Cusco

We loved Cusco, we began enjoying it even before getting there.......

The main square is obviously the beating heart of the town.
We expected markets, Llamas and folk clothes (like in Otavalo) but we couldn't be more wrong.
This town is refined, cultured and stylish.
Here's a couple of views of the main square under an hail storm.

As soon as you leave the main square you enter in a maze of cobbled streets.

When we turned this corner I had a feeling of having been here before..... I must have seen this street in so many movies filmed in South America.

We had dinners at 2 of the best restaurants in town: Chicha from the famous chef Gaston Arcuro and Cicciolina, a restaurant that share its name with one of the most famous italian politicians of all times.

In both cases the food was spectacular and we could not decide which one was our favourite.

Deserts at chicha

Dessert at Cicciolina

We spent our last day in Cusco doing the tour of the Sacred Valley.

The site we loved the most was the Koricancha temple, off the avenida del Sol.

This was originally an Inca temple converted into a convent by the dominican priests after the spanish conquest.

The result is a weird mix of architectures, i.e.european arches meet trapezoid inca doors.

In this lucky second picture the round shadows of the arches meet the trapezoidal shape of the inca doors!

500 years later we had the feeling that our guide wasn't too pleased with the presence of the catholic invaders in this inca temple.

He pointed out that "incredibly" the peruvian government still pays every year $80,000 to the Church for the use of the site.

The tour went on with the visit of 4 sites just outside town.

The most famous of all is Sacsayhuaman. Built in the shape of a head of a puma, some of the stones used are as heavy as 300 tonnes.

I am glad it wasn't me that had to move them there.

Machu Picchu

Getting to Machu Picchu is not as easy as you might think. Cetainly it is not cheap! Peru is milking its jewel of the crown.
Let's start with the basics: There are no roads to MP. The road ends in Ollantaytambo. There are only 2 ways to get to Machu Picchu: Via Inca Trail or via Inca Rail.
The Inca Trail is a 4 days hike that covers roughly 40 kms.
There are obviously thousands of agencies that can organise the trecking for you.
The cost is normally around $400 and the key is to book early (at least 3 months in advance).
This is because there are only 500 places available per day and the demand is huge.
To check availability the best web site is:
http://www.machupicchu.gob.pe/

From our part we opted for Inca Rail.

We purchased our tickets on line on:
http://www.incarail.com/
The cost for a retun ticket is normally around $100 per person, but for that price at least you get a bag of nuts and a mate de coca.
The journey from Ollantaytambo to Agua Calientes lasts around 1hr and 40 minutes.
Once you get there you also need to catch a bus. The bus station is only 500 meters from the train
station; all you need to do is to cross an endless market full of stalls selling all sorts of souvenirs.

The bus takes you up to the ruins from 2000M up to 2400 M.
The journey, which lasts around 30 minutes is quite spectacular and gives enough time for the excitement to kick in.
The cost of this ticket is another $15 per person.

At last you get to the entrance where you join the queue with hundreds of people coming from all around the world.
Surely you must have bought your ticket in advance. (remember, there are only 2500 tickets available per day).
Once again you can do that on the government site. (above)
The cost depends on whether you want to see the ruins or whether you want to climb one of the sorrounding mountains.
The cost of the basic ticket is around $50.

And at last after 3 hrs journey, 1 hr queue, $170 lighter you are now ready to enjoy one of the 7 wonders of the world (the new ones: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonders_of_the_World).

The famous view hits you pretty much straight away.

The tour of the ruins lasts around 2 hrs, however after 1 month in Peru the guides failed to impress us, mainly because we have heard their stories about Inca's method of construction, theology, history etc over and over in previous visits.

I have to say we found quite disappointing that the site did not have any written explainations whathsoever: fair enough also the guides need to earn some money, however it would be nice to have few lines giving you the basics of what you are looking at.

There is no doubt that what makes the difference here is the location, the setting, not the ruins.

To enjoy the view from distance we took a 1 hr walk to Intipunku, the only free hike in the whole site.

Intipunku is also the point of arrival of the Inka Trail.

After 4 days of trecking this is how the brave ones are greeted. (well, not by us, but by the view...)

Once back on site we spent our last hr exploring the areas where tourists normally don't go.

We even made some encounters of the third type......

This Llama whispered in my ear that the MP was discovered by Hiram Bingham exactly 100 years ago.

Apparently Hiram took away with himself plenty of archeological objects which the Peruvian government is still trying to recover; a small price to pay, I would say, considering what the discovery of Machu Picchu did for Peru'.

