Thursday, December 22, 2016

Lots of highs, few lows: a trip round-up

I've been back in the UK for six weeks now - six weeks which have flown by just as fast as the six weeks I spent travelling and the weeks in Rio. Every time I've seen a friend for the first time since returning they've asked me what the best bit was, usually prefacing with "how was the Olympics?" At that point I've usually gone "oh yeah, the Olympics, I did that too". The travelling part of the trip, being more recent and immediate, had somehow taken priority over Rio in my head.

I blogged about both the Olympics and Paralympics earlier and the memories are still strong. The ones I've been dragging out when people ask tend to be:
  • the lovely chat I had with single sculls champion Mahé Drysdale before racing started, because it genuinely was just a nice conversation with a nice guy;
  • watching the GB women's eight win silver, because over the years I've known a number of the women who have been fighting for that medal for so long; 
  • being in the athletics mixed zone on the night of the men's 100m final and squishing into the front of the agency pen to grab Usain Bolt's quotes (that man is TALL - my arm was aching from holding my phone up to record);
  • the many, many incredible stories from the Paralympics, but maybe most that of Australian para-canoeist Curtis McGrath. We sat in the shade in the boat park and he told me, with perfect clarity, about the moment on 23 August 2012 when he'd lost his legs in an IED explosion in Afghanistan. It was only moments later, being stretchered to the helicopter, that he told his mates they'd see him at the Paralympics. Some of them were in Rio to watch him win gold four years later. It was hard to listen and ask questions without getting emotional.
The Lagoa at dawn
But those are just a handful of the many moments I'll remember from those two and a half months in the Cidade Maravilhosa, shared with a great bunch of colleagues and friends.

When it comes to best experiences from the travelling, the Salkantay and Machu Picchu probably top the list. I had such high expectations from the trek and they were met almost entirely, which is saying quite a lot. Iguacu Falls is also up there as one of the best bits of the trip. The sheer power of all that water was just astounding - and I got to go to Argentina for the day!


But I also loved Ilha Grande and wished I'd stayed there longer; I was very pleasantly surprised by Lima, which everyone had said wasn't that great a place; I chilled out with the locals by Lake Titicaca; I was awed by condors in Colca Canyon; and saw pelicans in a place that looked like the moon in Paracas. I stuffed my face with steak in Brazil and with livelier fare in Peru, and drank somewhat more than my fair share of capirinhas and pisco sours as well as plenty of ice-cold beer.

With my Lake Titicaca homestay host Calixto
Along the way I encountered all sorts of interesting people, from the wonderful locals who were my guides and hosts, to other travellers. Young couples taking career breaks, older solo travellers looking for something new, backpackers from all over the world stretching their money as far as it can go. And of course in Rio a whole host of fantastic cariocas who were so generous with their welcome to their city. 

In many ways it's odd looking back at the journey. At the beginning of the year I was tired, trying to give as much time as I could to work and to rowing and not quite succeeding on either level. I felt like I'd been operating at maximum capacity for far too long. And I really wanted to work in Rio, having spent the best part of four years looking back wistfully to the London Olympics. When the offer came through I was on a long weekend break in New York, seeing my brother and sister-in-law and enjoying a brief few days of travel - it seemed appropriate that I spent much of that weekend buoyed up with anticipation over Rio too.

It was difficult in some ways leaving my job. I worked with an awesome team and the job itself was interesting, varied and challenging. But I'd been there a while and the changing shape of the world of business media was getting me down. Taking the leap into Rio, travelling and then the challenge of trying to go freelance was absolutely the right thing to do. Writing this now, despite the fact I haven't really put much effort into getting work yet, I feel refreshed and excited about next year. Planning is overrated - I'm going to see what happens and seize any opportunities that come. It seemed to work this year, after all.

Thanks for following my travels with me. Until next time!

Friday, December 16, 2016

Welcome to Miami

You know that Will Smith song, Welcome to Miami? Well, I had it running through my head on loop the entire time I was there, despite the fact I'm not a big fan of the song.

Turns out, though, that Miami itself is pretty cool.

I ended up flying home through Miami because I couldn't find any reasonably-priced direct flights from Lima. All the cheaper ones involved a change somewhere, mostly in the US. So then I thought, how about a stopover in the US on the way home? Further investigation revealed that US budget airline JetBlue has Fort Lauderdale as its hub, and flies between there and Lima; and Norwegian Airlines has incredibly cheap flights between the US and UK. So I spent the money I saved by not flying direct in Miami, which was a much more pleasurable way of spending it!


Vizcaya

I had essentially two days and one night there, and tried to go for a mixture of things to see and do. First up, after an American breakfast of pancakes and bacon in a diner, was the Vizcaya Museum, a beautiful mansion built in the early 20th century by a very rich American called James Deering. Annoyingly they didn't allow pictures inside the house and it was a bit drizzly so my pictures outside in the gardens weren't amazing either, but it was well worth the visit. The place was stunning, each room themed with art and furniture sourced to fit the theme. It was a bit OTT but I really liked it.

After Vizcaya I headed to Little Havana, which was weird. Not Little Havana in and of itself, but because I'd just spent a month in a Spanish-speaking country. Now here I was in an Anglophone country and all the signs were in Spanish, and people were speaking Spanish on the street. The sense of slight displacement, exacerbated by an overnight flight the night before, was very odd.

Domino Park in Little Havana

Dinner was in yet another bit of Miami, the up-and-coming area of Brickell where there's lots of new development and some funky restaurants. I'd also just been paid by Rio 2016 had a Happy Hour cocktail with dinner and then went back to the hotel for a nightcap in the roof bar before crashing.

Day two dawned hot and sunny with no sign of the previous day's drizzle. Conscious that within 24 hours I'd be shivering in British November I donned shorts and a vest top and spent the day dodging the sun.

Wynwood Walls

Across the course of my trip I'd discovered that I really like street art. So when I read about the Wynwood Walls I added it to my list of Things To Do in Miami. Wynwood was a deprived area of the city and indeed still has a slight air of deprivation to it, but it is sprucing itself up largely thanks to street art. In the centre, there's a complex called the Wynwood Walls where street artists are invited to come and add their work to the walls. All around, other artists have decorated houses, shops and even the street furniture with vibrant colour. It was stunning.

