Wednesday 29 February 2012

Chipolata (Cipolletti) and Bariloche

We took the opportunity to put some clothes into the hotel laundry (more of this later). Once luggage was back in room, we decided to find somewhere for lunch and settled on a pizza, which was nice, with the tastiest tomatoes I have ever had, then back to hotel for a siesta or just vegging out watching tv for a few hours before heading out to find somewhere for dinner. For a fairly large town (bigger than Wokingham, which boasts more restaurants than it probably needs) there were few restaurants and we thought we may end up eating at La Nonnina again, however, we did find another eatery and enjoyed our meal. Have been surprised how late they eat here; restaurants don't get busy until at least 10pm and fairly young children stay up late too.

The next morning we picked up our laundry, but were shocked to find out that this had cost us nearly as much as our room! The laundry back in Cuzco had cost us about £6; our fault for not asking price and as it turned out some underwear was not dry and all washing needed airing, so we should have got a discount, well you live and learn!

We set off to drive to the lakes, a journey of about 5 hours. The first part, the scenery was fairly bland, flat and fairly uninspiring and was like desert. We stopped for lunch about halfway and also to fill up with petrol (you can go for miles without seeing a petrol station or civilisation for that matter).

After this stop, the scenery became much more interesting, with mountains and lakes, it was quite a dramatic change from the miles of flat plains. We stopped a couple of times to take pictures.

We arrived in San Carlos de Bariloche about 5pm and parked in the centre of town to find a cafe which had Internet access so that we could check out hotels. We were quickly successful and chose La Cascada Hotel, just on the outskirts of the town. We have a lake view room with a kingsize bed and the views of the lake are stunning. We quickly settled in and after a glass of wine, as the hotel did not have a restaurant, we went across the road for a meal. I had chicken again (will be laying eggs soon, eaten so much of the stuff!) and Dave had steak. Portions are large, so could not eat it all. I feel I need more fruit and veg or will end up with scurvy! Wine is very nice though, does that count as one of my five a day?

Breakfast next morning answered the fruit question and there was a good selection.

Typical of lakes (think lake district) in that it was raining. On the hotel's recommendation, we went for a drive round some smaller lakes, along the side of the main lake. Views were stunning and it was a shame the sun was not shining. This is a lovely part of Argentina.

We stopped at a hotel by the lake for a cup of hot chocolate for me and coffee for Dave.

We continued trip back into Barchoile and returned to the hotel for Dave to get a new memory card for his camera and to put on long trousers.

We planned to go up to the top of the mountain in the cable car; they have two different ones. The first one was closed as it was Sunday, but the other one was open, so we decided to go on this one. Now I have been on a few cable cars in my time and had no issue with them. However, this one for some reason was not to my liking; it was quite a small cable car and the ascent up the mountain was very steep, it swayed a bit and once you got higher up you could hear the wind whistling!

We made it to the top and it was freezing; Dave had the right idea about long trousers, I had on knee length trousers and I was really cold! The wind was howling, but the views were amazing, so we took lots of piccies before we froze, also the weather was closing in and to be honest I was keen to get off the mountain!

We joined the queue for the downward cable car trip and while we were queuing, for some reason the cable cars were switched off. No reason was given and no-one looked worried (apart from me probably!). However, after a long 10 minutes they were turned back on and we got safely down. By the time we got down, top of mountain was covered by cloud, so we had had the best of the views for that day.

Dave had noted a restaurant from a book given to us by hotel. We had looked for it a couple of times, but had not spotted it. However, we gave it one last shot and came across it; as it turned out it was a brilliant choice and we had a great meal and even managed dessert too.

We went back to hotel to relax, taking the wine from the restaurant we had not been able to finish, and later we went to sit on the sun terrace with a glass each to enjoy the end of day; earlier we had watched the sunrise from our bedroom. Fabulous!

Monday 27 February 2012

Dreams, Reality and Long, Long Roads

On Tuesday 21 Feb, we caught the metro into town to pick up the hire car from Alamo. After about an hour of form filling, we got introduced to the car. It is basically an Astra with aircon with a boot large enough to hold our two huge bags, very similar to cars Dave has owned back in the uk. At the last minute, Dave noticed that one of the front tyres was pretty worn (more of which later).

We drove back to the hotel to collect our bags and as it was now early afternoon, decided to drive only a short distance, about an hour and a half, to a place place called La Plata, to stay overnight. We prebooked a hotel, which turned out to be very nice.