Ollantaytambo

Have you ever slept in a train station? I mean where the hotel is the train station?
In Ollantaytambo you can with all the comforts! They even have a gourmet restaurant inside.

This is a picture of Elena at the entrance of the hotel. The window above was the window of our room.
This is the view from our room.....

Ok, you wake up at 6.40 when the first train heading to Machu Picchu arrives, but then you can enjoy over 7 hrs sleep, since the last train is at 11.20 pm.....trust us, we know it...: )
On the day of our arrival the whole town was in turmoil, as Mick Jagger, the leader of the Rolling Stones was coming through on his way to Machu Picchu.
This is a link to the Peruvian Times news paper to read the whole article about his visit.
http://www.peruviantimes.com/14/rolling-stones-front-man-mick-jagger-arrives-at-machu-picchu/13998/
He kind of stole our thunder as he also was there to promote preservation of nature. Go on Mick, good man!

While Mick was getting soaked by the rain and by the crowd at Macchu Picchu on Friday we enjoyed the sun in Ollantaytambo visiting the ruins.
We hired a guide for 2 hrs and we think it was £10 really well spent.
These ruins are pre-Inca, the whole temple has been carved inside the mountain.

The terraces were probably cultivated with all variety of crops coming from all the corners of the empire.

The location was strategically chosen as the point of encounter of 3 valleys.
The temple was magnificent as it had to have a psychological influence on the communities coming from the 3 valleys.
These are the views of the 3 valleys from the top of the temple:

(Picture 1 Sun Temple + valley behind)

Picture 2 (Ollantaytambo village + valley behind)

(Picture 3 fortressess on cliff + 3rd valley behind)

The Sun Temple (pictute 1 above)  was constructed with huge granite boulders. The stone quarry is named Kachiqhata (Salt Slope) and is located about 4 km (2.5 miles) away on the other side of the valley, by the upper side of the opposite south-western mountains. (picture 1) The boulders were carved partially in the quarries, and taken down to the valley's bottom. In order to cross the river, Quechuas constructed an artificial channel parallel to the natural river bed that served for deviating the river's water according to conveniences. Therefore, while that water flowed through one channel the other was dry, thus stones could be taken to the other side of the valley. More over, the boulders were transported to the upper spot where the temple is erected using the inclined plane that is something like a road which silhouette is clearly seen from the valley's bottom. They had the help of log rollers or rolling stones as wheels, South-American cameloids' leather ropes, levers, pulleys, and the power of hundreds and even thousands of men.

In the picture below you can see the monolith with 2 holes (bottom right) where the rolling stones were insterted and one hole on the left for the levers.

Some of these blocks are huge (50 tons) , like the one where Elena is posing here, and they were not positionned properly in the temple. The likelyhood is that the temple was unfinished due to the arrival of spanish troups.

The building technique however was the part that struck us the most.

The walls were built with 5 degrees of inclination. Stones were carved and placed together only using the force of gravity.

As you can see on the Wall of the 6 monotyth they used to place a thin layer of rock between big blocks to act as cushion in the event of earthquakes.

When in 1650 the town of Cusco was struck by a violent earthquake, an emissary went back to the spanish court bringing 2 bad news to the king. The first was that all the churches had been completely distroyed, the second was that all the indigenous temples were completely unscattered.

At the end of our tour we went for a quick climb to visit the fortresses at the other side of the valley.

We really enjoyed our visit to Ollantaytambo. If you ever plan to go to Machu Picchu make sure you have enough time to stop here first.

The road to Machu Picchu (part 2)

We rested at the Tampumayu hotel for 2 days and on day 1 we were the only guests.
They even gave us the equipment to go fishing trouts in the river nearby......no catch however, since our technique was very poor.
On the second day we were joined by another couple of bikers, Marcus and Claudia from Bahia in Brasil.
We had dinner together and exchanged plenty of useful information.
In fact they were doing exactly our tour but in reverse, hence had already been to Argentina Chile and Bolivia and they were heading to north of Peru, Ecuador and Colombia.
The following morning we waved goodbye to our brasilian friends and left the hotel at 8am.
Here is a picture of Marcus in the background packing his bike. They call it the "favelitas" due to the quantity of luggage strapped together at the back of the bike!

Interestingly enough to travel around South America they use the same technique we used to travel around Europe. They park the bike somewhere, fly back to Brasil, work for a while and fly back to get the bike and carry on travelling!