Art at the Perez
To continue the art theme the next stop was the Perez Art Gallery. Compared to the cost of museums in South America the entry fee was a bit eye-watering for a relatively sparse gallery, but that said, I liked pretty much all the art in there. Sometimes modern art can be pretentious - I can never quite understand how a canvas of just one colour gets to be in a museum - but most of the Perez collection was nice to look at and thought-provoking. I especially liked a sort of video/audio installation where the artist had collected audio files of people speaking endangered languages.

After such a surfeit of art it was on to a bus - Miami has a great public transport system, which includes a free monorail - to go to Miami Beach. I'm not a massive beach person and felt I got my year's fill in Rio, but it was nice to see the beach and have lunch wave and people-watching.

Ocean Drive art deco

As well as a large golden beach Miami Beach is also where you go to see art deco buildings. I walked down Ocean Drive, a whole street of beautiful former hotels and apartment blocks which are now mainly restaurants. On a sunny Friday they were packed with people eating vast American portions and drinking the largest cocktails I've ever seen in my life. I was kind of tempted actually, but I'd planned dinner at a Miami Beach institution, Joe's Stone Crabs.

There's a weird little backstory to why I went for this. I have the full collection of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels, a mixture of modern paperbacks and the 1960s hardbacks collected by my dad and his brothers when they were teenagers. I love them - they're totally of their time and there is a huge amount of misogyny and racism in several, but the stories are fast-paced and exciting. Anyway, in Goldfinger Bond goes to Miami and eats stone crabs (and pink champagne) at 'Bill's on the Beach' and thinks it's one of the best meals of his life. Bill's was apparently inspired by Joe's and I like crab anyway, so the thought of stone crabs appealed. And they were good; crab claws packed with meat followed by a slice of key lime pie. A quintessential Florida meal to finish off my day, walked off along the marina before I caught the bus back to downtown and a taxi to the airport. And that was my trip, done.

Miami Beach

Thursday, December 1, 2016

Peru round-up

It's almost a month since I got back to the UK and I somehow haven't got around to finishing the last couple of posts I planned for this blog.

First up, a Peru round-up!

Why go to Peru?

Go to Peru if you want fascinating history, awe-inspiring ruined cities, stunning landscape and interesting food.

My top three Peruvian experiences:

  •  The Salkantay Trek and Machu Picchu - I can't really split up the trek from Machu Picchu, as, to echo our tour company's slogan, the journey was as important as the final destination. The group was so great and the whole experience truly memorable, culminating in that 6am view of the early light over Machu Picchu. 
  • My Capachica Peninsula homestay. It was a very chilled out two days, but it was lovely to meet people in their own environment, eat proper local food, and sit for an hour gazing over Lake Titicaca. 
  • Colca Canyon - for a combination of reasons why I'm picking the Salkantay and Capachica Pensinsula! Colca combined the scenery and sense of achievement of the former with some of the isolation of the latter. 
You know you're in Peru when ...
  •  A lady is standing on the street dressed in traditional costume either clutching a lamb or towing an alpaca and asking for you to take her photo (I never actually did).
  • You're standing at a crossing waiting to get to the other side of the road and three taxis drive past beeping at you, just in case you might actually be wanting a taxi instead of simply crossing the road.
  • There's a random parade going on to celebrate a religious festival, the fact it's Sunday, or the local university!


What to pack when going to Peru

Layers. Lots of layers. And suncream. On the coast it's hot and dusty but at altitude it can be chilly. Except when the sun's out, when it's hot again and you're liable to burn in no time at all.

Annoyances and things to look out for

As a solo female traveller I felt safe in Peru at all times, although a few people seemed astonished I was on my own (given that I met a few other women in a similar position this was odd, but there you go). Single rooms were reasonably-priced and I was well-looked after eating alone too.

It wasn't all perfect though! A few things:

Peruvian traffic is truly awful. The big comfortable tourist buses are a good, cheap way of getting around but your driver will take bends on mountain roads fast and wide. Best to buckle up and trust they know what they're doing. Taxis in towns are cheap and seem fairly reliable, save for the driver I got in Arequipa who drove in circles and almost failed to find my hostel.

There was a S./ 400 limit on ATM withdrawals at most ATMs for much of my stay, which was a pain. When I needed to withdraw a large amount of US dollars to pay for the Salkantay trek I had to go to a bank and get it over the counter. I stuck to bank ATMs as in Brazil, although I'm not sure if the skimming issue is the same in Peru as Brazil. 

Prices of things are definitely elevated in tourist towns - food, drink and entry to attractions. Foreigners are charged substantially more to visit attractions than locals (which I get, but I wish the same applied in the UK!)

What I've missed most about Peru

The vibrancy and colour of the place, especially the bright clothes worn by the locals away from the bigger towns; and the fantastic fresh fruit.

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Paracas and the Islas Ballestas

When I was planning my trip I spent some time trying to work out a way to get to the Galapagos Islands. But realistically, on top of six weeks already, I felt I couldn't justify the extra money. The Galapagos are expensive!

But there was a small consolation. South of Lima, off Peru's southern coast, are a little group of islands known as the Islas Ballestas. Some people call them 'Peru's Galapagos', which I think is probably a little too favourable. In any case, they were my opportunity to go and see some wildlife in a cheap and efficient sort of way.

Pelican diving
The gateway to the Ballestas is the little town of Paracas. I'd been in the city of Arequipa for five nights, enjoying culture and good food and from what I'd read there wasn't much of either in Paracas. Which ended up being true, but that didn't mean that I didn't find myself rather liking the place. My hostel was small and welcoming and although it was overcast when I arrived, it was warm and the seafront was minutes away. I went for a walk past a string of interesting, attractive houses - mostly holiday homes I think, as they were mostly closed up - and got very excited when I spotted a pair of enormous pelicans flying and diving for their food. And then there were more, and lots of little wading birds, and seagulls, and crabs on the beach. It was instantly apparent that Paracas is good for wildlife.

The following morning I joined every other visitor in heading to the pier for 8am, when the main fleet of tourist boats heads off to the islands. The different companies were indistinguishable; all run large speedboats accommodating about 40 people with tours running for about 90 minutes to two hours.

Candelabra
The first 'stop' was at the Candelabra, which is a shape carved into the sandy side of the Paracas peninsula. Nobody knows who made it or how old it is but it bears a resemblance to the nearby Nazca Lines, which I didn't go and see. Various theories suggest it was made by the same civilisation which made the Nazca lines, and that it's a cactus rather than a candelabra; others think it was made by the Spanish conquistadors and is a candelabra acting as a sort of fairly useless lighthouse ("here's a big cliff, avoid it!")