We arrived late afternoon, so had time to walk around; Clare thought it was a lovely place with a beautiful cathedral, which from the outside looked medieval, but was, in fact, started in 1884 and not finished until 1999. We found a bar for a drink and pizza, and where Clare watched an episode of Corrie on Dave's iPhone, well she has missed a few! Strange to be able to watch UK tv so far from home.

On the first full day, we drove the equivalent of London to Edinburgh.
There are no service areas to grab a drink or answer the call of nature, and few trees or bushes close to the road as it stretches across the prairies. During the day, Dave was in need and drove for over an hour scanning the scenery before we came across a suitable area of trees and bushes.

The next morning we re-checked distances and showed that getting as far South as Dave wanted would take at least another four full days of driving similar or greater distances, in far more remote areas. Not only that, but the plan was to cross into Chile and head back North on that side, where the roads on the map didn't look as good or anywhere near as straight.

Hence, continuing South would involve at least ten to twelve days of hard driving, on roads more remote and of lower quality even than those we had seen so far.

The decision about whether to give up on the trip South was not an easy one, because it represented the last vestige of Dave's longstanding fantasy of driving around the world.

The fact is, however, that it quickly becomes a slog to have to sit behind the wheel all day, almost every day. Regardless of past dreams, today's reality is that we'll both have a far more pleasant time if we let them go.

So we decided to drive only around the north of Argentina instead, and to head next to their lake district.

This still involves some considerable distances, the equivalents of London to Berwick-on-Tweed the first day and London to Newcastle-upon-Tyne the next.

In fact, those two days didn't turn out adjacent. We had to break the cross-country trip (from Bahia Blanca to San Carlos de Bariloche) and the most obvious place is Nuequen. However, as we were getting close, Clare spotted a tourist information office for the smaller town next door. This proved to be a very good thing, and we picked a very nice hotel in the middle of Cipolleti. We were recommended a restaurant literally a few yards away, La Nonnina, where we had dinner.

Next morning after breakfast, Dave decided to change the front worn tyre for the spare before we set off on the next leg of our journey. We had only gone about 3 miles when we realised that the spare tyre was dead flat. We were lucky on several counts:

- we were not travelling at speed
- were not in the middle of nowhere
- were still in Neuquen, a fairly big town

Dave pulled over to change the tyre back, in the process dropping the tyre, which bounced back spraining Dave's little finger (ah, bless). Clare was down the busy dual carriageway a bit with her foot on the warning triangle (it would have blown away otherwise).

With the original tyre replaced, we then had the task of finding the Argentinian equivalent of KwikFit. We found one local tyre place (ah, so that's what "Gomeria" means) which was staffed by a lone youth who could not speak English or serve us, but redirected us to go to the centre. Clare spotted a Goodyear sign, where they were most helpful and we got not one new tyre, but two. It turned out that the spare tyre had a slash in the side, which must have been there when we picked up the car.

Photos were taken, as Dave needs to be compensated for the cost of the tyres (£150). However, we both felt relieved that this had not happened hundred of miles from anywhere. By the time we had sorted this out, it was too late to carry on, so we decided to go back to Cipoletti and spend another night. Clare was also pleased that Dave would have a break from driving. We went back to the same hotel, who were somewhat surprised to see us again.

Buenos Aires

It's a little hard to sum up our experience of Buenos Aires. We did like it and are glad we went, but it didn't live up to our expectations. That may well partly be due to circumstances beyond BA's control.

As I said before, Argentina feels like a West European country or South Africa (without any of the underlying threat of crime I felt in SA).

We'd decided to splash out on a pretty expensive little hotel to treat ourselves around my birthday. The hotel was very nice, though possibly not worth all that they were asking for it. It was in the area of Palermo Soho, where there is a good sprinkling of bars and eateries.

Most of the other buildings are apartment blocks, though very few are "glossy". Combined with some building (sites) mid-renovate and graffiti, this didn't make the area feel as good as it probably was, and Clare took some time to feel comfortable out after dark.

On the first night we went to an excellent steak house; Argentina has a great reputation for steak. However, Clare decided she would stick to chicken throughout her time in the country, feeling beef might be less tummy-safe.

On our first full day we set off with the intention of heading to town. We only reached the Evita Museum, which we really enjoyed and learned a lot more about her, her work, and why she became such a popular figure.

