Hi everyone, Another beast of an email `cause I keep on procrastinating when faced with writing all about Peru. It`s been such an information overload, and every time Isit down and thin about what I should write I find something else better to do. Now I just can`t procrastinate any longer 'cause all the things I've got to remember to write is just freaking me out. Anyway, I'll now cast my mind way back to the date of the 9th March 2002 and see what I can dig up. That day we drove around Lake Titicaca from Bolivia to Peru, stopping at a Tiwanaku archialogical site. The Tiwanaku's were one of several pre-Inca tribes. I won`t dwell on this site as there are bigger and better ones that I have since visited and will write about soon. The next two days were spent on Lake Titicaca, where we visited a couple of floating read islands and went on a ride on a read boat. This lake is the highest navagable lake in the world at an altitude of 3,820 MASL (metres above sea level). We spent the nightbilloted with a local family on a permanent Island called Amantani Island. It was difficult because the residents of the island don't know any English, and even Spanish is their second language. They converse in a language called Quechua. Before arriving, we were each given a sheet of paper with a few imporant words and phrases like "yes", "no", "where is the bathroom?" and "can I help you?". Each time we needed to say something we needed to consult the sheet, and if it wasn`t on the paper, then we just didn't say anything. We were shown to our very basic rooms, specifically built for accommodating tourists. Each family takes 2 or 3 people at a time, and from what we could gather, they usually have 2 or 3 groups a week. Nick and my room was built above a storage room, and had 3 beds with 3 heavy blankets on each, a tale and bench to sit on, a candle, box of matches and a couple of little ornaments on the window ledge. Our host-Mum, Norma, was at the dock with many other local men and women. Most of the women were toying with spinning tops wound with brightly coloured Al Pacca wool which was being spun into yarn by operating the top like playing with a yo-yo. Norma took us back to her home, which was a really long walk up a steep hill. I think we were placed in the home furthest away from the dock. She showed us to our room and left us there whilst she went to prepare lnch. Unsure what to do, we went down and asked, using our Quechuan translation sheet, if there was anything we could do to help. From her small kitchen she brought out two tree stumps for us to sit on, a blunt knife and some potatoes to peel. When we'd finished we just sat around waiting and observing our surroundings. Norma's kitchen was a small dark room, and in the corner it had a traditional stove. This is a small, hollow stone or clay dome with three holes on top in whicgh the pots can be wedged, and a hole on one side through which the fire wood is replenished and stoked. Next to the stove, and also against the opposite wall were two sitting benches, and under the benches and running from one to the other, were 8 noisily squealing guinea pigs, a popular food in Peru. Fortunately for me, but less so for Nicko, our lunch did not include this delicacy. We had a lovely soup with vegetables and a local grain called Quinua, followed by fried potatoes, rice and a tortilla, which in Peru is more like a fried batter than the Mexican savoury pancake. After lunch we went down to the soccer field and watched a game between some tourists and locals. This was followed by a walk to the highest point on the island which houses the Patchapapa temple. Being hastled most of the way by locals trying to sell us chocolate, water, Al Pacca wool socks, Al Pacca wool gloves, Al Pacca wool beanies, Al Pacca wool wall hangings. Wierd seeing there aren't any Al Paccas on the island. When we got back to Norma's house, there were heaps more people there. Her husand, Bonivasio, whom I could never remember his name, her 2 year old daughter and 4 year old son, and some other relatives of varying ages that all shared the same accommodation. Nick, the adults of the family, the guinea pigs and I sat in the spacially challenged cooking room lit only by the fire under the cooking dome and a small oil lamp and ate our dinner, which was exactly the same as lunch. And dinner was followed by a community dance, for which all the host Mums and Dads dressed their guests in traditional costume. A novalty for us, but for the families, who do this 2 or 3 times a week and pose for the same photos each time, the process must be tedious. Nick had a poncho draped over his normal clothes and wore a funny little beanie, with flaps that cover his ears, that we had bought from Norma earlier. I wore, along with all the other girls... wait for it... 3 pale pink, knitted, peddicoat skirts which are worn high, sort of half way up to your arm pits. Over the top of these is worn a bright red skirt with floral embroidery around the bottom. On the top half I had a very thick and heavy, white blouse, also embroided with brightly coloured flowers. And over my head was draped a long, heavy, black scarf with the outlines of leaves and flowers sewn on it. It's supposed to magically sit oin your head, which seems to work for the locals, bot on me it just kept slipping off. There was a traditional Peruvian band playing the pan-pipes and little guitar and other instruments, similar to the band we saw in the Bolivian restaurant. The songs were long, the dancing vigorous, and in the heavy and hot costumes we were all dressed up in, the night was fairly short, but enjoyed by those who attended. Our next port of all was Cusco, the revived heart of the old Incan empire. Brett, our tour leader took the group on an orientation walk around the Plaza de Armes, the main square, and a bit around the locality of our hotel and "Gringo Alley". Gringo is the term used by South American locals for non-locals. Nicko and I went on a tour of the main cathedral, but