Then we went on to the islands themselves. Every eight years the Ballestas islands produce vast quantities of guano, mainly from cormorants which at this time of year nest in their thousands. They're also home to other seabirds, more pelicans, quite a lot of sea lions, and some Humboldt penguins. Naturally the penguins we saw, hopping unsteadily down to the cliff edge to go hunting, were the best because they're just so cute. But there were a lot of birds and it was a good little trip around the islands.

The black patch is all cormorants
Back at the hostel I rented a mountain bike from them and headed to the Paracas national reserve. The peninsula south of the town is all protected and you can get bus tours around it, drive, rent a sandbuggy or cycle. The latter option is pretty tough going. The roads are variable - some really nice ones and some very sandy and bumpy - and the terrain up and down. There was also a stonking headwind for a lot of the ride. At one point I came around a bend and instantly lost 10kph on my speedometer (I was recording on my watch). The end point of the ride was a beach where I sat in a moderately sheltered spot and watched people's beach umbrellas get blown away!

The landscape though was incredible. It was like cycling on the moon, or on Mars. There were hills and dunes all around, some tinted red, and nothing else to see until you hit the coast. There, the golden-red of the sand contrasted vividly with the bright blue of the sky and the deeper blue of the sea. It was really one of the most unusual places I've ever been, and more than worth adding to anyone's Peru itinerary.

Not the Moon

Thursday, November 3, 2016

Peruvian cuisine

After getting a bit bored of Brazil's meat-rice-beans-chips combo of food I was looking forward to Peru, said to be a culinary destination in South America. By and large it didn't disappoint, although I wasn't expecting some of the best food I had to be in a series of tents on the Salkantay trek!

Basics

Traditional Peruvian food is vegetarian and simple and revolves around a few staples: corn, potatoes, quinoa and rice. Corn and potatoes are grown in staggering numbers of varieties and the individual corn nibs are gigantic compared to the sweetcorn you get in the UK.

Potatoes are generally served boiled. In Arequipa I went to a restaurant called Hatunpa where they give you a plate of sliced, boiled potatoes (I had the 'special' with seven sorts) topped with your choice of various toppings including tuna, beef and chicken. 

Quinoa has shot up in price since the West discovered it as a superfood, and even more super-foody versions which are finer but a little less common are supplanting quinoa in Peru. Nevertheless you find it in soups and as an accompaniment to other things pretty often. They also make pretty good energy bars from quinoa and its relatives kiwicha and kaniwa, which are handily light and quite tasty.

Rice is also common as a side dish and as the base for chaufa, which is a sort of fried rice that has developed from the large-scale Chinese immigrants of the late 19th century. Like Brazil it's not uncommon to get rice plus another starch, mainly potatoes. An Aussie couple I met in Cabanaconde said they'd been given quinoa and rice and nothing else as dinner in Colca Canyon. Yum.

Luckily Peruvians love a bit of spice and often serve a sort of salsa called pico de gallo with meals – a bit of chili, tomatoes, peppers and onions and herbs, usually coriander, all chopped up and adding just a little kick to your soup or whatever you're eating.

Fish and seafood

One of Peru's best-known foodie highlights is ceviche, which is a simple, effective dish of raw fish (or seafood, or indeed vegetables and even (cooked) meat) marinaded in lime juice, fish sauce and chillies. I had ceviche in a cevicheria in Barranco, Lima, which was pretty good if spicy and overloaded with raw onion, but it wasn't until we made our own on an excellent 'culinary experience' afternoon in Cusco that I appreciated how to properly make it. You need the freshest fish, which you mix with lime juice and finely-chopped chillies, salt and pepper and a little fish sauce. You let it marinate for only a few minutes, add a little milk if you wish to take the edge off the spice, and serve with a little boiled potato or sweet potato and the amazing toasted corn nibs which are found everywhere in Peru. The idea is to mix the textures up.

You can also find grilled and fried fish everywhere in Peru. Around Lake Titicaca trout is common; they introduced it to the lake and it's now dominating. Tasty though. We had some amazing trout for lunch on our first day on the Salkantay, poached with a vegetable sauce. 

Chupe de camarones at 'Chicha' in Arequipa
In Arequipa they make a chowder from river prawns called chupe de camarones. The prawns are more like crayfish really and it has a bit of chili in it, potatoes, corn, and other vegetables. It's pretty good.

Meat

The best-known meat dish is lomo saltado, which isn't actually as exotic as it sounds. It's basically beef stir-fry with peppers, onions, coriander and yes, a bit of chili, served with chaufa. You can also have lomo saltado with alpaca meat. Alpaca is found everywhere in Peru although I don't think the locals eat much of it – it can be chewy but I had some really nice alpaca on my travels. It ought to taste like lamb or mutton given the similarities between alpacas and sheep, but is more beefy than that. 

Lomo saltado crafted by my own fair hands
I couldn't bring myself to try guinea pig, although it's reasonably common in touristy restaurants. When I went to the food fair in Arequipa there were stalls grilling loads of the poor beasts and serving them up on trays with all four paws sticking out. It's the paws that did it for me. I also never got around to trying anticucho, which are beef hearts on skewers. I had chicken hearts in Rio and I wasn't a massive fan – I know offal is good for you, but it just doesn't really appeal.

Guinea pigs grilling
One thing Peru does do well though is meaty sandwiches. Actual sandwiches, in bread rolls and sometimes with a bit of salad. (If there's one thing I've missed from the UK it's being able to get a good sandwich for my lunch.) The classic sandwich is chicharron, roast pork with crispy skin and plenty of fat. I had a really good chicharron sandwich for just S/. 5 (£1.18) in the market in Arequipa, with plenty of pork and some salady stuff, spicy sauce and mayonnaise. Impossible to eat neatly but incredibly tasty.

Fruit and veg

Peru is good for fruit. Like Brazil there are juice bars everywhere and especially in the markets, where ladies lean over elaborate displays of fruit and cajole you to buy one of their glasses of mixed juice.