In summary, she was a famous actress who met the President in 1944 whilst doing earthquake relief. They married within a year and, although never having a formal government position, went on a successful world tour, meeting heads of state, and even signing treaties. She founded a women's political party and was nominated for vice-president beside her husband, which she declined. She founded welfare organisations and was a prime mover behind the 1949 Argentine constitution, a radical bill of rights. She got cancer and died in 1952 at the age of just 33.

By the time we had lunch, whilst reading up on 20th Century Argentine political history on Wikipedia, it was too late to go into town.

On the second day we made it into town. The metro costs 2.5 Pesos (36p) for a single journey of any distance. We started in Plaza de Mayo (May Square), in front of the Casa Rosada (Pink House), the presidential palace with the famous balcony used by Evita.

Outside Casa Rosada was a large exhibition of unposed photos of the current President and her predecessor / husband. Definitely signs of a confident modern democracy. Similarly, people were allowed into a few rooms within the building, and we could have joined a deeper tour if we'd been more patient (and better at Spanish).

We grabbed a quick coffee in a backstreet, and puzzled over some graffiti saying "Belgrano estas muertas" (Belgrano you are dead). I finally deduced it was about football, opposing River Plate, whose stadium is in the Buenos Aires district of Belgrano (General Belgrano was the creator of the national flag).

Back on the square, we visited the Metropolitan Cathedral. Just as I stepped out to leave, the sound of feet stamping made me jump out of the way. A squad of five soldiers in ceremonial dress was marching into the cathedral to the tomb of General San Martin, the greatest national hero, where two of them were then left as guards.

We walked down Avenida Florida, the main shopping street, where we saw about five separate branches of McDonalds. Resisting easily, we lunched in a local restaurant with the shields of Argentine provinces on the walls.

Unfortunately, Clare felt unwell so we had to cut our day short, having just enough time to see the Washington-Monument-style obelisk in the middle of wide, busy Avenida 9th de Julio.

This premature end was particularly unfortunate, because this was Sunday, the big day for street markets and Tango in one of the public squares, and which we therefore missed.

Feeling that we hadn't given Buenos Aires a fair chance to impress us, on our third and last day we boarded the city tour bus. Normally open-topped, a canvas roof was fitted for this rainy day.

The tour lasted over three hours, stretching from the big blue-and-yellow Boca Juniors stadium at one end of town to near the River Plate stadium at the other. We found it pretty boring, deciding that we had already seen the best of BA the previous day.

Tuesday 21 February 2012

Good Intestinal Health

I did muse on whether to name this post after the elephant in the traveller's room, but ultimately broke under the pressure.

When we took our expensive Malarone antimalarials (new, and nobody has a reaction to them), Clare got the rashes and I got an upset stomach. I don't know that it was those pills, but couldn't work out what else it could be. A couple of days later, I was improving and Clare's tummy turned bad. Then the pendulum swung back and finally we were both bad. We thought we must be re-infecting each other and stopped sharing everything!

We were feeling pretty good when we arrived in La Paz. We'd fully recovered from the tummy upsets and were looking forward.

La Paz is not the capital of Bolivia (that's Santa Cruz). It's grown up the sides of a huge, deep ravine escalating from "just" 9,800 ft to nearly 13,500 ft. With a population of almost 900,000, the city finally spilled out far beyond the top. This makes for incredible views down across the ravine/city and as many photos as would fit in an all-too-brief coach stop.

Bolivia is easily the least developed country we're visiting on this leg, and as easily seems to have the worst traffic. Guide Lucho took us and the Aussie ladies, very slowly due to the traffic, to a really nice restaurant for the last night of our tour, with excellent menu spanning most Asian countries. At his urging, we rounded off the meal with cocktails (with which we might normally have started, but didn't). We retired comfortable.

That lasted until about 3 a.m., when we had to rush from the bed in quick succession. We had eaten nothing in common, so can only accuse those cocktails. We were laid low the whole of the following day, and on the day after (our last in La Paz) we were both so weak from illness and so troubled by the altitude that we could walk only a short distance in search of food. We settled on exotic, local sandwiches from Subway.

So I can't tell you a lot more about La Paz - cheaper and less developed than lovely Peru, hence more "different" from home (in a spot-the-changes sense); awful traffic; I don't regret going there; our ailments haven't given it a fair chance, but I don't imagine we'll return.

With caution, and chemical assistance, we survived the plane trip via warm, 1,400-ft Santa Cruz to sea-level Buenos Aires.