The first 100 kms up to Abancay were easy peasy; the road was smooth, empty, the sun was out the valley carved by the river absolutely gorgeous.

After Abancay we went up and down the mountains several times accross at least 3 valleys.
The views were as usual spectacular.

Luckily the sun was shining and I had perfect visibility as the road was full of hazards such as rocks falling from above (derrumbes), all sorts of animals crossing or sleeping in the middle of the road, speed bumps poorly signalled and road works.
We feel for our brasilian friends who did the same road the previous day with rain and fog!!!
Eventually after hours of corners we reached a beautiful plateau, only 40 kms from Cusco.

Then, 19 kms from Cusco we turned left towards Ollantaytambo, our next destination for an extra 60 kms of "super road".

As we got to Urubamba the scene in front of us was apocaliptic: The whole mountain was on fire, to the point that it looked like a volcanic eruption, there, only few hundred meters from us.....

Well, after all that driving we would not allow a bit of fire to stop us, would we?

Eventually we got through and pressed on for the last 20 kms towards our final destination.

The road to Machu Picchu Part 1 (another chapter for bikers out there)

During our week of rest at the Posada de los Tumpis in the north of Peru’ we met Jessica from Lima.

Unfortunately we could not meet her again in Lima as we were seriously pressed for time, however she was very kind to recommend us to get from Nazca to Machu Picchu via Abancay and to make a stopover in Chalhuanca at the Tampumayu Hotel......and so we did.

It took us 3 days to cover the 750 kms, mainly because we opted to spend 2 days at the spectacular Tampumayu Hotel.

As you leave Nazca you find yourself immediately alone in a road that keeps climbing for 55 kms.

Everything around is brown, no sign of vegetation for miles.

Initially we take it very easy on these mountain corners with no hard shoulder. As we climb higher and higher we pretty much forget all our worries inspired by a spectacular view at 360 degrees.

Far from distance we can still see the desert where the Nazca lines are drawn, but we are clearly too far away to see any lines of course.......

After 1 hr of corners and counter corners we finally reach the top of the plateau.

The road now is almost straight and whenever we find a bend we can easily cut through using the opposite line as we are ABSOLUTELY the only people on the road!!!!

Flocks of Vicuna are making their first appearance. They are not interested in us, they are in charge up here and force us to stop several times as they cross the road in group.

We drive another 20 kms at a decent speed since the road is still straight with perfect visibility when we have to make an emergency stop....this time is for a picture. A blue lake has suddenly appeared on our left breaking the brown monotony.

We pass few more lakes wondering what we are going to see next.

In the meantime herds of Alpacas have replaced the Vicunas.

Far in the distance we can see snow white tops.

We must be easily well over 4000 meters here since our lungs are kind of struggling to absorb oxygen.

The plateau ends abruptly and we begin our descent in a narrow canyon. Our heads feel dizzy.

We take a quick lunch break in the middle of the fields. As I switch of the engine we find ourselves immersed in absolute silence, broken only by the sound of few Llamas grazing not far from us.

It is time to press on. Our hotel is only 50 kms away.

We reach the Tampumayu after 361 kms of bliss.

Nazca

There is always a place in a trip that needs to be sacrificed because you are running short on time; for us it was Nazca.

In our original plan we wanted to spend 2 nights in Nazca so that we could book the 35 minutes flight to watch the famous lines from the sky.

In the end we got to Nazca at 4pm, found a cheap hotel where we dropped our stuff and rushed to the mirador on the Panamerican just on time to watch a couple of lines before sunset.

We do regret missing out on the flight however, on a positive note, we believe that half of the fun in our visit to Nazca was to get there.

The road from Lima to Nazca is 500 kms of desert where for the first time in the whole trip we managed to keep an average speed of 100 kms/ph.

Covering 500 Kms in 1 day was quite important in the economy of the trip. In 70 days we had only covered 5500Kms where in reality we should have done at least 7000!

The section from Ica to Nazca is “desert at its best” with rock formations eroded by centuries of winds that reminded us the valleys of Cappadocia and Meteora.

As you get closer to the” lines territory” it feels like being on a different planet.

On your left there are mountains shaped by the wind and terrain made of loose rocks.

On the right a vast flat desert made of grey rocks where long time ago the inhabitants of the region drew over 800 pictures.

Some of these pictures are iconic, like the colibri or the monkey, others are very basic like the ones we have captured from the mirador: the tree and the hands.

I have to say that tree is a perfect representation of the skinny leafless trees you find from time to time on these deserted roads.

Ok, we might have missed the flight but .....what a sunset!