In the markets there's lots of choice. At the culinary experience in Cusco we tasted seven sorts of Peruvian fruit including the best mango I've ever had, completely string-less and melting in the mouth. I tried a few other mangos but never found another quite like it. Passionfruit is common and I got fond of granadillas, which come as hard-shelled orange fruit that you can peel open, sinking your nails into the thick skin, to reveal the greyish interior of pips like any other passionfruit. It's sweet and juicy and very good, plus convenient to carry in a bag because it's not easily squished.

Vegetables are less exciting. Apart from the ubiquitous corn and potatoes, tomatoes and peppers feature in sauces, but getting vegetables with your main course isn't that common. I'm sure some of the vegetables I was served as main courses in homestays and in the Colca Canyon were tinned or frozen – diced beans and carrots!

Drink

The main drinks in Peru are tea, pisco, beer, chicha, and the fluorescent yellow soda called Inka Kola which I didn't try.

They serve a lot of coca tea to tourists in Cusco and in the other towns at high altitude. Coca tea is made by steeping the leaves of the coca plant (from which cocaine can be and is extracted) in hot water. It's quite a nice taste, unusual but it grew on me, although I didn't need the tea much to help with altitude sickness because I didn't suffer from it much.

Capachica tea
On the Capachica peninsula my homestay host gave me tea which is also made from steeping a local plant in water. This time it was some sort of thyme, slightly minty, and really lovely. I drank quite a lot of that.

Pisco is a spirit akin to grappa made from grapes, grown on the coast south of Lima where the climate produces very sweet wine (I did have some Peruvian wine, it was fine but not exceptional). Pisco is very clear and strong and can be drunk straight or in cocktails, notably the pisco sour which is ubiquitous throughout the country: pisco, ice, lime juice and an egg white, shaken until the egg white is frothy and seasoned with a couple of drops of bitters. I like them; I had a passionfruit version a couple of times which was arguably even better and pisco also lends itself well to other cocktails like the Chilcano which features ginger beer. 

Beer is mainly lager – Cusquena is the brand you find everywhere, drinkable enough. Sadly the Brazilian habit of providing a cooler for your large bottle hasn't yet caught on. There are some good craft beers around, with an emphasis on IPA and pale and amber ale and I enjoyed some decent brews especially in Cusco and Arequipa.

Chicha was the Inca alcohol, beer made of corn. I saw people drinking this cloudy brew but didn't try any. For a more refreshing option chicha morada is a sort of non-alcoholic juice made from purple corn. It's a bit like grape juice, and is better cold. We had it on the Salkantay but it wasn't chilled (fair enough, we didn't expect them to carry ice!) and wasn't quite as nice.

Inka Kola isn't cola at all. I have no idea what it's made of, although I think coca is a component. It's such an artificial colour it didn't appeal.

One of my biggest Peruvian culinary disappointments was that I still drank mostly instant coffee, although finding cafés serving coffee made in a machine was a bit easier than Brazil. Staying in cheap hostels means that instant is the option in the morning. It gave me the caffeine hit, but I am looking forward to decent coffee again. I bought a bag of beans from the coffee farm we visited on the Salkantay, where we had the best coffee on the whole trip, and am going to invest in a grinder when I get home.

Friday, October 28, 2016

Trekking in Colca Canyon

Did you know Peru is home to the world's two deepest canyons? The Cotahuasi and Colca Canyons are situated west of Puno and Lake Titicaca and south of Cusco, cutting into the dusty volcanic landscape and providing a great off-the-beaten track experience for intrepid travellers.

I wasn't quite intrepid enough to go to Cotahuasi, which is harder to reach and needs time I didn't quite have, but I did get to Colca. Originally I was going to do an organised tour from the fairly-nearby city of Arequipa, but a few enquiries demonstrated it was going to be tough and expensive as a solo traveller to find the right sort of tour for me, so I ended up going independently.

In the village of Cabanaconde, where the canyon is at its deepest, there's a hostel called Pachamama Home which many independent travellers seem to end up at. They give helpful trekking advice – its website was a good starting point although they encourage you not to trek solo. Nevertheless I booked a couple of nights there in the expectation of either finding trekking companions or the confidence to just go it alone. I figured it'd be easier once I'd spoken to other people and seen the landscape for myself.

I did the journey from Puno on a slightly expensive ($50) tourist bus which had a grand total of seven passengers, and that included a pair of American ladies suffering from altitude sickness who switched to a taxi at the turn-off for the canyon to come to Arequipa, which is lower down. Luckily one of the two other couples on the bus were also going to Cabanaconde, as when we arrived at the bus's terminus in Chivay, some 50km away, the 1pm public bus did not seem to exist. So I shared a cab instead with the Dutch couple who were travelling for a few months after working in New York.

In Cabanaconde it quickly became apparent that trekking the canyon solo, if you're at least moderately sensible and have some trekking experience, is perfectly safe and doable. The tracks are clear and signposted and there are lots of places to stay. The landscape is beautiful in a harsh, unforgiving sort of way and life looks pretty tough out there; especially at this time of year it is dry and dusty and, at between 2,000m and 3,300m above sea level, vegetation remains scarce and heavy on cacti. 


I had one day before heading into the canyon, so like the rest of the hostel, got up early, caught a bus and went to the viewpoint at the Cruz del Condor. This is a crag where a family of Andean condors live and every morning, more or less, some of them come out to glide among the mountains. On the morning I went there were three out; apparently there were 13 the following day (typical) but none the day after that. Condors are incredible birds, enormous and graceful, and they swooped above our heads for quite some time. It was just a shame that the viewpoint has become the stopping point on most tours' itineraries – there were lots and lots of people there. I wanted to confiscate the cameras or phones belonging to the people using flashes.

Back in Cabanaconde it was a beautiful day so I went for a mid-sized day hike up to some pre-Incan ruins and back to stretch my legs before heading into the canyon. Over dinner I had a nice chat with two fellow solo female travellers – one girl my age, who has left her job and bought a tent and is seeing South America through various treks, and a retired American lady who sold everything and is travelling for as long as she can afford on the hunt for something intangible she hasn't yet found. We agreed travelling was good and really anyone can do it. You just need to make the decision and go!


The following morning it was down into the canyon. My destination, Llahuar, was some 1,200m lower than Cabanaconde and the day's walk was mainly downhill. For the first hour it was quite nice downhill but then I had to get out the walking poles as it got steeper and steeper and more technical, with a lot of loose rocks and stones underfoot. Eventually the path zigzagged pretty much straight downhill at gradients of up to -46 per cent and I was extremely glad when I finally reached the river at the bottom of the canyon and had a bit of uphill instead. By the time I reached Llahuar my right knee, the leg I broke badly some 14 years ago, was really pretty sore.

