew it looked disgusting and she refused to even try it (it looked pretty good to me). Then at the end of dinner she made a huge fuss that the restaurant had over-charged us (the bill was $811, the average meal was $50 and there were 16 of us .... you do the math) and people refused to pay their share of the bill. Somewoud not pay more than they woed, leaving the slack for other people to manage. Needless to say this had quite the negative impact on my evening.

The next day Sandy and I decided to take it easy as her knee was bothering her quite a bit. After a late morning start we headed out on the town. The highlight of the day was a parade which was occurring in the Plaza d'Armas, just outside of our hotel. This mostly military parade was to celebrate the Festival of the Crosses, where there are overnight vigils on the hill tops around Cusco. The parade (where we joined it) started with indigenous dancers in traditional costumes followed by a march past of various military detachments from the area. The best group to march past would have to be the search and rescue battalion. They not only were dressed in their full rescue outfit (high alpine rescue clothes, life jackets, repelling equipment and to top it off, diving attire, complete with air tanks and holding their flippers like they were rifles) but they also carried their white water raft in the parade with them. I've never seen anything quite like it.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. We managed to bump into fellow GAP travelers at lunch and again at the art gallery (not a very good one) ... that would have been the highlight of the day for us. We did spend some more time shopping around the town as the textiles are out of this world and very inexpensive.

Apr. 30 - May 3 - Inca Trail

We started our four day trek of the Inca trail by driving an hour to kilometer 82 (the starting points are measured by the train track) near the town of Chilca. Here we met our porters, had our first of many group pictures and got our passports stamped to get onto the trail (the Canadian government is going to love that one). At around 10:00 we started our hike up the mountain with the eventual destination of Machu Picchu.

The first two days of the Inca trail, as it has come to be known, actually isn't the original trail. As parts of the trail are still being uncovered, when the trail was opened, they created a connecting trail from the train tracks to the actual Inca trail. The route we took is the most common route and stretches for a total of 43km with an altitude reaching 4,200m and descending to approximately 2,400m at Machu Picchu (a lower altitude than our starting point). For most tourists, this hike takes 4 days, but for the porters it can be done much faster. Our guide for instance did it in one day, and the record is 3 hours and 45 minutes. Considering this is up and down, consisting of thousands of steps and for a distance of a marathon, it is better than impressive (we actually met the porter who holds the record, a local hero since he beat world renowned marathon runners ... good for a local boy in sandals). The average tourist walks only 11km a day, but due to permits, we happened to get the longest hikes, where on one day we actually covered the distance most groups cover in two days.

The first day of hiking was mostly through an open landscape. As it is still quite close to the train tracks, there are shops along the way to pick up some water, and there are lots of local people going about their daily business, mostly farming. For most people the first day is a gentle climb and they all spend the night at the base of what is known as "Dead Woman's Pass". Luckily for us, we still had another two hours of climbing, almost straight up to our campsite at Yuncachimpa, an elevation of 3,300m (after starting at 2,500m). Even though the hike was no more than 12km on the first day, it took us almost the entire day as we stopped along the way to look at various ruins and take many rests. The main ruin we visited today was Patallacta, a semi-circle town built at the base of a mountain that supplied most of the food for Machu Picchu.

The next day we were to have quite an early start as it was going to be our longest day, covering about 15km over the two main mountain passes, Dead Woman's Pass at 4,200m then Runkuraky pass at 3,900m. It shouldn't be too bad except that we had to go down a valley that descended to almost 3,100m. Needless to say it took Sandy and me all day and we didn't arrive at camp until after dark. The trek up to Dead Woman's Pass was mostly through the tundra, but the way the trail was structured, we kept seeing what we thought was the top. Until we made it there did we see that we actually had another 500m to go. After about 6 of these false peaks, and 3 hours of hiking uphill, we reached Dead Woman's Pass. From there it was another 2 hours of going downhill. This was the point at which Sandy started to have problems with her knees which didn't stop bothering her until she went home to Canada.