The contrast from Belize, Peru or Bolivia was immediately obvious. We could have been in any major European airport ( I was reminded of Amsterdam Schipol). The roads and driving standards were European too (in our flat-fee, credit-card-paid taxi), as was much of the architecture as we worked our way into the town.

Various observations about Buenos Aires will have to wait, as I return to my theme. We scheduled 3 full days in the city before leaving on our hire-car tour. However, with our tummies still upset, we managed only to visit the Evita Museum on the first day, a truncated stroll downtown on the second and a city bus tour on the third.

Not having reliable tummies overshadows everything, and becomes quite an obsession :-(

I'm mostly fixed now (please God, let it stay that way). Having failed with fasting (in La Paz) and Immodium (here), Clare is now nervously trying to eat normally and waiting for antibiotics to take effect.

The rest of "Leg 1" is in two extensively-adjacent countries, so we hope that things intestinal won't suffer any new negative impacts. Then we'll need no more posts like this (until Leg 2 brings us to China!)

Monday 13 February 2012

Wet Puno!

We arrived in Puno to bright blue skies and sun after a 6.5 hour coach journey from Cuzco.

After settling into our hotel (room had a smell of cabbage, not pleasant) we met up with Aussie ladies and Lucho and went out to see the parade, as February in Puno is carnival time, amazing experience as we watched the bands and dancers go past in various costumes and colours. It seemed to go on for ages until Lucho took us to the town square where the parade ends up, quite a journey as roads were absolute packed with people; seemed like all Puno was out to see parade!

We stayed in the square for a while and then went to a restaurant for a meal. Just before we were due to leave the restaurant, the heavens opened, so we decided to wait until the rain subsided. It seemed to ease a bit, so we thought we would head back to hotel, unfortunately once we left it got heavier and we had not seen rain like it, roads turned into rivers and everyone was trying to get somewhere or take shelter. We thought we had lost Lucho and Aussie ladies and we tried to find shelter, this was not possible and in any event, Lucho had kept an eye on us. We eventually got back to the hotel completely soaked and cold, so straight to our cabbage smelling room to change. We only had single beds in this room and no heating, and as it turns out, no hot water. Went to bed to the sound of heavy rain and bands still playing (although under cover). However, I could not get warm and in the middle of the night had to wake Dave and get into his single bed so that I could warm up!

Next morning up early as we were going on a boat trip on lake Titikaka, which is just enormous. This trip also included an overnight's stay with a Peruvian family. After the previous night's rain, the harbour area was flooded and we were in a taxi with the water high enough to come into the car - Lucho very kindly took his shoes off, rolled up his trousers and went to get our water and gifts for the families we were to stay with. Lucho was not joining us on this trip, so we joined another group of 10. We then got onto the boat for a 3 hour trip to an island where we were to have lunch and tour the island. Weather was overcast, but it gradually improved and by the time we arrived, the sun was coming through. After an uphill hike (quite a challenge at this altitude ) we stopped for lunch provided by the islanders of soup, fish or omelette with veg, rice and chips. We had a guide who gave us the history of the island. After lunch we continued our uphill hike to the centre of the village and then it was a downhill walk of just under an hour back to the boat. I particularly enjoyed this walk, it was downhill, the sun was out and the views of the lake were stunning.

Back at the boat, one of the guys decided to take a dip in the lake - I think Dave wished he had taken a change of clothes!

It was then onto our overnight stay destination. The weather started to change again and it started to rain and was very overcast. We arrived to be met by some of the Islanders, who turned out to be the host families, "Mamas" and "Papas". We were to stay with a single lady. Her name was mentioned once, but too quickly to catch, so we addressed her by by her title of "Mama". She took us back to her house and showed us where were to sleep, which was like a little house with two beds inside, one double and one single. The guide on this trip was also staying here. She introduced us to her parents, who were just bringing back the animals from the fields; her father is 90 and her mother was of similar age - Mama is 57, however, she could easily have been 67, Peruvian women do not age well. We then went to the kitchen, which was very basic, a calor gas two ring cooker and an open fire for cooking and a sink; the floor was mud, plus a small table and chairs. Electricity is provided by solar panels and was not particularly bright and flickered a lot. We peeled potatoes and had a meal of soup followed by veg and rice. Our guide joined us for dinner. After the meal we went to bed. There was no bathroom, just an outhouse with loo and sink. We slept in our clothes and it was surprisingly warm, although the blankets were extremely heavy. After a long night, we had gone to bed at 8 pm and a couple of trips to the loo (which meant putting on shoes and waterproofs) we were up at 6.30am and Mama cooked us breakfast of pancakes with jam - we rolled out the small pancakes - very nice they were too! After this, it was time to get our stuff together, but not before Mama brought us traditional dress for a photo opportunity! Lovely we looked too!