I felt sick so left half way through. I find cathedrals and all that cultural stuff fairly boring, so it didn't really bother me. What did bother me though was that the next day we were set to go on an exursion to Sacred Valley Inca ruins, and from there start our four day hike on the Inca Trail to the famous Machu Picchu Inca site, and that I was feeling progressively worse every hour. The next morning, our Toucan tour group of 34 people were ready and packed to start the adventure, but under Nicko's wise advice, I stayed back to see a doctor, and Chook stayed back wit me. The doctor presscribed me some antibiotics and other stuff and strongly advised me not to do the four day, high altitude trek the next day. But I've always been taught to listen to advice but make my own decisions, and the Inca Trail was not something I was willing to miss out or compromise on. So the next day, we started the excursion, being picked up from the hotel at 4am. Nick, Joan and especially I didn't want to do the trek with such a huge group, so we had previously booked our trek and compulsory guide independantly of the Toucan group. This turned out to be one of the best decisions we could have possibly made. There were only six people in our group, the other three being a couple of Norweigen girls, Hegar and Anna, and an American guy, Richard, who they'd met in their language school in Ecuador. Our guide, Lilly was really lovely and we had a bunch of 6 cooks come porters for our group. Nick and I didn't hire an extra porter to carry our stuff, we did it ourselves. I must admit though, that Ncik carried the big pack a lot more than I did. I was amazed though at how well I was feeling given that I'd spent the entire previous day and a half in bed feeling like I was going to die. The first day of the trek we started at a place called Km82, which, funnily enough is 82Kms from Cusco. We walked for about 12Km to our campsite. Several times that day we came across a really old lady and a couple of young men on a donkey. The woman looked like she was on deaths door and was being taken somewhere to die. Apparantly she was on her way home after having been take to the doctors. There was something very, very eerie about the sight and smell of this old woman. Apon arrival at the camp site, all our tents had been set up for us, and there was an eating tent too. At about 5pm we were called for pop-corn and hot drinks. Later we had a delicious dinner and then went to bed. This was pretty much the routine for the three trekking days. It seemed very luxurious, except the second campsite was in the middle of a swamp. Well, what could we expect given that we were trekking at the end of rainy season and the trail isn't even open during Februrary due to the mud. At least the other campsites were okay. The porters are amazing people. They sleep in the eating tent after they've had dinner and cleaned up. They wake us up in the morning bringing a hot drink to our tent door. By the time we're up and have packed away our sleeping bags and everything, a hot breakfast is being served. After breakfast we'd set off with Lilly. The porters were left to clean up, have something to eat for themselves, take down the eating and sleeping tents, pack everything on their backs, and then pretty much run along the trail. They overtake us, stop at the lunch spot, set up the eating tent, cook us lunch, wait for us to finish, they have lunch, clean up, take down the tent, pack up again, race down to the next camp site and have it all ready by the time we get there. The second day trekking was the hardest for most people, and it was definately the longest and the highest altitude. Dead Woman's Pass is at 4,200 MASL, and it was a very long and steep climb, but it felt great to reach the top and rest whilst watching the others plod along. Thankfully, our little group' of siz had trekked further on the first day, so were ahead of the masses on the second day. Nick and Richard went ahead walking quite fast, several people from the big Toucan group overtook me, but I was the second girl up to the pass out of everyone. Nick has this whistle that he can do that can be heard miles away. He did this when he reached the top, and I heard, probably along with everyone else on the trail, and "coo-eed" back. It was funny 'cause everyone knows his whistle and so everyone knew when he'd reached the top. The big Toucan group camped about an hour and a half away from Dead Woman's Pass, but our little group had another 5 hours hikking before we reached our camping spot. About four of those hours hiking were down hill and very steep, and much of it was trekking in the rain. Day three was the one I found the hardest, even though we were only walking for about three hours. It was pretty much all down hill, and I was trying to be really gentle on my knees by going really slowly, but it hurts going down hill at whatever pace you go. It was an awesome walk though, as were the other two days, but day three the scenery was quite different. We passed many unusual flowers and plants and walked through distinct micro-climates. Humid jungle like areas, rainforest with a chorus of frogs audiable but not visible, terraces that you could look down on, and Inca cared tunnels extended from natural rock caves. The campsite had a hostel, restaurant, showers and store there. Although we still camped as per normal, we all snuck in a cold and fairly ordinary shower, and visited some nearby ruins called Winaywayna. The fourth dya was when we were to visit Machu Picchu, the famous Inca site "discovered" only in 1911. Our group of six were woken up at 3:45am, and set off in the dark, with only the light of our little torches at 4:45 that morning. We were the first group to get to the permit office but were overtaken by a couple of other small groups. We arrived at the Sun Gate at about 6:30, which on a clear day would reward the trekker with astounding views of the entire site. But the day we were there, there was a thick