Luckily Llahuar has some hot springs so I went and soaked for an hour and had a good chat with an American couple who'd also come from Cabanaconde that morning – leaving a little later than me. Then I collapsed in the rustic, basic but comfortable bamboo hut that was home for the night until the simple supper. It was a clear night and for the first time I could really see the stars, something we'd missed on the Salkantay trek.

Sangalle
Day two in the canyon was up and then down again to the 'oasis' of Sangalle. The up was made shorter but tougher by a nice old man in one of the little villages who pointed me off the gravel road and on to a short cut – it was shorter, but it was also steeper, and I cursed him for a while before realising how much distance the short cut had slashed! Four hours later, in Sangalle, I stumbled with my knee very sore into the first of the three lodges I came across, negotiated a bed for the night, and had a very similar afternoon to the previous day's – except in Sangalle there are no hot springs, but swimming pools filled with water from the rivers.

A tour group was staying in the same place and they started the next morning much earlier than I'd planned to. But their getting up woke me up and after failing to get back to sleep I just got up and went for the last leg; 4km straight uphill back to Cabanaconde. Ultimately this was the right decision as it meant the path was in shade and the morning light on the canyon walls was stunning. I made good time, catching up the slower end of the tour group and making it back to Pachamama in time for breakfast before the bus onwards to Arequipa.



Tips and tricks
  • You can walk the canyon alone but make sure you have some sort of map (hostels like Pachamama provide basic ones), plenty of water and food. The food provided in the lodges is basic, vegetarian and the portions are not massive, so high-calorie stuff is sensible to carry. The terrain is tricky and you're still at fairly high altitude, so take your time, wear decent boots, and walking poles definitely recommended.
  • I got a tourist bus with 4M Express from Puno to Chivay for $50 and then a taxi onwards to Cabanaconde for S/. 100 (split between three) – we negotiated down from S/. 120. The Puno-Chivay buses run once a day in each direction, leaving Puno early in the morning and Chivay at about 1pm.
  • I went on to Arequipa from Cabanaconde on one of the regular public buses for just S/. 17. Timetables change, check Pachamama's website for details. It took a while – two hours to Chivay, a quick change of vehicle, and then another four hours to Arequipa. There are no facilities. But it's cheap!
  • There's a 7am public bus from Cabanaconde to Chivay-Arequipa which will drop you at the Cruz del Condor for S/. 2. It was packed with tourists and locals, but many of the locals got off before the Cruz del Condor. Going back to Cabanaconde there's a bus which arrives between 9am and 9.20am for the same price.

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Lake Titicaca


There's an undeniable romanticism about the thought of the world's highest navigable lake, and Lake Titicaca is remarkable. It's huge. From Puno, the main town on the Peruvian shores, it looks big but not that big as two peninsulae hide the sheer size. But once you get past those peninsulae the lake opens up and shows its scale.

At over 3,800m coming from Cusco seemed sensible as I was already acclimatised to the altitude, but I wasn't prepared for the chill. My hostel room on the first night was distinctly cold and I was grateful for the thick blankets layered on the bed. However a welcome contrast to Cusco was the prices of accommodation and food.

There are hordes of tour operators in Puno, mostly offering the same sort of trip out on the lake. Lake Titicaca has several island communities, with three in particular the target of most tours – Uros, Amantani and Taquile. The standard two-day trip takes you to each of those three places and you have a homestay on the night in the local community.

A homestay sounded attractive but I wasn't sure about joining the crowds all doing the same thing, especially after Machu Picchu. Further investigation and close reading of my Lonely Planet suggested that a similar homestay experience with fewer people could be found on the Capachica Peninsula, within sight of both Amantani and Taquile. The problem was getting there, until I emailed a tour operator and was offered a transfer to the peninsula via the Uros islands for a relatively low price, with a homestay booked in the village of Llachon, and I'd have to find my own way back to Puno at the end of it.

I was glad I'd chosen the option. I was picked up in the morning as part of a group overnighting on Amantani and we stopped at Uros first. The Uros islands are remarkable; a group of 80 or 90 'islands' made of reeds. The people collect huge lumps of earth from the reed beds as the foundations, anchor them in the lake, and then literally pile reeds on top of the foundations to a depth of a couple of metres. And then they put houses made of reeds on top, and live there. The reed bed is squishy and soft to walk on and many people go barefoot. Every three months you have to top up your reeds and every 25 years the island is replaced, with the old island towed to the rest of the reed beds and abandoned. Four or five families live on each little island and there's over 2,000 people in the community.

Unfortunately as floating reed islands are so unusual, and Uros is really close to Puno, they're a major tourist draw. And tourist money is paying for improvements in their lifestyle – most families have a solar panel to generate enough electricity for lighting and tiny televisions in each hut – but it means that if you visit you will probably find yourself on a tourist conveyor belt.

We stopped at a little island and our tour guide, Elvis (yes really) talked us through how the islands work, complete with a demonstration in miniature from the island's 'president', the current leader of the five families who lived on the island we stopped on. Then we had a mini-tour of the little house in which the president's daughter, 25-year-old Mariella, lived – a single room with a bed, a table with a TV, and hooks on the walls for her clothes. We saw the resident flamingo and the place where they cooked. Naturally we also were invited to look at the textiles and mini reed boats they were selling, and I did buy a cushion cover as I bought one in Uzbekistan and I thought I'd continue the tradition.

Then Mariella and her mum sang us a song in Aymara, the local language; a song in Spanish; and incongruously and oddly 'My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean' in English. After that we were invited to take a ride in a boat made of reeds across the channel (an extra S/. 10, which everyone ended up doing), to visit the 'main' island which has a little shop on it. There were three or four groups of tourists here too.

So it was good to be dropped off, some two hours later, on the peninsula. “This is Calixto, he's your papa,” said Elvis, and the boat headed off.

Me and Calixto - he dressed me up in local costume
My host, Calixto, is I'd estimate in his early fifties but it's hard to tell, compared to us soft-living Westerners. He wore the local outfit of dark trousers, cream shirt and a dark waistcoat with embroidery. A trio of ladies were also on the dock, waiting for a group arriving on the next boat, all in their colourful skirts and tops and hats with four big pom-poms on them and carrying spindles. It would be easy to think that the inhabitants of Llachon wear the local dress for the benefit of tourists, but as I wandered around I saw enough people just going about their daily business in the same sort of outfits that I think it's actually still normal everyday dress.