Then it was back to the boat and we set off for the floating islands, which was about a two hour boat trip. Weather was not good, rain and very cold. Gwen, one of the Aussie ladies, was not at all well, so she stayed on the boat when we got to the islands.

The islands were very interesting, not somewhere I would like to live though. The islands are made up of reeds and a new layer of reeds are added every three months; after 100 years the reeds touch the bottom of the lake, therefore does not float and a new island needs to be made. They have little reed houses, which basically consists of one room with beds in. Again they dressed us in traditional costume for a photo opportunity. The clothes are very heavy, which I think they need to be as they don't appear to have heating anywhere on Peru!

The Aussie ladies had asked to be moved to another hotel, because the hotel was cold and had no hot water, and Gwen really was not well, therefore, we asked to be moved too.

We got back to Puno and were taken to new hotel, which was a great improvement; there was just something about the original hotel that was not right, not just the smell or water issue, could have been bad karma. Lucho had arranged for our luggage to be transferred to new hotel, which was great.

Our new room also had a bath - yippee - and I had a long soak. I do prefer bath to a shower.

We went out for a meal in the evening, although Gwen did not come. Festival was still going strong in Puno, although we stayed away from the main square.

We did not have a late night, as it was. again an early start the next morning to catch our first bus to La Paz, Bolivia.

Up early for breakfast and it was good to see that Gwen was much better. It was then off to the bus station to catch bus which would take us to the Peruvian / Bolivian border, a journey of just over two hours. When we arrived, it was a case of going through immigration procedures. We then proceeded to Copacabana, where after an hour's stop for lunch, we were to pick up our next bus for the final leg to La Paz, a journey of about three hours.

Part of this journey took us round lake Titikaka, which really is amazing and seems to go on forever.

We also had a five minute ferry crossing, the bus went separately over the water!

We arrived in La Paz about 4pm at the higher level and the bus stopped for us to take pictures from the higher level to the lower level - fab views.

La Paz is a large city and it took another 30 minutes to reach our hotel. Traffic was also bad, worse than Lima, which I had thought was bad.

Cuzco Cosco

Re-reading Clare's post "Sacred Valley / Cuzco / Machu Picchu", I only need to fill in a few parts of the picture.

In the original Quechua ("Ketch-wa") language, the town's name was Cosco, which the Spanish invaders couldn't pronounce, and changed it to Cuzco.

The tour we chose was designed to allow people to hike the Inca Trail (spelled Inka everywhere here). Hence it already included a couple of rest days in Cuzco. We added another couple of days due to not going to the Amazon. Hence we had quite a few days to drift around the town, and lunched on a few balconies overlooking the main square, once whilst watching a huge rainstorm with torrential gushing spouts on the historic church.

Cuzco is interesting and pleasant rather than fabulous and amazing. However we've been happy here, except for the peddlers in the main square, who seem to be the only people who hassle you. That might be because February is the rainy season in the Andes, and there are even fewer tourists here than usual.

In fact, we've been pretty pleased to have most places almost to ourselves and hope the trend continues.

One place that I had to myself were the Inca terraces above Ollantaytambo (partly because Clare was unwell). In some places the Incas made stone-walled stepped terraces up slopes to allow cultivation (as in Machu Picchu) and in others to maintain the landscape (as here).

The result yields some spectacular views. It also reminded me of a perplexing lesson in photography: no matter how many photos one takes, one can never capture the feeling of being there. One compares the photo poorly with the reality and takes several more in frustrated powerlessness.

We weren't completely idle during our rest days. During one, we visited the ancient Inca Sun and Moon temples of Qorikancha, only partly destroyed when the Spanish built the Convent of Santo Domingo over them as part of their attempt to "build" their religion over that of the locals. This failed in various ways, including the merging of the virgin Mary with Pacha Mama (mother earth), and the addition of previously-sacred Falcon, Puma and Snake images to church pictures of a woman supposedly newly-sacred Mary.

