<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html> <head> <link REL="stylesheet" TYPE="text/css" href="mystyle.css"> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=unicode"> <style type="text/css"> body { background-color: #CCFFFF; margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; } </style><title>Lima</title></head> <body> <table width="1024" height="249%" border=1 align="center" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" bgcolor="#000000"> <tr><td width="78%" rowspan="6" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" bgcolor="#9BBB59"> <h1><i><strong>Day 44: 13 November 2007</strong></i></h1> <h2><i><strong>Peru</strong></i></h2> <p class=main> Dear People,</p> <p class=main>Seems like a long time since I last wrote something for you to read. In fact, in that time I have crossed the entire country of Peru and tomorrow I leave the continent of South America! Sorry for not posting more. Somewhere between my manic schedule (since Iquitos I have slept in the same bed for two nights only once) and innate laziness, I didn't find time to write. So here I'm making up for it. My Peruvian story. </p> <p class=main>I left Iquitos eager to see the rest of Peru and having drummed up a rather tight and fast schedule. I spent a mere couple of hours in Lima before taking a six, eight or perhaps ten hour bus trip to Nasca. I don't remember then length of my bus journeys, nor even what days I was where, such was the relentless pace at which I travelled. I slept most of the trip and was woken up by the rather alert bus stewardess who knew I wanted to get off at Nasca, and not further down the line. I stumbled off in the middle of the night onto a dusty street which was desolated apart from a small crowd of touts trying to sell me tours and hotels. I shrugged them off and made for the hotel I identified as the best bet out of my guidebook. I remained conscious just long enough to write down my name and passport number, plug my camera battery in to charge and change my clothes. </p> <p class=main>The next morning I woke at sunrise to see what I could do in terms of a overflight to see the famous Nasca Lines. I managed to secure a spot on a 7.30am tour and after a quick breakfast was picked up by a minibus and taken to a small airstrip just outside town. I was shown to my seat on the tiny four-seat Cessna, which turned out to be right next to the pilot. The 35 minute flight was bumpy and noisy, but I forgot all that when I looked out the window. Etched into the desert below me, like giant line drawings, were the ancient figures that have come to be known as the Nasca Lines. These lines are very impressive and impossibly confounding. Classic images of monkeys and hummingbirds 200 metres in length contrast with immense shapes several kilometres long. How they were made is fairly straightforward: removing the darker surface rocks in carefully measured paces reveals lighter soil below, creating vast geoglyphs which can only be seen properly from the air. Why they were made is more cryptic. Hypotheses range from intergalactic alien landing strips to the more believable attempts by the Nasca culture to communicate with and attract the favour of their gods. Whatever the reason for their creation, they are beautiful to behold and curious to consider. Nasca itself is a sun-bleached desert-battered dusty little town with little character. The only other point of interest was a small museum displaying bits of pottery, textiles and most interestingly, an aqueduct that showed how the Nasca controlled the very little water they receive from the Andes. So later that afternoon, having spent little more than 14 hours in Nasca, I boarded a bus bound for Arequipa. </p> <p class=main>The scenery from the bus was fantastic. To my right the Pacific ocean stretches under the setting sun. To the left arid desert is framed by the distant peaks of the Andes. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for Arequipa. Arequipa is another small dusty town, known best for its volcanic surroundings and thus the striking white volcanic rocks that make up the vast majority of the city. Most people come here as a stopover for Canon del Colca and Canon del Cotahuasi, spectacular canyons that are also the two deepest canyons in the world, but the town itself is devoid of significant interest. I sadly didn't have time for the canyons, so I spent my morning exploring the cathedral, a sprawling monastery and a museum dedicated to an Inca girl that was sacrificed on a nearby mountain. The cathedral, though Catholic, was built with sufficient reserve that peace, prayer and contemplation seems natural inside, unlike most garish Catholic cathedrals that batter the senses with far too much