Onwards to Ecuador

Our hotel room turned out to be the noisiest room in the world. Doorbells; shouting staff; cockerels and the A/C unit were silent whispers compared to the cacophony that started at about 6:00 am when the dolled-up cars in the car park right under our window all decided to rev their engines up to see if they worked.

Pit stop

Ears ringing, we decided to take a mini-van from Piura to Tumbes (in the far north of Peru - near Ecuador) and went at the speed of light. The lorry we passed, obviously had just gone a bit too fast.

Oops

We arrived in Tumbes about 5 mins before the next bus to Guayaquil (the biggest city in Ecuador). The bus was to take 5 hours, so we would arrive in town at about 7:00pm - not ideal, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

The border between Ecuador and Peru in Aguas Verdes (where we crossed) is, according to the book, the worst border crossing in South America. I can see why. Most borders are short, straight roads with a big flag at one end on a building and another big flagged building at the other. With helpful signs like "Peru - depart" and "Ecuador - arrival" on them. Not so this one. Both of the buildings (the Ecuador one in particular) are reasonably nondescript and are not exactly close to each other.

Allegedly, taxis agree to take you across, but then dump you in the middle of a market and hand you over to some 'guide' who then charges 5 bucks each to show you where the border post is. etc...

We avoided all this by using an International company - CIFA. So we were taken from Tumbes to the Peru border to the Ecuador border and then on - so far so good.

What then happened is that our bus turned into some local bus, stopping every 10 minutes to let people on and off. It ended up taking seven and a half hours.

Light relief was obtained by the people who get on and off these buses at random times who try to extract money from you in various ways. Small, barefooted kids look at you doe-eyed; vendors offer all sorts of food, drink and ice-cream; people with sob stories and, the creme de la creme - some bloke selling powders that rid you of worms ("PARASITO", according to his papers). Priceless.

Eventually we turned into some dark back-alley in Guayaquil and stumbled along to find a taxi. After a journey like that, we decided to splash out on a Sheraton, cheap if you just walk-in. Even the live band playing outside our room didn't keep us awake.

Trujillo

Our bus rolled into Trujillo right on time. We hadn't decided exactly what we wished to do, however we wanted to push up north asap (but didn't really fancy another overnight bus). As we gathered our thoughts in the bus office, we were approached (as always) by a whole raft of taxi drivers offering to take us anywhere we wanted. One spoke reasonable English, seemed to know what he was talking about and was very polite. We asked him to take us to the next bus station to find out about times and tickets up to Piura, Mancora or Tumbes.

We were too early for the first company, but El Dorado was open. We booked tickets for the 12:45pm bus and thus had 5 hours to kill. We negotiated (a bit) with our driver, who would take us where we wanted until then for 70 Soles (about 12 quid).

And that's how we met Celio Eduardo Rodan. He was in the guidebook, mentioned by name as "Helpful and Informative Taxi Driver" (which he was). Since the publication of the book he had added "Official Tour Guide" to his list of titles. He suggested that we get breakfast first (as the sites were all shut) and took us to a nice breakfast place. He also suggested that we went to the Temples of the Sun and Moon and not just Chan-Chan. Top chap.

The Temple of the Sun wasn't really visit-able, but the temple of the Moon was. It was very interesting and was in the middle of being excavated. Some of the friezes on the walls were quite impressive.

Temple of the Moon

Celio seemed to know everyone, and he certainly knew a lot about the temple. It was very enlightening. As we were leaving, hordes of tiny (but very polite) schoolchildren descended upon the site. It's nice to see that the local government deem it important to show the kids their ancestral heritage.

Entrance to the Temple

From there we went to Chan-Chan. It was vast. I didn't think it was as interesting as the Temple of the Moon, so I'm glad we followed Celio's advice. Again, he seemed to know everyone and was informative about what we were seeing. We also saw a Peruvian native (hairless and very ugly) dog.

Chan-Chan

Celio then took us to get some munchies for our trip and then on to the bus station. This time we had our fingerprints taken before being allowed on the bus.

On arrival into Piura, we checked into the Portales hotel on the square. We got the last room; had some food; watched Argentina stuff the USA 4-1 in the Copa America and retired.

Lima

We left Cuzco by plane. After paying the airtport tax (which all seems like such a dodgy operation to me) our flight was full and slightly delayed, but uneventful.

We arrived in Lima and prepaid our cab. We had decided to spend some of the budget surplus we had made by not booking the right dates in Aguas Calientes by staying in a posh place in Lima. We stayed in the Hotel COuntry Club Lima. Very Nice. Fizzy pop on checkin!

Checking-in, Wiseman style

We did almost nothing except read, eat and sleep on the first day. It was lovely.