On another rest day (our last in Cuzco) we visited four Inca sites just North of Cuzco, with a taxi waiting for us between. The third was most interesting, Q'enqo (pronounced with a glottal stop at the apostrophe, rather than as "Kenco"). This just looks like a jumble of rocks, but hides a small temple area in the space under and between some of the largest rocks.

The taxi left us at the fourth site, Saqsayhuamán (pronounced very similar to "sexy woman", which aids recollection). The story has it that the fork and merging of a river originally resembled the outline of a sacred puma, and led to the selection of the Cuzco site as the Inca capital. Saqsayhuamán represents the head, eye and jagged teeth of the puma.

We found a great guide, named Guido, who is writing a PhD on the site. He encouraged me to walk alone through a winding underground tunnel that was pitch black in the middle, and to slide down the smooth curve of some ancient glacier-carved rocks, more recently polished by ten thousand other backsides. Quite a fun fair!

As I said in my last mini-post, the coach on to Puno wasn't at all the ordeal I anticipated, mainly because clever guide Lucho bagged us the front seats on the top deck. Hence we had hours of fabulous views. Not so anyone on the lower deck, since they look forward into a bulkhead between them and the toilet and driver. Not good.

Sunday 12 February 2012

Quiet Period

Sorry to regular readers (Fliss) for the dearth of posts recently. We've had a really nice time in Cuzco, during which we visited Ollantaytambo and Machu Picchu, and which I'll write about later. Yesterday we had a 7-hour coach journey to Puno, the city on the shore of Lake Titicaca. This was a lot less painful than expected.

Must run along now as I just found the wi-fi and now have to leave for a day on the lake in the rain.

Friday 10 February 2012

Sacred Valley / Cuzco / Machu Picchu

Wow, we have had an amazing few days, if you discount us both having upset tummies and me passing out in a restaurant (due I think to said tummy upset, no food for 24 hours and possibly dehydration).

Our first trip to the Sacred Valley started with a visit to a silver factory in Cuzco. I love silver jewellery so really enjoyed this. Needless to say I had to get something which was a ring, necklace and bracelet - real Peruvian silver, so you can only get here, to be honest, Dave brought me two of the items and I brought him some cufflinks.

From the factory, we drove out of Cuzco to Ollantaytambo, stopping on route for photos and for lunch at a workers' collective, where we brought some more items, including a table runner, which we thought was about £30, but we had miscalculated and was, in fact, £75! All in a good cause though.

We had a traditional lunch of veg soup followed by chicken, corn bread and baked potato. We also had coca tea.

We stopped again at a little place which made traditional corn beer; I preferred the one sweetened with berries.

We also played a game while we were there, basically throwing counters into holes to score points, if you managed to get a counter into the frog's mouth, you gained maximum points. Yours truly won out of the two Aussie ladies, Dave, our guide Luchio, the driver of our minibus (whose name we cannot remember) and Norma from the Intrepid Office.

We arrived in Ollantaytambo late afternoon and checked into our hotel; we have been very pleased with our accommodation and this was no different. We went out for a meal with group, although my upset tummy had settled in by this time.

Next day Dave and I walked around village, but I soon had to return to the hotel and our room and bathroom! Dave went out to walk up to the Inca terraces, he got some amazing pictures and I was sorry I could not make it.

We returned to Cuzco (I had taken medication) as we had the rest of the day and also the following day free, which was just as well, as Dave came down with tummy bug too. Therefore, we did not do anything much for the next day and a half other than recovering from this bug.

Yesterday, 8 February, we went back to Ollantaytambo to catch a train to Machu Picchu, which took 90 minutes. Train was comfortable and the scenery amazing; the train runs alongside the River Urubamba, which I can only describe as a fast, torrid, deep, swirling mass of water. Machu Picchu is set in cloud forest, so the change of scenery was stunning. We were staying in Aguas Calientes overnight before going up to Machu Picchu this morning - The overnight accommodation was the most basic yet, but clean and fairly comfortable. We went to the hot springs in Aguas Calientes, which was a bit of a hike, but worth making the effort and we enjoyed the dip.

This morning, we were up early to catch the bus up to Machu Picchu; this took about 30 minutes. We were met by our guide, Wellington, who was to take us round the site and explain the history. The next bit is difficult as I don't know how to describe Machu Picchu, other than with the following - stunning, amazing, awesome, unbelievable. We were also very lucky with the weather, as it was hot and sunny which we understand is not always the case, and as we left some 3 hours later, rain started to fall. The views were out of this world and loads of pictures were taken. We also did a lot of walking round the site, up incredible steep steps to admire the views and the Inca's handiwork with terraces, temples and irrigation. At one point I asked Dave to pinch me as I could not believe where I was!