At the bottom of the valley is the town of Paq'aymayo where we had lunch (and where most people spend the night). The nice thing about the Inca trail is you can't go on it without a tour group and porters. Since they are unionized, there is only a limited amount of weight that they can carry (about 24kg) and you have the carry the rest (my bag was about 6kg ... not much at sea level, but a lot at 4,200m). There is also a formula to calculate the number of porters per group, so in order to make them all useful; they bring all the luxuries of home. By the time you reach the lunch stop, they have set out individual buckets for you to wash your hands and set up the cooking and dining tent (complete with a tablecloth). It makes the entire journey quite luxurious. In order for them to get there so far before us, they actually run along the trail. The hardest obstacle you have on the trail are the porters running by. Sadly today, since those of us in the back took so long, the rest of the group had eaten lunch before we arrived and were heading out when we got there.

After lunch we started our second pass .... about 600m up followed by 600m down - a nice way to finish our day. Yet again we happened upon lots of false peaks, one of which we were so sure was the top, we spent all our energy getting there and had to rest for quite a while since there was still another 30 mintues of hiking left to get to the top. Along the way we happened upon a second set of ruins, Runkurakay. As we didn't have the main guide with us (but we had Marcella ... God bless her. She was great to hike with, even if Sandy did completly freak her out when she had an asthma attack on Dead Woman's Pass) I made up a story that this was a bathroom along the trail and the women had more stalls than the men's bathroom. It turns out I wasn't far off. The Incas had built little towns and check points along the way for those hiking the Inca trail (we met up with the real trail just before lunch) to provide shelter, food and a washroom. This was one of those checkpoints. Not to be outdone, Jim actually found a mountain that looked like an Inca king over looking the valley, and this was probably the most likely of all the stories we heard about carvings in the hills.

We reached the top of the second summit just before sunset, and as we still had about 2 hours of hiking left for us, Freddy (the main guide) sent two porters back to help us and bring us some flashlights. God bless him since there were a lot of steps that we didn't see in the dark. It actually made for an interesting hike. You could randomly turn your head and right beside you was an old Inca fortress which if you didn't turn your head at the right time you would have missed. Who knows what else we missed that night.

The third day was supposed to be our very easy day, but I think for Sandy it was the hardest day. Most of the route was downhill as we only had to go up about 200m in the entire day. It was also only a 5km hike, so we should have been done at around 2 in the afternoon. Well, Sandy and I did make that 2:00 deadline, but sadly for Sandy, there were over 3,000 steps down that we had to make that day. I think it took her about twice as long as everyone else as each step hurt like hell. Yet again Marcella was with us and helped us go along.

The third day was also probably the most beautiful day as we were hiking through the cloud forest the entire day, which made for some lovely scenery. The steps also made for an interesting addition to the trail as some of them were actually carved into the rocks. It's hard to imagine that in 100 years the Incas built tens of thousands of kilometers of trail in this fashion. We reached the campsite at around 2:00 in time for lunch, a shower (yes, the last site has a bar, restaurant, and shower facilities) and a well deserved rest. Before dinner I headed over to Wiñaywayna to see probably the most beautiful example of Inca construction. The hike was quite easy, but I made the mistake of going down the steps to the bottom of the town to see what was at the bottom ... this meant I had to come back up again.

The next morning we had a very early start to the day, leaving at around 4:00am (the bar closed at 10:00pm the night before ... probably the only one that closes that early in the world) so that we could do our last 3 hour hike to Machu Picchu and reach the sun gate in time to watch the sunrise. As it had rained the night before, the sun gate was quite the disappointment as it was quite foggy and you couldn't see anything. The only saving grace were the last 52 steps that were straight up ... you actually had to climb on all fours in order to reach the top of the hill.

From the sun gate it was a gentle walk down the trail where we started to see the day's tourists ... they were walking up to the sun gate in clean hiking boots, Coach handbags and lovely designer walking sticks. Most were very impressed that we had just hiked the entire trail, and to be honest, we felt like they didn't deserve to be there. When we reached Machu Picchu it was still quite foggy, so we went to the entrance to the site to have a drink and wait for the fog to clear. This is where Sandy had real problems. If her knee didn't hurt her before, on this last set of steps she could feel the tendons actually tearing in her knees. When we got to the bottom a few of us found ice for her knee. Sadly for her, this meant she wouldn't be as maneuverable when we visited the actual site. She missed out on the tour, but still managed to see quite a bit of the site at her own pace (I think she only missed the guard house at the top of the hill).