decoration. Other than that, Arequipa is pretty much a dump of a town. I think I spent even less time there than in Nasca, and by late afternoon was on a bus trundling across the Andes to Puno, on the coast of Lake Titicaca. </p> <p class=main>- Puno is yet another boring town. But being over 3700m above sea level, I was breathless from just getting off the bus. It was also very very cold. I started thinking that perhaps mosquitoes would be a small price to pay to avoid shivering continuously (blasphemy!). I arrived in the middle of the night (again) and the next morning took a boat out to the Uros Islands. These islands, though fascinating in concept, have since lost their soul to mass tourism. Once upon a time they were floating islands made entirely from reeds that grew on Lake Titicaca, designed to let it's inhabitants escape the plundering mainlanders. But now they are little more than those floating islands with several old women trying to sell tourists their various handicrafts (which I'm fairly certain they don't even make themselves). After visiting these rather disappointing patches of floating communities, I took an incredibly slow boat to Isla Amantani, about three hours away. Amantani, unlike Uros, is absolutely stunning. I huffed and puffed to clumb the 300m to the top of its highest peak, over 4000m above sea level, but the view was worth it. Lake Titicaca in all its splendour is a joy to behold. Glittering deep blue waters, framed with snow capped mountains, cloudless skies and the clearest air one could want. For me Lake Geneva has nothing to Titicaca. Titicaca is just better. By miles. I stayed overnight with a local family, watching the stars and distant lightning storms until my fingers froze. </p> <p class=main>The next day I took another ridiculously slow boat to Isla Taquile, another pretty and quiet village island set within the lake. Taquile is more frequented by tourists than Amantani, and it shows. Mass produced souvenirs and expensive restaurants pepper the otherwise idyllic landscape. I returned to Puno just long enough to explore a museum about the coca leaf, which was fascinating. The coca leaf, a Class A drug in the UK (life sentence and unlimited fine for supply), is considered nothing more sinister than chocolate in Peru, and is actually considered a gift from the gods, due to the various effects chewing it can deliver. It's kind of strange to look down at a mug of steaming coca tea, sitting innocently in front of me, knowing that that same mug could land me in a whole world of trouble back home, or anywhere else in the world, for that matter. </p> <p class=main>The very next morning, I got on a bus bound for Cusco. Cusco, the ancient capital of the Incas. Cusco the gateway to Machu Picchu. Cusco, the city that every traveller in South America has either been to or is going to. But I've sat here writing for far too long, I'm getting hungry and I think my story of Cusco and Machu Picchu will have to wait until later. Stay tuned. </p> <p class=main><a href="#top" target="_self">Top</a>|<a href="2.html" target="mainFrame"> Page 2</a>|<a href="3.html" target="mainFrame"> Page 3</a>|<a href="4.html" target="mainFrame"> Page 4</a>|<a href="5.html" target="mainFrame"> Page 5</a>&raquo;</p> <p class=main><a href="london.htm" target="mainFrame">London</a></p> <p class=main><a href="rio.html" target="mainFrame">Rio</a></p> <p class=main><a href="manaus.html" target="mainFrame">Manaus</a></p> <p class=main><a href="lima.html" target="mainFrame">Pre Peruvian Adventure Lima</a></p></td> </tr> <td width="22%" bgcolor="#FFCCFF" class=current><p style='font-size="13"' class=start><strong>Current Location:</strong></p> <p style='font-size="13"' class=start>Lima</p> <p style='font-size="13"' class=start><strong>Highlights</strong>:</p> <ul> <li>Absolutely nothing</li> </ul></td> </tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#FFCC99" class=next> <p style='font-size="13"' class=start><strong>Next Stop:</strong></p> <p style='font-size="13"' class=start>Los Angeles</p> <p style='font-size="13"' class=start><strong> Highlights:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Hollywood</li> <li>My fame and fortune as the next BIG SHOWBIZ THING</li> <li>Jack Bauer</li> </ul></td> </tr> <tr> <td height="151" bgcolor="#3399FF"><p style='font-size=&quot;13&quot;' class="start"><strong>Last Update:</strong></p> <p style='font-size=&quot;13&quot;' class="start"><span class="start" style="font-size=&quot;13&quot;">Lima, 13 November 2007</span></p></td> </tr> <tr><td height="425" valign="baseline" nowrap="nowrap" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" bgcolor="#ccFFFF"> </td></tr> </table> &copy;Copyright SkoDo Enterprises 2007 </body> </html>