Calixto took me up to a little complex of rooms complete with a communal kitchen and dining area which I think must form the basis of the community homestay programme, which seems to be run for the community and by the community. My room was a spacious, basic hut with a double bed and a bathroom that even had a shower – no decoration or fanciness, but comfortable enough and with a spectacular view of the lake. After the group from the next boat had arrived and been sorted into their rooms I was served lunch, a basic but tasty meal of barley soup followed by a plate of grilled cheese, a bit like halloumi, some veg, and a selection of different potatoes. All this was washed down by a sort of tea made by steeping the local thyme (a little minty) in hot water – delicious. Calixto ate with me and we managed a bit of conversation despite my lack of Spanish and his lack of English. He has three sons, one living in Llachon, and his wife is currently in hospital having had an operation. Two different ladies helped him out by giving me lunch and dinner on the second day so I think the community is supporting him while Senora Calixto is absent.

Llachon church
Llachon has two high points, both with pre-Inca archaeological sites on them. I walked up to the nearer one on the first afternoon and the higher, slightly further one on the next morning. On the second afternoon I just walked along the road until it ran out. And I sat and read overlooking the lake. There is very little vehicle traffic on the peninsula so it's very quiet, the silence broken only by the wind and the livestock all the people keep. Everyone seems to have a little flock of sheep, a couple of cows, a donkey, and perhaps a pig or some chickens. Most of the pigs seemed to have piglets and there were a lot of lambs around. As I walked I saw people tilling their fields by hand, trying to get something out of what looks like very dry soil. There were a lot of boats fishing too and several fish farms just off the shore. It's a very basic, simple, tough life by the looks of things. Llachon has two schools next to each other (I'm guessing primary and at least early secondary), and the people I saw were predominantly older, or school-age. Apart from the girl who sorted my dinner on the second night, and Calixto's son, I saw very few young adults.

It was easy getting back to Puno via minibus and when I arrived it was the start of a big parade which was celebrating the local university. This thing went on for hours; each faculty had an accompanying band and were wearing different varieties of local dress. In the evening they were out again in sequinned costumes, a little the worse for wear, but still smiling despite the afternoon rain which had fallen.


The homestay was definitely the right thing to do, especially after speaking to others who'd gone to one of the islands for the night and said it was pretty busy. Highly recommended ...

Tips and tricks
  • I arranged my homestay via All Ways Travel in Puno but the community association does have an email address - llachonkantuta@hotmail.com
  • Getting to and from Puno to the Capachica peninsula is easy. Check with a hostel or hotel where they leave from - I think it's Avenida Floral near Avenida El Sol, as that's where mine stopped on the way back, but it could be elsewhere. Jump in a minibus with the driver yelling "Capachica" or even better, "Llachon". You might need to change at Capachica in the market for Llachon. The total journey time is around two and a half hours. I paid S/. 2 from Llachon to Capachica and S/. 5 from Capachica to Puno. In Llachon, the buses stop just near the main plaza.

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Cusco and the Sacred Valley

I spent a total of seven nights in Cusco, the Inca's ancient capital, before and after the Salkantay trek. It's a touristy city – after Paraty, the most touristy place I've been while travelling – but I rather liked it. The historic centre is pretty and there is lots to see. On the downside, every restaurant hands you a menu in English, every shop is selling the same Peruvian handicrafts and alpaca scarves, and people stand on the street proffering laminated cards and calling out “massage, lady, massage?”

Cusco's Plaza das Armas
I'd planned the lengthy stay to acclimatise properly to the altitude before my trek, having previously suffered a random asthma attack while climbing Mount Taranaki in New Zealand at less than 2,500m above sea level. Cusco is at 3,326m and the Salkantay took us up to 4,600m, so it was a sensible precaution. In the event I barely had any problems – a bit of a headache on arrival which faded by the time I woke from my first night's sleep and rarely came back with any force. In retrospect the random asthma attack was undoubtedly the effect of sleeping at sea level before the climb.

In any case having several days in Cusco meant I was able to get around and see all its sights. I began with the cathedral, which is actually three churches in one and is pretty impressive. The Cuscan style of religious decoration is heavy on the bling, with plenty of gilding, mirrors and images of Jesus, Mary and the saints dressed in costumes decorated in plenty of gold, silver and sequins. The cathedral's excellent audioguide told me that the mirrors, like other imagery used in the churches in Peru, is a hangover from Incan culture. As a culture which venerated the sun, the reflection from mirrors as well as silver and gold reminded them of it and the use of mirrors was a way of linking the old religion with the new.

In the course of the next couple of days I visited most of Cusco's churches until I got a bit church-ed out. One of them stands out though; the convent of Santo Domingo stands on the sight of the Incan temple of the Sun, Qorikancha. The Spanish managed to build around the Incan temple, which was made of massive blocks of dark granite, and even used some of the old temple rooms as rooms in the monastery. Nowadays the Incan bits are protected from the elements and you can see how the old world became the new in one building.

Having plenty of time also meant I was able to get out of Cusco and see some of the Incan sites near the city, as a kind of Machu Picchu warm-up. The Spanish did an excellent job of destroying most of the Incan stuff they found, which is why Machu Picchu stands out, but there's still things worth seeing.

Pisac ruins
On the Sunday I got in a colectivo – a sort of minibus-taxi – and went to Pisac, where there is a market and also an enormous Incan site with the remains of temples, houses and terraces galore, built along the ridge of a mountain above the modern village. Walking up from Pisac meant that only a small part of the site was busy with tourists and I thoroughly enjoyed exploring, although the steps were pretty tough going both up and down.

Cusco's Mercado San Pedro
The market was mostly handicrafts, with a small local produce market. The sellers were all female, all dressed in local dress of big knee-length skirt, blouse and cardigan and a bowler hat, and the produce varied from local fruit to potatoes and corn. It was interesting but I expected bigger and indeed the Mercado de San Pedro in Cusco, although I went the following Sunday when a lot of the stalls were closed, was a better market and less geared for tourists.

Closer to Cusco than Pisac are another set of Incan ruins. A bus dropped me off at the furthest from the city, Tambomachay, and I walked back down to Cusco along the road via the other three.