Also, by some miracle, the computer screen, which had gone so wrong in the Bolivian Altiplano - seemed to have magically fixed itself. Amazing.

The self-fixing computer

Day two in Lima found us unwilling to brave the sights, so we decided instead to go to the posh shopping complex in Miraflores.

We had a USofA day. Burger King; Shrek 3; 10 pin bowling and then KFC to steel us for our overnight bus trip north to Trujillo. It was heaven.

I bought some Peruvian music and we headed to the Marriott (across the street) to get a posh taxi to pick up our luggage and take us to the bus.

We had booked our favourite sets with Liz (from Cuzco) and, after dodging some ladies of the night and working out how to check in to the bus (video cameras, bag searches - the works) we set off.

We had our usual seats, however they appeared to be slightly differently configured, as my legs barely had room to turn. Ho Hum. The bus did have wi-fi though - how bizarre.

On the bus

We are on the bus from Lima to Trujillo. I am writing this entry on my palm pilot, via wi-fi.
On the bus!

Inti Raymi

We set off to Cuzco by taxi. We were stopped at one point. The taxi driver had his taxi licence but not his plates (or something). After a few minutes the police let him carry on. I didn't see any cash change hands - but you never know.

Back to the hotel in time to go to Inti Raymi. Whatever that is. We got a very expensive (5 times the normal price) taxi to take us to the bottom of a huge (not as huge as Machu Picchu - but huge enough) hill.

We then, hardy altitude adapted people that we are, walked up said hill to "Sexy-Woman". We joined the throngs of locals (the majority of the tourists were on the other side of the arena in 70 dollar a-pop seats).

We saw some people with Cuzco flags.

Not Brighton Gay Pride

And we same lots more pagentry.

More Pagentry

Where we were standing was so far away (and behind a slight rise in the field) that we couldn't really see anything. Eventually the locals got frustrated by being disenfranchised from their ceremony in favour of the rich tourists that they broke through the line (bit of plastic tape) and ran forward about 50 yards to get a reasonable view.

Trampled underfoot

Another charge of another 50 yards and the police decide to draw the line. By this time, we could pretty much see what was going on. Without much context - it was a little dull.

We wandered back down the hill and to a Gringo haunt (the Crossed Keys) for beer and a burger. The ceremony up the hill was being televised. So we got to see the llama's heart after all.

After bumping into people we had met on the Navimag ferry in Chile, we had a good slug of beer or twelve and retired home slightly woozy.

I woke up this morning with a sore head, which I blamed (unsuccessfully) on the altitude.

It is now 1pm and T is still in bed, relaxing and reading her book. I have been blogging. We must get lunch soon.

Urubamba

So, after doing everything there is to do in Aguas Calientes (actually, that's not true - we didn't go to the hot springs) we decided to leave a day early. I woke up at the crack of 5:30 and went down to the ticket office to change the tickets.

2 hours later, T came to find me - still in the queue. One fella behind the counter and 40 odd people (up at that time) wanting tickets.

Luckily we got the tickets changed and were on the first train out of Dodge.

We went to Ollantaytambo and got a taxi to Urubamba.

We stayed in a lovely quiet place, just outside town.

Blogging in nature

Transport is by tuc-tuc. Which made T homesick for Brighton.

tuc tuc

We went to a restaurant that was mentioned in the Lonely Planet. It was lovely. The chef/owner who was from Lima, via the USA, was very enthusiastic. The food was exquisite.

Back to our hotel to catch up on stuff.

Bell Tower

Chill out and get some sleep.

Pretty courtyard

Ahhh.

A couple of things - the "Grazia" post

So, as we were standing in one of the queues to get into MP, a rumour started that Cameron Diaz was there. I'll be honest, I thought it was probably a wind up. But, as we waited for the sun to rise, more and more people were talking about it, some claiming 1st hand sightings.

Anyway, after sunrise we let the mobs move into the ruins proper and then ambled down ourselves. We stopped at a corner of a walkway and looked down on the ruins for a bit.

Then, coming down the path towards us was a bloke with a big furry microphone (o.k. the microphone isn't big and furry, the windshield is - but the effect is the same). I nudged T and we sat in awe and wonderment as the mighty one herself passed by - within inches. With about 5 people in the official camera crew, about 5 more paps (with impressively large camera lenses) and then hordes of people.

Natch, we got our own pics.

Papped!

We then spent the best part of the next hour watching the site from the same position, seeing the ripples of people scrumming around to get a glimpse of the mighty one and taking their own pics.

At one point one of the film crew appears to get grumpy and shouted "Look! people - ruins". It would have had more effect if he himself hadn't been more interested in CD than MP. Plonker.

