The Peru Trip - Part One

Monday 7^th September

Left for Heathrow by local bus, then National Express. Took the Heathrow Pod to the Thistle Hotel (£5.00 each, each way). Took a room upgrade and walked the miles to the room. Had dinner in the restaurant overlooking the runway with planes landing every 60 seconds – or even less! I had a very cheesy pizza, K had ribeye steak (how unusual). Prices were not at all bad for a hotel.

Pod!

Tuesday 8^th September

Saw K off on the coach to T2 next morning. I took the pod back to T5. Her plane was delayed – so we met up again at T5 a bit later. We both had elderly 747s to go on – hers to Houston, mine (British Airways) to Miami. We were delayed for 40 minutes because some passengers didn’t turn up. I sat on an aisle seat – which was good. Watched two films – ‘Spy’, and ‘Tomorrowland’. Thought they were quite good. Didn’t sleep. Arrived at Miami where it was 32 degrees C and humid. Caught the flight to Lima on an old American Airlines 757 – which had poor facilities – like no individual entertainment system, and few toilets. Sat next to a lady Pastor named Chris, who was from Philadelphia.

Hot and humid in Miami

View from my seat on the 757

Got about two hours fretful sleep and tackled a pretty bad meal. The two glasses of Chile red helped a bit. Arrived at Lima at 22:40. Took a little while to get out, and I changed some dollars into Peruvian Sol (3.3 for a dollar)  Ran the gauntlet of pre-booked drivers and taxi companies and waited for the missus on her flight from Houston. She arrived a little while later at 22:55 and cleared immigration etc. by about 23:20. Much to my surprise, the driver pre-booked by Cambridge appeared and we made our way to the hotel – arriving a little while before midnight. K signed for the taxi and I gave the driver a tip – seemed only fair.

We stayed one night at the Padama Hotel - close to the airport. We were very tired, but still showered to get rid of the flights. The bed was the biggest I’ve ever been in, and the room was well stocked with all the little items that the international traveller may need – ranging from a full mini bar, through cigarettes and condoms to sweets, biscuits and chocolates. All this and free wifi too. Very nice. We slept.

Wednesday 9^th September

I opened the window and beheld a building site (so it seemed). Very dusty and bare. A cat was being piteous somewhere close. I sent a message to our children saying that we were safe and well. I showered again, then we dressed and went up five floors (no lift) to breakfast. Interesting. 

View from the window

Breakfast

View over Lima

There was a selection of teas, with jugs of hot water. Fresh rolls. Scrambled eggs. Something liquidised which looked and tasted like pumpkin (probably pumpkin, then). I tried an apple tea, then a cinnamon one. Both were OK. I finished the pumpkin juice, but K wasn’t so keen. Returning to the room we completed packing and made our way down to the waiting taxi to take us to the airport.

Lima Airport isn’t so bad. It’s probably bigger than Bristol Airport. We arrived far too early – it was five minutes from the hotel. We found the check in desk for Peruvian Airways, then went to explore the airport. Lots of shops and eating places – including the inevitable MacDonalds. We wandered for a while, looking at various things. Changed some more money into Peruvian Sols, then went back downstairs to check in.

We checked in our cases, then found our way back upstairs to a coffee place. We had coffee, K had a slice of Lemon Meringue Pie, and I had a warm (meat) empanada. It came covered in icing sugar and with a slice of lime. It worked well – was very tasty.

We went through departures and looked at the things on that side – not so many. Finding our way to Gate 7 we sat and waited for over an hour to be boarded.

The flight was quick, just over an hour, and we were served a drink and a snack – much to our surprise. They had to go some to get it all out and back in an hour! Cusco airport is small, though Cusco itself was much larger than I was expecting. From the air it was showing many signs of expansion, with lots of new buildings and quite big roads. Cusco was the capital for the ancient Inca people and formed the centre of an empire that stretched over a lot of South America.

We were met by Maria, the lady who was organising our trip to this area for us, and the driver, Percy Vargas (had to get his name in). We chatted whilst we were driven to the hotel. The Terra Andina Hotel is close to the old centre of Cusco, and is very nice. We signed in, accompanied by cups of coca tea, and then Maria took us through the itinerary again before leaving us to settle in. We will meet her again the next day for a tour of Cusco. 

K had a text from the mother of our daughter’s best friend, Yanette, who is living in Peru, to say that she was free, and would meet us for something to eat. The time now was getting on for six o’clock. We met and wandered down to the central square of Cusco to find a restaurant. The walk through the old town was interesting, and thronged with people. The square itself had a fountain in the centre, and a church and cathedral facing it on two sides. We were approached several times by street vendors, but they weren’t persistent, and a gentle ‘No, gracias’ saw them off. There were also people walking about with menus, promoting their restaurant. We were looking for somewhere that did chicken soup, as we had been told that it was one of the best things to help with the altitude adjustment. Cusco is high altitude – 3300 metres above sea level – and altitude sickness is not unknown.

Yanette spoke to one of the chaps with the menu and he guided us up to his restaurant, where we sat on a balcony overlooking the square. Very nice. We chose chicken soup, and some soft drinks and then looked through the menu discussing the other items of fare – including roast guinea pig, which is not unusual in Peru. The picture accompanying this item was basically a guinea pig on a plate with some rice and veg. To me it looked sad, but I remember having these animals as pets, and how cute they are. Yanette told us how well her garden, in the ‘Sacred Valley’ (more of this later), was producing well. She was getting crops of interesting fruits and vegetables, including enormous avocado pears from her trees.