Tambomachay is a small site notable for a working set of ceremonial water fountains, although given it was throwing it down with rain when I went the effect was probably minimised. Across the road, Pukapukara is known as the Red Fort for its reddish stone, but again in the rain it wasn't that impressive sadly! I considered giving up on the walk and jumping in the first bus to come along as it was raining pretty heavily, but stuck to my guns and kept on going. I must have looked like a drowned rat and heaven only knows what all the cars and buses passing me must have thought as I trudged down the road. All was fine, despite the rain, until I sidestepped to get closer to the edge and away from a potential splashing by a bus and fell, splat, in the gutter. Luckily, as the Salkantay began the next day, nothing was injured but my pride.

However the third site, Q'enqo, made up for the discomfort with its rather cool altar inside a cave, and by the time I reached the fourth and largest site, Sacsaywaman (or Saqsayhuaman; it sounds like 'sexy woman'!) it had actually stopped raining and the sun was coming out. This made for a beautiful steaming effect as the sun's instant heat began drying the grass and stones and it was rather pleasant for a bit. I even dried off as I explored the site, although it did rain again about half an hour later.

Sacsaywaman
Sacsaywaman was the site of a big battle in 1536 and much of it was destroyed by the Spanish, but what remains is really impressive – particularly the zigzag fortifications which were apparently designed to be the teeth of a puma, with Cusco the body and Sacsaywaman the head. Close by there's a statue of Christ overlooking the city, which is large by statue standards but tiny compared to Cristo in Rio. It's a good place to look down on the city and its many churches and marvel at the mixture of cultures which produced this bustling city so high up.

Monday, October 17, 2016

Salkantay Trek and Machu Picchu

There must be thousands of travellers who have Machu Picchu on their list of Things To See, and it has certainly been on mine for a while. Indeed Machu Picchu was the first thing I planned properly when I knew I was going to be able to go travelling in South America, so expectations were high for the trip.

I spent a lot of time researching the different options available. The Inca Trail is the best-known trek to the site and has the advantage of allowing you to walk right up there. But it's also extremely busy, and when I go walking I like to be able to get away from crowds. After looking at all the common treks, I eventually chose a five-day, four-night walk known as the Salkantay Trek run by local operator Alpaca Expeditions. This walk takes you up over a high, 4,600m pass close to the Salkantay mountain before going down into cloud forest. You sleep the last night in Aguas Calientes, the town close to Machu Picchu, and spend the last day there. It sounded great and after almost five days of acclimatisation in Cusco I was ready to go.

Day one

Day one started early. I was picked up from my hotel at 4.30am and our team of seven other trekkers, our guide Wilson and our wonderful porters and chefs, headed out on a bumpy road towards the mountains.

I hadn't been sure who else would be on the trek. By the end we all agreed that we had been extremely lucky with our fellow trekkers, who were a cosmopolitan group of Americans, Australians living in America, and another Brit who currently lives in Colombia. We were all pretty like-minded, keen to get out there away from the crowds and embrace whatever the trek threw at us.

Meanwhile Wilson was an extremely experienced guide, originally from Cusco although he's also spent a fair amount of time guiding in the Amazon. He spoke good English as well as his native Quechua and Spanish and was brilliant at spotting stuff for us to look at - birds, plants, historic sites - and generally keeping morale up when the going got tough.

First day's lunch
The first day's walk, after a breakfast of bread, fruit, and incredibly scrambled eggs, took us up from a starting altitude of 3,900m to 4,620m as we crossed the Salkantay pass, and then down to 3,800m where we camped. As we started walking there were some clouds but it looked like clearing a bit - but as we climbed up it got cloudier and cloudier and it was raining when we got to our lunch spot. Here the porters had already set up a tent to cook in and a tent to eat in, and we were treated to soup followed by some delicious trout, rice, vegetables and so on. At 4,400m. That quality of food was to continue over the next four days; we had beef stir fry, chicken, tortillas, chips, and twice freshly-popped popcorn as a completely unnecessary pre-dinner snack!

The rain eased off as we finished lunch and prepared for the last climb up to the pass, but the weather didn't clear and the first four of us to reach the top shivered in sleeting snow for a little while until the others arrived. We couldn't see a thing, but we'd made it! At this point Wilson challenged us, taking us off the path and into the rock field closer to the mountain. It was difficult walking over uneven rocks, my hands were cold despite my new baby alpaca gloves, and we couldn't see the glacier properly. We could only hear it, as the rain caused avalanches thundering down in the distance.

Wilson stopped us, and asked us to find smaller rocks and make a heart shape on a flat rock. He then got us all to find another small rock, and handed out three coca leaves each, pouring a few drops of a sort of floral alcohol on our leaves. Then, and this sounds really corny but actually was very moving, he asked Pachamama - Mother Earth - for blessing and guidance. And the clouds started to clear. Within about half an hour we could see something and the sun had come out. We spent a good two hours from arrival on the pass to leaving it, watching the clouds clear over the mountain. It was quite magical.


As we began the descent the clouds rolled in again, and Wilson hurried us up as it got foggier and foggier. We reached the camp just as it was getting dark and visibility dropped. The team had already set up our tents, each under a shelter for added warmth, and dinner was almost ready. We fell exhausted into bed before 8pm!

Day two

We woke to clear skies and the view we'd missed the night before, of mountains all around the campsite, and had breakfast outdoors. There were even pancakes. Before we set off walking Wilson introduced us properly to the porters - chef Cassilios, sous-chef Pancho, and porters Gregorio and Washington (who is Cassilios' son!) We also met the two local guys who were steering our team of horses - or mules - up the mountain with our gear, David and Arnold. It was nice to find out more about the team, who throughout were unfailingly cheerful and energetic and made us feel quite inadequates as they hurried past us with all our things.

Going down ...
And then began what turned into the toughest day of walking. It was beautiful countryside as we descended from mountain to cloud forest, with flowers and birds and butterflies all around and lots to look at. Wilson pointed out various things to look for and it was a good walk down to lunch, but our feet and legs were already aching by the time we'd demolished a feast of lomo saltado (the local beef stir fry) and corn fritters, plus lots of rice and veggies.

Hummingbird
After lunch we descended almost to the glacial river running through the valley we were to pass along, and then climbed up again to the trail. It went up and down, but mostly down, for the rest of the afternoon, and due to erosion was much longer than advertised. We stopped a couple of times in campsites which were buzzing with insects, although they also grew fruit and some of the group bought fresh passionfruit to eat. We were very grateful to finally reach the trail end and a rough road, where Wilson had organised a truck to pick us up for the final few kilometres to the campsite.