We are now back in Cuzco and have a free day tomorrow, when we plan to visit some sites that we were going to do on our last free day, but could not do because of upset tummies!

Friday 3 February 2012

Lima Scores

I like Lima. We've met so many friendly and helpful people. I can't remember the like anywhere else I've been. Spot this theme in the following narrative.

There aren't loads and loads of things to see in Lima, but easily enough for a few days.

We flew in just after midnight going into Sunday. Our transfer wasn't there, and after a 10-minute dual-international call from my mobile (to a foreign number whilst abroad), they said they had no record of us at all. An English-speaking tourism ministry lady organised a taxi for us and used it to get herself a lift home. We were just relieved to get to the hotel without being badly ripped off. On the drive we saw two TGI Fridays and a Starbucks, so felt very far from home (not). The hotel, which we came to love, was the Doubletree El Pardo "by Hilton" in the coastal district of Miraflores - quite a glossy area, so many banks and hotels. After a long sleep, we went for a walk and ate in Burger King (brave explorers!).

Clare was concerned about an insect bite on her arm that had turned into an 8cm red patch. The hotel reception called their emergency medical service who were there in no time and gave Clare a jab and a prescription for some pills, all for free - very impressive.

We walked out again and ended up at the beach. Having recently come from UK/Atlantic and Belize/Caribbean, I couldn't resist the symbolic feat of paddling in the Pacific Ocean. I hadn't quite thought it through, as the "beach" was steep and made of few-cm stones - very painful on the tootsies. The next big wave crashed in and I got soaked! Never mind - I'd rather enjoy being a fool than glide through untouched. Clare looked very smug.

Dinner in the hotel (every day, it appears) is a Peruvian buffet with floor show. The food was good; the show was pretty standard local-culture stuff apart from some rattling-scissors tumbling at the end. I didn't fancy it a second time, but there are many other restaurants nearby.

On Monday we got a hotel car into the historic centre of Lima, arriving just in time for the noon changing of the guard at the presidential palace. This started off with a military band playing not-so-military tunes. As new arrivals in Peru, and trying to get a feel of the situation, we noted being kept on the far side of the street by a sparse line of police with riot shields, and seeing just a few guys with Kalashnikov AK47s beyond. One needs to remember that it wasn't so long ago when Peru was struggling against the Shining Path and others. It's a very long time since I went to the changing of the guard in London, which I now feel I should see to compare and contrast. I was disproportionately cheered by seeing the trombonists' slides sticking out through the palace railings and that the band had been standing on a little platform - reinforcing the feel that the real Peru wants to welcome visitors and the security is a residual feature.

The palace is on the Plaza Mayor (aka Plaza de Armas), which also holds a big cathedral. One block North is the former train station (now a library/arts centre) where, we were told, Paddington Bear started his travels. Another block East is the Franciscan monastery, cheap entrance and tours on the hour in English. We were very impressed, especially with the beautiful library, rammed with ancient books and dual spiral staircases rising to a gallery. At the end of the tour we viewed the catacombs, where at least 25,000 people were laid to rest in the middle ages, underground to avoid diseases. Archaeologists in the 1940's saw fit to split up the remains, collecting all the femurs together into rows, skulls separate and (just visible in side rooms) minor bones elsewhere.

We walked on round the town, and another highlight was the Indoor Market - rows of stalls grouped in similar types, great photo-fodder if my camera battery hadn't chosen then to give out. We were accosted twice as we walked there, and initially fended people off, expecting hard sell or begging. Wrong. One lingerie seller saw our cameras and displayed a brassiere made for a giant so we could photo it. A lady on the street wanted to warn Clare that her camera dangling on a wrist strap could be snatched. How kind!

I wanted to get the Metropolitano dedicated-lane bus service back to near the hotel, but was thwarted. It's a system entirely based on rechargeable cards, and I could understand the instructions, but with no obvious way to get a card in the first place. In the end we had to hail a taxi anyway. I asked the price but misunderstood the Spanish and ended up relieved when it was ten times less than I'd been bracing for!