mist covering the valley in which the ruins were built and we couldn't see anything. Half an hour later we reached Machu Picchu, still being able to see very little, we meandered through the ruins with Lilly stopping and commentating on the different rooms, temples, building techniques, Inca culture and other points of interest. Her tour took about an hour and a half, and the day progressively cleared up, gradually revealing the massive, mysterious ruins. Machu Picchu was totally amazing. The famous Inca style architecture, where the huge stones are so precisely hand carved, that when slotted together, neither a sheet of paper nor a human hair can be wedged between two adjoining bricks. It is not clear as to how they achieved this, but it is known that it is not just the exterior faces of the stone that are exactly aligned. The precision is the entire width, depth, and height of the stones. There are other stones in the ruins carved in the shape of a diamond, with the four vertices pointing accurately to North, South, East and West. Nick proved this by balancing his watch which has a compas on it on the stone and the compas registered the directions exactly. The entire site was amazing, but only having had it explained. Wandering around the ruins without a guide wouldn't have sufficed at all. In fact, when we saw the large Toucan group, we had a bit of a laugh, 'cause there were about 30 of them sitting on one of the agricultural terraces, with one guide for all of them. In some of the temples and rooms it's difficult to fit 7 people in, and it takes long enough to wait for 7 people to squeeze through some of the tight and low corridores, let alone 30 people. After the tour, Richard, Nick and I climbed Wyna Picchu, the mountain that towers a further 400 metres above and behind Machu Picchu. The climb was hard, very steep, and the steps were extremely narrow, sometimes barely the width of a foot, let alone the length of one. From the top the view was awesome. Machu Picchu looked like a small plastic model one would expect to find in a glass cabinet at a museum. We could see the remnants of a massive landslide that had previously destroyed the old hydro-electric power station. Back in Cuzco, a bunch of us went on a white water rafting trip down the Urumbamba River. Before reaching the launch site, we stopped to scout the rapids, and I was so disappointed. We'd been sold a grade 4+ to grade 5 run, the highest commercially available grades, and having already done a fair bit of rafting around the world, I estimated these rapids were maybe a grade 3. But I was wrong. When we got on the river, the rapids were continuous grade 4, and we all had heaps of fun. Nick and I were the only ones that got tossed out of our raft, but we were safe. Greg, from our Toucan tour was rafting for the first time and was an awesome first paddler. There were two Dutch guys who also hadn't rafted before and I'd probably recommend that they don't raft again. They paddled like they had broken arms. Our guide had to change his instruction calls literally a second after giving them to componsate for their lack of oompf, and poor Lorraine, who was paddling on their side, almost gave up trying to get them to paddle in sych with everyone else. Moving on, we went to Arequipa, where we visited a mummy museum, home of the famous Inca sacrafice, Juanita. I had previously read about her in National Geographic. She's about 500 years old, and her skin, hair, internal organs, everything is still in tact. We also went to an extremely boring colonial style house, which was furnished in hideous furniture, carpets, religious art, and was just generally disgusting. Maybe I'm still not culturally mature enough to enjoy that stuff, Nicko enjoyed it though. And we also went to the Santa Catalina Convent, still in use today. Some things I guess I'll just never understand. I went on a flight over the Nazca lines, the massive etchings in the desert that can only really be appreciated from the sky. It's not known how they got there, or if they serve any purpose. There is a picture of a monkey, an astronaught, a condor, a whale, a hummingbird and a spider among other things. Some of the drawings are about 180 metres in length. The flight was okay, but I actually thought the experience would be more astounding, but it didn't really move me. From Caracas, a small, very smelly fishing town, we took a boat trip to some islands to see some sea lions and birds, which I enjoyed, despite the smell. I can't even remember the order we did half these things, but we also spent a morning in the Colca Canyon looking for condors, a bird with a 3 metre wing span. We only saw a couple at such a distance that we might have not seen them at all. But it was nice to just enjoy the scenery. I'd like to revisit the Colca Canyon one time, when we're not rushed due to the time restraints of a group tour. It's got some great trekking opportunities, and some challenging rafting. Next on our agenda was Lima, the capital of Peru, and I have very little to say about it. This is where our tour finished, and then Nick and I stayed for a few extra days. For the first few days everything was closed because of Easter. So really all we did in Lima was sit in the park and read, and muck around at internet cafes trying to work out flight schedules for after the tour. A non-descript part of the holiday really. Last night we arrived after a 32 hour bus trip to Quito, capital of Ecuador, and tomorrow morning we are flying out to the Galapagos Islands, which I'm really excited about. More info when I get back. Thanks to everyone who writes back to me. I've had so many responses about my stories and experiences and am amazed at how many people read them and pass them on to people I don`t even know. Hope this email finds everyone well, and had a pleasant Easter holiday or long weekend or whatever. Congratulations to Ange and Mark, Katie and Andrew, and Aari and Alice on their recent engagements. Ciao for now, Nique