At our request he'd also organised a side-trip, 45 minutes in a minibus with the cheesiest soundtrack ever to take us to some nearby hot springs. The springs were a complex of clear pools, outside surrounded by mountains, where we lay and eased our legs for a while before heading back for dinner tired but less achy. That night we slept to the sound of the river rushing by next to us, and woke to more blue skies.

Day three

Freshly-roasted beans
Day three was a shorter day, but involved another tough climb from 2,100m to 2,700m along the 'other' Inca trail, which once ran from the Amazon to Machu Picchu. These days you can't walk much of it, although they're trying to clear more. The path runs uphill past banana groves and coffee farms and we stopped at one of the family-run farms to learn about how you make coffee. In fact we had a go ourselves, first harvesting some beans, then using the machine to take the skins off, then roasting some beans which had already been dried, and finally grinding them. Locally they use the grounds to make a sort of coffee essence which is then mixed with water to produce a smooth, dark brew. We all bought bags of beans or coffee to take home, and such was the organisation that a porter was on hand to rush them back to the road so they could be transported in a van instead of anyone having to carry them.

The path then wound its way uphill, and although the gradient was occasionally tough it was lovely walking with shady patches, great views and lots to look at. After a last steep climb we reached the top of the pass, where the vegetation changed abruptly to a mossy forest and the path descended again to the Incan site of Llactapata. Here a small temple faces the east and you can see the 'back' or western side of Machu Picchu clearly. We spent a while looking at it through binoculars and taking pictures before the last 10 minute descent to our campsite, almost directly below Llactapata with similar views and a really amazingly cute puppy.


The afternoon was ours so we lazed around, looking at the view through the tent mesh and listening to the mules chomping at the grass. Before dinner, and over the obligatory pre-dinner snack we totally didn't need, Wilson talked to us about Inca history so we'd be ready for Machu Picchu. We went to sleep hoping for a bright sunrise.

Day four

Sadly no sunrise was forthcoming, and it rained heavily overnight, but we got some atmospheric cloud effects in the morning instead and the team had baked a cake - yes, really - for breakfast as it was the last morning camping. As you do.

Morning view
It rained most of the day, but it wasn't too bad as we dropped down to the valley floor for about two hours and then walked mostly on the flat for the rest of the day. A lot of it was along the railroad which runs from a hydroelectric station to Aguas Calientes - you can't drive to Aguas Calientes, so anyone who's failed to get on a train to Cusco or Ollantaytambo from there has to walk back to Hydroelectric. All of a sudden it seemed as though there were hordes of people, as we'd barely seen anyone on the trail save for a young Czech couple walking independently. The railroad was nice to walk by, with a river on one side, but with three days' walking in our legs already it seemed an interminable way to Aguas Calientes. It was great to finally reach the town and find the fastest walkers already having a beer by the road!

Our hotel had hot hot showers and soft soft beds and I spent the afternoon mainly lounging, having found a channel showing films in English on the television and not really being bothered to do anything else. We had dinner cooked by Cassilios and the team but in a restaurant and they outdid themselves with a veritable feast. We thanked them and said goodbye, as they were all heading back to Cusco that evening.

Day five

Machu Picchu day! Another hideously early start as we joined Wilson in the bus queue shortly after 4.30am. Although you can't drive to Aguas Calientes, there are buses running you up to Machu Picchu - if you don't want to face the 1.5km hike straight up the mountainside to it! The buses start running at 5.30am but you need to be in the queue earlier to have any chance of making it up there by dawn, when the light is simply incredible.


We were inside shortly after 6am, so the early start was worth it. Already there were lots of people but we did manage to get some group and individual shots without too many others in the background. Weirdly I got asked by one guy for a selfie with him because he wanted to take a selfie with someone from the UK.

Wilson then gave us a comprehensive three-hour tour of the site, including a continuation of the history lesson from the other night and tidbits about what we were seeing. He really knew his stuff and we all learned a lot about the Incan culture, the reason why they made more effort with the architecture and finish of some buildings compared to others, how the buildings were constructed, what historians believe the site was used for, and so on. The Incans did an incredible job building on Machu Picchu and the skill of their masons is extraordinary.

Mostly we managed to find spots slightly away from the worst of the crowds but there was one point, going up the small hill with the Incan 'sundial' on top where it was basically a slow queue - which some people seemed to think they could jump. 

Incan bridge
By just before 10am Wilson had exhausted most of his stories and half our group had tickets to climb the vertiginous Huayna Picchu (the mountain in the background of the photo above). I had decided not to as I'm not good with cliff edges; a decision which the others said was sensible! The remaining four of us split up and I spent some time contemplating the view and also visiting the Incan bridge, which is along a lovely little trail that is actually the end of the Incan trail from the Amazon which we'd walked a bit of on day three. Currently it vanishes on the cliff face after the bridge, but Wilson says that they are working to try and join it up.

By noon we'd been there six hours and it was time to head back into town for lunch, and later the train to Ollantaytambo and then a bus back to Cusco. I slept quite a lot of the way but was awake enough later to catch up with most of our group for celebratory pisco cocktails. It was a fabulous, fabulous trip.

Tips for Salkantay and Machu Picchu
  •  I booked my trek way way in advance but some of the others booked much closer to the time. October is off-season and the Salkantay is a trek which is more likely to have space than others. You can't get away with this for the Inca Trail - that must be booked well in advance!
  • I did extensive online research over my tour operator and was really happy with the ultimate choice, Alpaca Expeditions. They weren't cheap but they were very professional and they say they look after their staff. Wilson showed us a picture of a tour he guided of Machu Picchu for the porters' families (in Quechua), and he said the families all get Christmas gifts. Senior porters are in charge of coordinating groups of porters from their areas to ensure a fair allocation of work and adequate time to go home and visit families.
  • You can walk the Salkantay independently but I'm not sure I'd recommend it - there were points where the track was unclear or the direction unclear, especially when the weather got bad. If you go independently find a good map! 
  • For Machu Picchu: a) book your bus tickets in advance (as well as your general entry tickets); b) join the bus queue early; c) take gear for all weather conditions and wear decent shoes; d) have your passport handy because everything's tied to your passport number.