Day 4
Machu Picchu. The ruins of Machu Picchu are on the foremost of everyone's knowledge of Peru and while it was the impetus of the trip to Peru there are so many other amazing things to see. We are beginning our ascent into the Andean Highlands for our stay in the Machu Picchu area.
A quick primer on the geography first. The former capital of Peru is Cusco. This is where the ancient Incans has the power consolidated. It is also where the vast majority of the tourists spend most of their trip. You can fly to Cusco but this option has us driving. It's 2 days of driving on what so far has been an endless climb up narrow switchbacks up into the mountains.
The above map shows where we came from in Abancay, to Cusco to Aguas Calientes where Machu Picchu is located.
But back to Machu Picchu. We will be in the Cusco area for about 5 days plus traveling. Cusco is the nearest major city but we are heading up north to Aguas Calientes to get us far closer to the action. There are a couple ways to get to Machu Picchu. The more famous one is the 4 day Inca Trail. While I enjoy hiking, 4 days feels like a lot of work for me. They do have limits on how many people receive permits to hike it daily, and you do have porters carrying and setting things up. It's still a little intense for me! They do a competition every year and it takes the winner a little under 4 hours to finish the trail all at once!
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| Vicunas |
As we travel up into the highlands we've entered a national park, Pampa Galeras where the vicunas live. They are close to the llamas and alpacas but not domesticated. They are a protected species and driving through the park it is very noticeable because while we had our eyes peeled looking for them it was very easy to find them. We've passed hundreds! They are a lovely cinnamon color and travel in packs. The wool is used for clothing but it incredibly expensive as it costs more than 300 USD a pound and you only get around 200-300 g off one animal. So mostly for the wealthy tourists.
The terrain has changed quite incredibly over our little bit of driving. We've gone from desolation with nothing but the tree of life (called so because the roots always find water so it was a good water source for the ancient people of Peru) to scrub with cactus to a decently green and lush hillside supporting vicunas and alpacas.
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| Alpaca in the kitchen of where we had lunch |
Amusingly the cows wander at will everywhere. No fences for them so you find them randomly on the side of the roads or even grazing on steep slopes you wouldn't think anything could walk on.
The roads here are similar to driving through the Rocky Mountains, but with endless switchbacks. You can see parts of the roads off in the distance and know you're going to be driving on them but I have no idea how they would all connect! The roads are in really good condition and the views are spectacular.
Since it's a bit of a quiet day tour wise, I'll tell about some observations of Peru. With all the petty crime you see the massive fences with spikes everywhere. Bars on all the windows, and some electric fences. And some with cactus growing on the top of the fences. Very ingeniuos. Not so much for the broken beer bottles like Mexico, but there are a few. The funny part is that once you get in the locks are very basic. And all with keys, not with cards. And we've even had to remember to manually lock the doors, which is good for me as I have a tendency to lock myself out occasionally.
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| Windy roads and amazing valleys |
There are a lot of dogs everywhere. Some are on leashes but most just roam at will. Some of them are strays, but I think that some are running around because people don't necessarily have yards. In some of the bigger cities you would see them ripping apart the garbage, which leads to another problem. The trash piles. The nicer areas of the cities are very clean, Miraflores has people cleaning all the time, but the highways are dirty as are many main areas of the cities. Garbage pickup isn't quite as organized at home and people are more concerned about getting it out of their homes to worry about what the streets look like. But as a real treat, smoking is a real rarity in Peru, it's regular garbage instead of the endless cigarette butts like at home.
With entering the highlands we're starting to see the Quecha people with their very distinctive culture. All the women wear many layers of heavy skirts and jackets and distinctive hats. These are the traditional pictures of Peruvians you'll see. In the bigger cities teenage girls and little girls will pose for money to take their pictures.
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| Condor! |
Now we've gotten up high enough to enter the altiplanos. Which I think in Spanish means the altitude will kill you. It's actually just the plains up very high in altitude. You could tell the instant we hit a specific altitude as several of us were all hit with symptoms all at once. Mostly dizziness for me. But the magic lemon helps. It's this traditional lemon liquid the guide put on me that made me feel better fairly quickly. It's really quite incredible how we can come up with so many cures with modern medicine. Yet it's the traditional cures that can make the difference. But today is the worst day as we climb quite a bit and we should start to adjust more as we continue to stay up high.
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| Hacienda we stayed at |
The altiplano has brought lots of excitement. We spotted 3 condors flying quite close to the bus and I'm convinced there are more alpacas, cows and vicunas than rocks!
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| Peacocks wandering the grounds |
Our stay for the night is at an old hacienda fixed up. Rest and taking it easy are the best advice for going up in altitude so I find it highly amusing that they pick a location completely isolated. We didn't even have wifi or phones!! It had a little bit of a horror movie vibe but we all made it out to the bus the next day. It's right along the river, or the jacuzzi as we liked to call it, and had all sorts of animals, including dogs, peacocks, alpacas, and chickens. The rooster was going off in the morning at the same time as my alarm!
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