The soup came, and it was very good. We ate it all and then refused dessert as we were full, and still getting over the flight. The altitude had strange effects on me. It was harder to breathe than normal, and every now and then I would get a ‘rush’ feeling in my body – a bit like an adrenalin surge, but without the associated energy increase. My head was also throbbing.

On leaving the restaurant we walked back through the town towards the hotel. Over two hours had passed, and Yanette had to get a bus, or taxi, back to her town, which was about forty five minutes away. We said our goodbyes, and K and I made our way back to the hotel, showered, and went to bed. We were meeting Maria at nine the next day.

Thursday 10^th Sep

We awoke early, must have been jet lag. We were breakfasting on fresh fruit and scrambled egg by eight o’clock. Met Maria outside the hotel at nine, and we began our tour by visiting San Pedro Market, which was virtually opposite the end of the street where the hotel was sited. The market was fascinating. A few pictures here will do far more than words.

Leaving the market, we headed through Cusco to Qorikancha, which are the ruins of a 15th-century Inca temple that once had walls & floors covered in pure gold. Walking through the streets, I was reminded a little of some parts of India that we have visited, where the street vendors provide almost any service and item that you can think of, and where small shops sell a variety of goods and services. These mixed in with more obviously tourist orientated shops and outlets, selling hats, bags, toys and souvenirs with Peruvian themes.

We had a combined tourist ticket for the temple (and lots of other places), which was validated as we entered. It seems that as part of the process of ‘conquering’ Peru, the Spanish levelled temples and other holy places, and built their own churches and cathedrals on top. Another way of showing domination. This building clearly showed the difference between the original Inca walls, and those that came later in what Maria called the ‘Transition’ or ‘Colonial’ times. The original Inca building was amazing. Massive blocks of stone perfectly matched together with no mortar or other joining compound. Just how they cut these things and fitted them so perfectly is incredible. I doubt if we could complete the same feat today. The Spanish additions, by comparison, were pretty poor. Some more photos will demonstrate this.

The best craftsmanship was for the Inca sacred buildings and important places. Here you see the same features again and again – walls inclined at 14 to 15 degrees, trapezoidal door and window shapes, and totally wonderful shaping and fitting together of blocks. We were to see these features at all of the other important Inca sites that we would be visiting.

Leaving the temple, we made our way to the central square again, pausing only to take a picture (for which a tip was given), of two ladies dressed in traditional clothes, holding an alpaca and a lamb. We also saw several people taking lambs around on leads – which seemed odd to us. Very cute though.

The cathedral was large, and very Spanish in features. Maria explained how the Catholic priests had at first tried to force their religion onto the Inca people, but met with resistance. After a while, they tried subtler methods, such as linking the Virgin Mary with the idea of the Mother Earth, which the Incas worshipped. Theirs was a physically based religion – worshipping the Earth, the Sun, the Stars, and other important things that had an effect on their everyday lives. They made sacrifices and offerings to these Gods to try and affect their everyday lives. The priests dressed Mary in clothes which suggested the shape of a mountain, with a crown suggesting the Sun, and a silver crescent Moon at her feet, and so on for other symbolic imagery. This made accepting the ‘new’ religion a little easier for the Inca peoples. That said, even today, people still give offerings to the Earth and to the other ancient Gods – we saw such things for sale in the market of San Pedro.

The time was gone twelve o’clock, so Maria left us for lunch, and we agreed to meet again at the hotel at two. We found a nice restaurant overlooking the square again, and sat watching the world from the balcony. K had a quinoa and trout salad, I had some empanadas (like small pasties). There was trout, vegetable and alpaca – which tastes a little like beef. Maria said that the Alpaca was created by the Incas by crossbreeding the Llama and the Vicuna. The Llama was a work and pack animal, the Vicuna has wonderful fibre and is good to eat, but is wild – even to this day. The Alpaca has very soft, good fibre and produces good meat. They are also very cute to look at – especially the young ones!

Back to the hotel, and just enough time to freshen up before Maria appears and calls Percy who soon arrives with the car to take us to Saqsayhuaman (or ‘Sexywoman’ as Maria told us to use as a reminder).  This is a fortess, or citadel built on the outskirts of Cusco by the Inca. Many of the stones still remain even though Maria said that people took lots of them away to build homes and other things. The site is vast, with good views over Cusco and it’s surroundings. Emphasises again how big Cusco is. Maria thinks that it has about 500,000 inhabitants. 

We paused for some photos and then drove on to Q’inqu (Quenco), which is a holy place and former temple.There are natural rock formations there, which had religious significance to the ancients – at least it is thought that they did. Not having a written language leaves us somewhat in the dark about what actually happened. We entered a cave and found what seemed to be an altar. From there we moved on to Puka Pukara which is a former fortress with great views over the surrounding countryside. It seems to have been built for defence and oversees the main route to Cusco. All of these places were at quite an altitude, so we found ourselves getting out of breath quite quickly. 

Q'inqu

View from Puka Pukara

The last place for today was Tambomachay, which is quite close to Puka Pukara, and seems to have been some kind of resting place or spa for the Inca peoples. There are water courses and waterfalls there as well as the usual terraces. It was quite a long drag up the path to see the remaining small waterfall emerging from the rocks. There were quite a few people milling about also. A gang of men were using wheelbarrows of gravel to repair the path as we came back down. They were working hard – obviously more used to the altitude than we were. It had been a long day, and we gratefully climbed back into the car for the trip back to Cusco and the hotel.

We decided to eat at the hotel that night – and were the only ones doing so. The terrazzo area was nice, with candles on the tables and very attentive staff, but it felt odd just having the two of us there. We weren’t too late going to bed, knowing that we had another full day of site seeing before us the next day, ending with a train trip to Aguas Calientes reday to visit Macchu Picchu.

To be continued.................