Once the fog lifted we headed out with 3 hours to explore Machu Picchu. This has to be one of the most awe inspiring sites in the world and it can't be described in words. The massive expanse of the site is as incredible as you would imagine. It is an entire town with religious centres, residences, agricultural centre, guard house and other things we could not identify. This rivals any other ruins in the world in shear size and you can't possibly explore it all in three hours without skipping over things or not giving it the time it deserves. Definitely it was the best way to finish the hike.

After we had finished exploring the site, we headed back to Cusco by train and bus. We all were quite tired, but all felt it was the most worthwhile part of our trip.

Apr. 29 - The Sacred Valley

Today we made our way to the starting point of the Inca trail. In order to get there we had to go through the Sacred Valley; a stretch of valley full of fertile soil and Inca ruins.

Our first stop on the way was at Ccaccaccollo, a community which GAP has sponsored as part of its Planeterra initiative. GAP located this town and selected it as a place where it felt they could help the community grow. They hire most of the men in this community as guides on the Inca trail, and helped train two women in traditional weaving practices. These two women then went back to Ccaccaccollo to help train the rest of the women and now have a thriving traditional weaving business. GAP continues to help this community by bringing their tour groups here to buy the merchandise the town produces. As part of this visit, the women dress up in the traditional costumes and provide a demonstration on the whole weaving process from the different types of wool, dying, spinning the wool and actually making the final products. It turns out that we are paying about 50 soles (about $20) for something that the women will spend a month making, it hardly seems fair and you definitely don’t feel like bargaining after hearing that. Following the presentation we were given a little time to talk to the women and purchase some of the items, the only problem was that you would then have to carry these items along the Inca trail and our bags were already overweight.

From Ccaccaccollo we headed over to Pisac, one of the best examples of the Inca agricultural terraces. In order to help increase the agricultural production, the Incas built thousands of agricultural terraces that can be seen throughout the Sacred Valley. Pisac in particular were the best built and took most of the thought. They built them on the east side of the mountain so as to better soak up the morning sunlight and remain warm throughout the day, thus increasing productivity. They also found the soil at the bottom of the valley was more fertile, and thus carried it up the hill to increase production. But after a few years they noticed that most of the nutrients had been taken out of the soil, so back to the valley floor (maybe a 10km hike) to get more soil to fill in the terraces. The amount of work here would have been incredible, but it worked.

At the top of the hill at Pisac is a ceremonial site where the Incas worshiped their four main gods: Earth, Wind, Sun and Water. It was also an important burial site at the top of the hill, so situated that the dead would be closer to the Sun god and reincarnation. When you look at the hill where the grave yard is, there are hundreds of holes where the Spanish broke in to rob the graves of gold, but found nothing. This is because this particular grave site was for the commoners, therefore no gold. Leaders, rich and holy people were buried in other, more ornate locations in the fetal position, unlike the commoners who were buried flat on their back (the thought here is that the leaders were going to be born again, and the commoners were going to just have to get back to work).

After the ruins, we headed down to the town of Pisac to partake in their market day. With only 15 minutes to explore the market, there was no way to grasp the entire size of the market, although it wasn’t as big as Otavalo’s market in Ecuador. Once back in the bus we made our way to a small hacienda where we had a lovely lunch before our last jaunt in the bus to Ollantaytambo, our rest stop for the night.

Before we settled down for a rest at Ollantaytambo, we went to the ruins located in the middle of town, a lovely hike up many terraces, to learn about the purpose of the town, in particular its importance as one of the last stands of the Incas against the Spanish, which the Incas actually won. This site was not only a military site, but it is an example of Inca ingenuity. First off, the town itself still maintained the Inca style of construction, which included rivers of water going through the street so as to supply the town with water. What happened when they came to the main street in the town was move the water underground so that the siphon power would force the water back up on the other side of the main street and keep flowing. If this isn’t impressive enough, they had to find a way to supply their grain shed with water way up on the hill. They did this through the same siphon technique, but using a water source high enough to push the water up to that level .... from 10km away. The grain shed was high on the hill for a specific reason as well. There was wind up there to keep everything cool and refrigerated so that the food didn’t spoil for the town people.