The scrums

Later on, we spotted the paps with their laptops out, presumably sending their ill gotten gains back to their agencies.

Contented Paps

Later still, we passed the same group of paps, who had asked some joe-public to take a picture of them as a group - I wish I'd got a picture of that.

In unrelated (yeah, right) news, there is an internet vote going on at the moment to choose the new 7 wonders of the world. Some group (or a bloke) has set himself up as a company and is running an online poll to select 7 (from a shortlist of 21) wonders. All marketing hype if you ask me.

MP - as one of the 21, is pushing hard - you can't move in Aguas Calientes for posters about it.

You can even vote online at the site itself.

Rigging a vote

The 21 competitors are:

• The Acropolis Greece
  
• Hagia Sophia Turkey
  
• The Kremlin/St. Basil's Russia
  
• The Colosseum Italy
  
• Neuschwanstein Castle Germany
  
• The Eiffel Tower France
  
• Stonehenge United Kingdom
  
• The Alhambra Spain
  
• The Great Wall of China China
  
• Kiyomizu Temple Japan
  
• The Sydney Opera House Austrailia
  
• Angkor Cambodia
  
• The Taj Mahal India
  
• Timbuktu Mali
  
• Petra Jordan
  
• The Pyramids of Giza Egypt
  
• The Statue of Christ Redeemer Brazil
  
• The Easter Island Statues Chile
  
• Machu Picchu Peru
  
• Chichen Itza Mexico
  
• The Statue of Liberty U.S.A
  

I have been to 10 of the 21. Sorry MP - you aren't one of my top 7. It's only 14th century, you know.

Not just _any_ center (sic)

If you want (and the site isn't down for "scheduled maintenance") you can vote. I don't think I'll bother though.

Machu Picchu

So, bleary eyed, we stumbled out of bed and down the train tracks (a.k.a. the main street) to the bus stop. Which was mobbed. I reckon that there must have bee 6-700 people all wanting to beat the crowds and get the first bus up. Luckily the first bus was actually 21 buses, so nobody was left stranded.

We got into the site and headed uphill (along with 698 other people - and the 200 or so a day that walk there - they must be really annoyed to see the mobs of geriatrics arriving by bus).

As MP (I can't be bothered trying to remember how many 'c's are in each bit of Machu Picchu) is on the top of a hill, but a hill that is lower than those around it, it is actually very light before the sun gets visible.

It is pretty though.

The site before sunrise

Finally the sun came. Now, I'm not sure what I expected, but it was really quite a disappointment. It just got brighter (and, to be fair, warmer). Not the dramatic sights and sounds of Tikal Temple IV (post passim). Anyway, once the sun had come up, people started moving around and the place felt less busy.

Here comes the sun

MP is pretty. The three things that mark it out are:

1. The setting - it's spectacular
   
2. The size - it's pretty big
   
3. The intactness (word?) of the buildings
   

A Building (reasonably intact)

After five hours (we did alot of sitting down and soaking up the place) we headed back to the entrance.

The Site again - in sunshine this time

We then had a nice, but very expensive, lunch and went back down on the bus (walking down was discussed, but not very seriously). Back at the hotel, we slept the sleep of the just until it was time for tea.

Hot Water

Agua(s) Calientes is alot lower than where we have been for the last three weeks or so, therefore, within seconds of arriving in town I had been bitten by some bastard flying thing. To be fair, it was the only bite either of us got the whole time; it must have been some special VIP welcome.

Anyway, after shivering through our posh journey (56USD instead of 16USD for the not posh, but couldn't possibly be any colder journey!) and savouring our complimentary breakfast - oh yes, that cold chicken sandwich showed those cheapskates on the scum train, we rolled into town.

Vistadome!

At the station we went to the sign for our 'splash-out' hotel. They had a list of people that they were expecting and we were not on it.

After a bit of faffage they decided to let us get to reception, where they gave us cold towels (just to cool everyone down another degree or two, I guess) and took our passports. When I finally got access to the internet (amazingly, they had no Wi-Fi) I realised that we were exactly one month early for our reservation. T and I were really quite relieved, as we were coming to the conclusion that we wouldn't be getting value for our pennies. We trudged into town ...

Agua Calientes

After hard bargaining, we settled into a reasonable hotel and wandered into town to work out what to do for the next three days.

Machu Picchu, Pizza and bugger all else, seems to be the town's motto.

Food (pizza) of Agua Calientes

We bought our tickets for the site (which have doubled in price since the 2007 Lonely Planet was published!) and the bus up the (bloody big) hill.

We then went for a wander down the road to see the museum - it was O.K. but the walk did provide us with our first sighting of the main attraction.