Tuesday was our hardcore tourist day. We got a hotel car to Huaca Pucllana, which looks like a wide, low hill made from little adobe bricks, but it was closed. We caught the driver and went to Museo Larco, which shows the cream of a huge historical collection (mainly pre-Inca) in a clear and very interesting way. No wonder it's a Tripadvisor top tip. For the afternoon we booked what ended up as a private trip to Pachacamac, a 70-hectare archeological site from an original 500-hectare area of temples, cemetaries and clerical dwellings used by four successive empires over more than 500 years. Very little of it has been excavated yet, with the remainder just sandy desert.

In the morning, Clare had taken her first Maladrone antimalarial pill - the expensive ones supposed to have no side-effects. By the evening she'd come up in rashes on a few parts of her body. We had to get the hotel reception to call the emergency medics again, and they gave her another jab, prescribed other pills and told her no more Maladrone, of course.

Hence, Wednesday morning was taken up with a visit to the nearby Good Hope clinic to get antimalarial advice, bearing in mind our planned trip to the Amazon the following day. As we arrived, an English-speaking gentleman who was just passing by took it upon himself to help us find the right one of the various routes into the clinic (representing different services). He went with us in each different entrance until we found the right place and an English-speaking receptionist. So kind!

We had to wait over an hour to see the doctor, but reckoned you wouldn't do much better as a walk-in at a UK medical centre. The doctor also spoke English and advised Clare against trying any other antimalarials while her body was sensitised. Hence we had to give up on the idea of visiting the Amazon. We went back to the Doubletree El Pardo who scored yet another point by allowing a late checkout. Packed, we moved on to the Inka Path hotel downtown where our tour started - a nice, clean 3* hotel, centrally located but with rooms that have no windows or aircon. We were glad to be there only one night.

At the start of the afternoon we had the welcome meeting for our tour - "Sacred Land of the Incas" with Intrepid. There are only four of us on the tour, Clare and myself plus a couple of Aussie ladies, Gwen and Margaret. We reduced the initial numbers further when we told guide Lucho that we had to skip the two days in the Amazon and go straight to Cuzco on our own.

Wednesday 1 February 2012

Lovely Lima

We have been in Lima now for 3 days, its now 31 January 2012.  Weather has been very hot and sunny.  Hotel (El Prado Doubletrees), which is about half an hour from the centre of Lima, is really nice and comfortable and staff very friendly.

We had a journey of approximately 20 hours to get here from Belize and also had to go through immigration and customs again at Miami before going through to departures to get the flight to Lima.  Got to our hotel at 2.30am on the 29 Jan, having left Belize at 8.15am on the 28 Jan, so we were a bit knackered.

Also came away from Belize with their equivalent of a horse fly bite, right arm was very red, hot and swollen.  Hotel provides free medical assistance and called out a doctor who gave me an antihisimine jab and prescribed some tablets; very impressed with this service and thought it would be a one-off, but read on.

Spent yesterday in centre of Lima, watched the changing of the guard at the Presidential Palace, then went to a monastry and had a tour, an amazing place, rounded off by visiting the catacombs underneath the church, where 25,000 people are buried - and seeing the bones and skulls of a few hundred (or possibly thousands) of people.

There was also an earthquake in Ica, about 200 miles from Lima, which registered 6.3; Dave felt our bed shake at about 12.15 am, but I slept through it, so the earth did not move for me!

Today, had first maleria tablet prior to our trip down the Amazon.  We visited a museum this morning and this afternoon visited a pyramid / sun temple about 40 minutes from our hotel, we were the only two on this trip, so like a private tour and it was an amazing place.

Towards the end of this trip, I noticed that a rash had appeared on my left arm (not the one with the bite) and when I went to have a bath on our return to the hotel, I noticed a very angry red rash on the top of my left leg, doctor was called out again, and basically I have had a bad reaction to Malerone, the maleria drug prescribed for me.  I have had another antihistimine jab and have more tablets - cannot continue to take Malerone.

In a bit of a quandry know, as we need to find a doctor to look at alternative anti-maleria drugs or forgo the Amazon trip.  Concerned that any other drugs prescribed should be taken at least a week before going into a maleria area, I really do not want to take any unnecessary risks with my health.

However, very impressed with the hotel and their helpfulness and their policy of getting quick, efficient medical assistance.  Everywhere we have been we have met with friendly service.  Someone even came up to me in Lima and advised me not to have my camera visible, as someone could snatch it. 

We move to another hotel tomorrow, prior to possible Amazon trip and for the tour - Sacred land of the Incas.