Here, Mario (our guide for the Sacred Valley) told us about how the Incas got the large rocks up the hill (some weighing more than 20 tons). He said they built an incline, much like the Egyptians. Unlike the Egyptians, they didn’t use any wheels to bring the rocks up because if they broke, the rock would fly down the hill and they would have to start over again. Instead they developed a compound that they would spread along the road across which rocks moved (the quarry was at least 20km away ... in some places it was as much as 40km away, and they did all the carving and shaping of the rocks there) and when the rock stopped, the pressure of the rock would turn this compound into glue, and once they started moving again it would unstick and slide easily. Remarkably, considering the rocks were carved so far away, they fit together so closely that they didn’t need any mortar between the rocks, and you can’t slide a piece of paper between the rocks if you wanted to. They even knew how to arrange the rocks (slanted backwards and off centre from each other) to prevent issues with earthquakes. All in all, this society was incredibly advanced.

Apr. 27-28 - Cuscotopia

Today we had an early departure flight to Cusco. As this was Manuel's first trip as a guide, things went a little slower than planed. In the end we did manage to get our flight to Cusco with very little time to spare (it was better than a 24 hour bus ride). One nice thing about the flight is that it was a beautiful day over the Andes, so our hour flight gave us some remarkable views of the Andes and it's green hills and snow capped mountains.

Once we were in Cusco, most of the people on our trip got their first taste of altitude sickness. For most this just meant they were a little light headed, but we were all rather surprised to find that there was a stand at the airport selling bottles of oxygen for the tourists. Cusco might be high, but it isn't so high that you would require extra oxygen. We did find the hotel had their own oxygen tank, and they were serving Coca Tea like it was going out of fashion (everywhere you went they were selling either the tea to drink or the leaves to chew on). Due to the altitude, most of the people in our trip slept all afternoon after we had lunch.

After our lovely nap (part of my daily ritual now....probably will have to do something about that when I start working again) we took a walk around the Plaza de Armas, taking pictures of the buildings in the city, and then took a short stroll around some of the blocks around the city centre, just trying to help acclimatize faster. To give you an idea how small the city centre is, we happened to bump into everyone in our group during our hour outing.

As we found out quickly, Manuel knew all the coolest places to eat dinner and we were never disipointed. Tonight we happened upon a small Peruvian diner that allowed me to try Alpaca meat. I recommend to anyone to try alpaca, it tastes very close to beef and was remarkable. But due to the altitude (a very good excuse if you are ever looking for one) we turned in early so as to conserve our energy.

The next morning we got up when we were ready and found out over breakfast that there was not enough room for all of us to go on the ATV ride, so Sandy and I opted to go horseback riding instead. While we were waiting for our tour to start, we walked around the town looking for equipment we would need for our upcoming Inca Trail hike (walking poles, warm clothes, hats, etc.) and explored the town looking at all the craft shops. One of interest was an art shop where we spent about an hour talking to the owners about Peruvian art, the artists and how their styles changed. In the end we bought a lovely piece of art from the lady, making her first sale at the art gallery.

While walking around we happened to bump into Manuel who informed us he wanted to talk to everyone who was going on the ATV tour at 1. So we headed back to the hotel, and we decided to go in two different groups. As Sandy and I were more than willing to back out this morning, Manuel made sure we went in the first group. We headed out to a restaurant for a quick lunch, and through some confusion, we ended up eating with a GAP group that just finished the Inca Trail and gave us a quick description of the trip. It made us very excited to start hiking the trail ... especially since they told us the food was great.

The ATV ride was tons of fun. We started off (Nick, Anastasia, Nina, Nnenna and Sandy) with some lessons on how to ride the 4-wheelers and got a safety lesson before we headed out on our ride. The first 10 minutes of the ride were through the streets of Cusco before we managed to get off road through the mountains around Cusco. Once we went off the main streets we were blessed with beautiful views of the mountains, travelling through farm country, adobe brick houses and a lovely lake. On the ride though, Nnenna had a few problems. One time she went off the road and got the ATV stuck. The second time she managed to sharply turn the ATV and flipped the bike. Luckily she was spared any injury. But the most nerve-racking part of the ride was coming back where we had to drive through the city during rush hour. There's nothing like flying through the streets at night praying that you don't get run over.

Once back at the hotel we started our briefing for our Inca trail trek. We were given a list of equipment and bag to put everything in, but also given a 6kg limit. The problem is that when we started packing, we couldn't fit everything in our bag, and when we finally did get it in we were overweight. There is no way you can get everything they tell you to bring in the bag. We had to weigh it three times before everything fit. After Freddy (our guide for the Inca Trail) had finished his briefing, everyone was ready for the 4 day Inca Trail hike.