Inca Trail

4 days of early rising (5am and earlier - oh my gosh..)

Totally pampered by porters and guides, walking at the back end of a group of 16 across (mostly original) Inca paving, over a 4200 meter pass and back down again.




Day 1, looking down on Llactapata. One of the many Inca sites we passed on the way.




Day 2. Josie walking down from Warmiwañusca or Dead Woman's Pass (4,215 )
on the gorgeous Inca stones. Our second campsite is just down over that lip.




Day 3. Phuyupatamarka, or Cloud-Level Town is just after the Third Pass.
We were pretty lucky with the weather, it only rained on the last nite, and, unfortunately, the morning of getting to Machu Picchu. (More on that later..)



Porters. Running.

Over the border

We have left Peru behind us now, and are in Bolivia, but what a surreal time it was getting here. I love these overnight bus trips, and border crossings make it that much more special.

Highlights included:

• getting to the bus terminal with 20 minutes to departure and finding the bus company we booked with closed. (turned out to be another company doing this run on their behalf)
• 10 hour bus ride with no banos / toilets on board. And no toilet stops.
• an inexplicable hour of local Andean music playing on the sound system and lights on between 4.30 and 5.30am
• being woken at 7am to disembark the bus (which was bound for La Paz) and catch a local combi to the border. And the bus company guy trying to get us to pay 5USD each to the Peruvian police there. Lucky for us we had a bolshy Dutch lassie with us who was having none of that.

But we are here now, at Copacabana, of all places. Music and passion. We have a great wee hostel with hammocks, and though we are at 3800 metres (freezing at nite) the days are still hot and there is lovely warm, bright sun. Going to chill here for a few days, and contemplate a walk on the Isla del Sol, where we can camp and have a look at ruins.

Will put some pictures up of the Inca Trail soon. It was amazing. Of course.

Cusco

Today we explored some of the remains of Inca buildings around Cusco (yes, this is a departure from previous, "retrospective" posts). These photos are from Sacsayhuaman (pronounced similar to "sexy woman", much to the tourists´amusement), an Inca fortress overlooking Cusco. The stone walls are very characteristic of the Quechuans´work - large, polygonal stones that fit so tightly together that you can hardly slip a piece of paper between them.





Cusco in the background.

Arequipa

We spent a few days in Arequipa, which is nestled under a live volcano, "El Misti". It's packed with gorgeous colonial buildings made of volcanic stone. The Spanish colonisers did all sorts of nasty things but they did have some pretty architecture.


View of Arequipa, with republican and revolutionary slogans carved into the volcanic stone in the foreground, and El Misti in the background.




View of the Colca Valley. The terracing was apparently made by the Quechuas (usually called "Inkas").



No travelblog of South America would be complete without a photo of some llamas. Or are they alpacas? I still can't tell the difference. The one in the middle looks human, I thought.

Terremoto

Just a quick post to say we are okay and lucky enough not to be affected by the earthquake. We left Lima the night before it happened, and even in Arequipa - 1000 kilometres away - felt it very strongly. It went on long enough for us to think of leaving our hostal room. That said, Arequipa was fine, and we did not quite realize how bad it was in Pisco and Lima til we saw the newspaper headlines the next day. I'm just reading the online news now, and it looks really bad. People here have hard enough lives anyway. In the north, while in Huaraz, we stopped in a wee town Yungay, which had been totally wiped out by an earthquake in 1970. About 50 or 60 thousand people died then, so it is a terrifying thing here.

For us, the travelling continues. We are heading away from the coast now, and up into the high Andes. We are in Arequipa, doing an overnite trip to the Colca Canyon, and are busing to Cuzco on Sunday nite. We start our Inca trail on the 24th. By all accounts it is really busy and touristy, but still quite amazing.

Adelante!

Retro 4 - Pyrenees

Spanish Pyrenees

We based ourselves for a week in Torla, a wee town in the Aragon Pyrenees, and daywalked in the Ordessa Canyon. Walked the side of the canyon to the view Monte Perdido, and walked and scrambled up to the Peak Tozal, that looked darn high from the valley floor, but once up there, we were still looking up at the tops. That was the eagle day.

Tozal from below.

Josie walking out to the summit of Tozal.

Some Frenchies took a photo of us when we got up there (while they were quaffing whisky and red wine with their summit lunch. )

Some nifty, and apparently century-old, metal holds for the way up and down.

The head of the Valley, looking towards Monte Perdido.

Valley walls

Retro perspective 3

Europride Madrid

1.5 million personas in the streets. Awesome. I didn´t get great photos but it was fun.



Polonia

Self portrait. (one of many, be prepared..)

Euro-blur

Retro perspective 2

Some Spanish walking highlights.

Capiliera

Capiliera, in the Las Alpujarras, south of Grenada in the Sierra Nevadas.



Day walk up from the village.
Josie at Cortijo de las Tomas, 2100 metres. 400 to go.

Refugio Poquiera, end of the day walk.

Picos de Europa

Garganta del Cares (Gares Gorge).

Got to the 1600 metre saddle of a stunning walk to the Vega De Ario Refugio, to be greated by a bunch of bored looking coos. I was quite pleased, actually. Was quite missing cows after 5 weeks of not seeing them in Spain.

The story so far

Okay, so since I've been so slack about this, I'm going to do a retrospective. It goes against all the conventions of blogging, oops.

I thought some themes might help.

How about Urban.



We started way back in June, in Barcelona.
Gaudi. Magical, amazing, gorgeous, crazy. All that and more.





Passion facade on the Sagrada Familia. Note the green covering at the top.
They are still working on it.




A street in the Barri Gothic, where we stayed.



Monumental public art.



Typical (flash) tiled doorway. Seville.

View from 3100 metres

Josie on the balcony at our hostal Hatun Wari.

Finally, I begin! Here we are mid trip, in Huaraz, in the Andes. Quite disappointing to not have seen the maungas from the coast, ( a mere 100 ks away) where we have been the 3 weeks since arriving in Peru.

This is one of the Laguna Llanganuco, a great acclimatisation walk at 3400 meters or so, if you do not mind the bone shattering drive up. Which we did not. Sort of...