First sight

Our first night's meal was at Indio Feliz, which was lovely. Quiche Lorraine to die for.

An early night to catch the bus at 5:30am to get there for sunrise and avoid the crowds.

Cusco/Cuzco

We were met at the bus stop by Arturo (at 2:00 am - nice chap) and taken to our hotel. Within seconds we were asleep.

Up in the morning, we were recommended to go on a half day city tour and we also booked a hotel for our third night in Aguas Calientes (the town right next to Machu Picchu). We had decided to splash out most of our hard won budget surplus staying in a v.posh hotel, but they could only fit us in for the two nights.

A taxi into Cuzco and we went to buy (overpriced, but there you go) Lonely Planet Guides for Peru and Ecuador. We found neither anywhere in Bolivia. Every other shop in Cuzco seems to sell them.

We then found out about travel to Lima and on up the coast and settled down to digest the information and some coffee overlooking the main square in Cuzco.

Practising in the square

Next stop, the city tour. Quite reasonable for 10USD, until you added the 25USD admission costs to the attractions we needed to visit. Hmmm.

We visited an old Inca site that had been turned into a Christian site and then turned into a museum. It was quite interesting except that the number of different guides all trying to make their voices heard over the others made it very difficult to work out what was going on.

Inca brickwork

They did have some flags up, the one on the left is the flag of Cuzco (either that or it is the biggest gay city in the world). The one on the right is the Amaraya flag (which I got when I was in Bolivia).

Indigenous flaggery

We then had to cough up three quid to visit the cathedral. Hmm. Then we went up to a place that sounds like 'Sexy-Woman' to see some walls (and llamas) and then to a fountain and then to a shop selling alpaca wool items. Our guide was crap and the whole thing was a waste of time. But there you go.

Wobbly wall

Up at 5:00am to take the posh train to Aguas Calientes and to check into our posh hotel. Woo Hooo.

Puno by name

We arrived in Puno - which, rather unfortunately, seemed to be in the middle of a sewer renovation project right besides the bus station. Poo-ey!

We had looked on TripAdvisor for a hotel in Puno and one had shone out from the top of the pile. We had sent them a reservation request, but had no reply. We decided that we would just take a taxi there and hope they had space.

Our taxi driver, after first trying to sell us various tours around town, informed us that the whole town would be on strike the next day and, therefore, there would be no train to Cuzco! He then offered to take us to a bus company to get a bus out of town that night - before the blockade began.

We declined his offer, partially because we wanted to verify his story with the hotel and partly because I fancied being stuck in a town under an albeit self-imposed, siege.

We arrived at the hotel and the receptionist confirmed the taxi-driver's story. We had lunch and discussed our options. We decided to get the night bus to Cuzco (night buses in Peru are not recommended). The hotel rang up the bus company and sent somebody round to pick up our tickets. Bless. They also let us use their free Wi-Fi and complimentary Coca tea.

After all our options were sorted and a place in Cuzco booked (another gem from TripAdvisor) we went for a wander around town. It was a functional, but pretty place.

Puno main square

We had our first taste of the local beverage Inca Cola which is a bit like a fluorescent yellow Irn Bru. I will need to get a hangover to test how similar to Irn Bru it actually is.

Inca Cola

We then got a taxi to see the main attraction of the town. An iron ship called Yavari which, along with its sister ship, was fabricated in the UK then chopped up into bite (Mule) sized pieces and transported up the Andes. This took six years. Followed by another two to build the ships themselves.

Due to the attentions of an English ex-pat, the ship was rescued from scrap and is being restored. It now has a working engine and floats and can be sailed. The curator seemed to imply that nobody would insure it though.

Quite amazing.

Yavari

Back to the hotel and then to the, remarkably clean, bus station for our trip to Cuzco. It wasn't our Argentinian Cama Standard, but was O.K. The impromptu Chicken and Chips went down well.

We arrived in Cuzco in the wee hours of the morning.

To Peru

With a heavy heart and heavier pockets (Bolivia, Slat Flats aside, is very cheap) we had our last meal in Copacabana and settled to sleep.

Last sunset on Titcaca

Up in the early morning (what is it with travelling and early mornings - why doesn't anybody schedule buses at a decent hour - 11:00am, for example?) This bus was full - so it was a good job we got to it early and bagged our seats. Some people weren't so lucky and had to sit on boxes in the aisle.

Packing them in

Upon arriving at the Bolivia/Peru border, we were assaulted by advertising for toilets. Quite bizarre. Perhaps Bolivia and Peru are trying to outdo each other in some kind of toilet race.

Advertising

Once past the border (and the dire warnings about the poor state of Peruvian counterfeit money) we ambled on to Puno - where we were to stay for the night before catching the train to Cuzco.