Well my readers I hope since my last set of adventures you have had time to catch your breath. If not then take a few deep breaths now and ready yourselves for part five. Anyway I have plenty more to tell you about so if you'll follow me...
Leaving behind the flamingos we carried on around the lake passing through small rural settlements made of mud bricks with the oh so familiar political glyphs of days gone by daubed on them - still visible although faded. The road started to wind upwards away from the lake and back into the hills where after a little while we arrived at the top where we could see a small dry stone building with a straw roof. We all got out of the mini-van and were immediately approached by two young local men (who looked rather like farmers to me) who tried to get us to pay to visit the ruins or give us a tour or something. Hmm... well we didn't pay them despite their insistence and they seemed quite miffed about it all too. Quite unreasonable of them really especially as they didn't speak English which would make a tour rather pointless and on top of this we already knew that the only real fact to know about the site was that it was built by a tribe who warred with the Inca. This incidentally wasn't the only time we encountered out of the way ruins being used by locals to try to get cash out of visitors despite having no right to do so. I suppose you can't blame them for trying but it was a bit of a nuisance. Anyway, the remains of the Chanka fortress weren't much to look at. Some small dry stone huts had been reconstructed (in a way that didn't look authentic but may have been) which had straw roofs added. There was no explanation of what may have once gone on here, in fact there wasn't even a sign telling you what the place was called. There seemed to be some evidence that it was being developed as a site worthy of visitors but in the state we saw it there wasn't a great deal to recommend it. Except that at the far end of the hilltop was a roughly circular hillock with terraces running around it and a set of stone steps running up to the top. I walked up to find an oddly shaped boulder which may at one time have been built around or on top of but now just looked rather out of place. This was the first set of ruins we saw (also known during the tour as 'rooms' or 'runes' on account of Stephan's difficulty in pronouncing 'ruins') and I am glad to report that the standard improved massively later in the trip. That said it had still been a good day and a nice wander up a hill. Fortunately nothing too strenuous seeing as it turned out that it wasn't just me who had fallen prey to the 'Travellers Tummy' predicament.
That was about it for Andahuaylas as the next morning it was a six o'clock start. After our experiences on the bus to get here Stephan had taken the executive decision that we would not travel the next leg of the journey by bus. Instead he had hired (at significantly greater expense than the bus would have been) a battered dark blue mini-van with drivers. Whilst our bags were strapped to the top and covered over with tarpaulin we got in and tried to make ourselves comfortable, which wasn't easy as despite being only half full it still felt cramped. Well, the road this time was at least as bad as the last time if not worse, at one point in the journey I remember enquiring whether we had taken a different route than the bus would have (perhaps a shortcut not navigable by a larger vehicle) as the quality of the road seemed exceptionally poor and very narrow. Silly, silly me! Why would you go to all the effort of building two separate roads that went to the same place? Apparently you wouldn't.
One of the few advantages to 'private transport' is you get to say where you go and when you stop. Having not had breakfast that morning and having been on the road for a few hours Stephan asks if we can find somewhere for a bit to eat. Well the first settlement we got to was too small and had nothing to offer except advice on where better to look. We carried onto the next small town where our drivers dropped us outside the local restaurant/café. Then one of them waved something resembling a short length of bent wire coat hanger at us, said a few words in Spanish and got in the van and drove away. Something to do with repairs I believe although I felt it better not to ask - they were gone for quite some time. The café was basic to say the least. The only light came in through the wide tall front door. We were the only customers sat about the dusty tables that morning. The counter was a long bench behind which was a set of simple wooden shelves containing an amusingly sparse selection of bottled drinks. There was no one about but after some conspicuous coughs and then some shouting we attracted the attention of someone out the back who brought us coffee. I have mentioned before that the coffee in Peru is a bit bad, well this stuff was the worst yet, it was sweet and it was suggested it was camp coffee (something I have never knowingly tried). After getting the coffee we didn't see the man again, we had some biscuits and got some of the triangular bread from somewhere and sat in relative quiet (we were quite a rowdy group at times) due to the effects of rough travel combined with persistent bacteria based difficulties.
Subdued perhaps but still able to appreciate what was happening around us. I have mentioned a number of times before how in some of the out of the way places we had been to, we Gringos attracted a certain amount of attention from the locals. Of course in all these places even though Gringos were a rarity they wouldn't have been completely alien, after all the same tour I was part of ran many times a year and even if it was the only tour that went to these places it would still cause a regular trickle of Gringos to pass through. This place (the name of which I don't know and can't find in my guide book) was different. The tour I was on wasn't supposed to stop here, we were supposed to be on the bus and had we been we wouldn't have got out here. Consequently we caused a bit of a stir. There was soon a group of teenage boys hanging about in the street closely watching everything we did and I am sure one woman brought her baby to 'see the Gringos'. Anyway after breakfast we all got popcorn from a street seller and piled back in the van. The rest of the (11 hour) journey saw the return of the surfaced road in places and in other places the road had washed into the river but somehow we got through all that and at long last were seeing an ever increasing amount of traffic and buildings. We had reached the outskirts of our next destination and this place was well and truly back on the tourist trail, a place where Gringos only get a second look by the people trying to flog them tacky rubbish. This city was once the site of the Capital of the Inca empire but is now more commonly referred to as the Gringo Capital, officially however it is called Cusco.
We checked into our hotel and had a much needed cup of coca tea before heading to our rooms to spruce up a bit before dinner. It should be noted that for the first time since we left Lima our guide actually knew more about where we were than we did. Cusco being the busy tourist centre that it is there is hardly a tour that doesn't stop here. This meant that rather than spending time sussing out new restaurants Stephan could take us straight to his favourite haunts. We followed behind him often in single file in order not to fall off the narrow stone pavements into the rushing traffic. Tonight we went to a place called Macondo, it was busy inside and every bed in the place had people sitting on them eating. We weren't to sit on the beds downstairs we were to go up to the low ceilinged upper level where we sat on cushions around a low table. The light cast through the distressed paper style shades was 'atmospheric' and the walls were painted with brightly coloured cartoon flowers. It was clearly a very touristy place (reflected in the prices) and it was novel initially to hear other people speaking English again. The food on the menu was tarted up to suit the environment but despite this there was something that caught my attention. I am not sure just how traditional a dish it is in Peru but I have not seen it anywhere else. I had a rather nice bit of alpaca cooked in red wine and onions - mmm, yum yum!
The next day we had a free day to explore the place and this it turned out basically meant going around the shops. Cusco was the busiest place we had been to since leaving Lima, there were people everywhere. These people could be roughly split into two categories, Gringos and people selling stuff to Gringos. For the first time in Peru we were badgered by children selling everything from postcards to knitted animal finger puppets. Of course there were shoe shine boys in abundance and every café and restaurant and money exchange place had people on the street outside approaching tourists to persuade them to come on in and part with money for something or other. It made a change and it reminded me why I had chosen a tour that stayed away from the touristy hotspots wherever possible. For as long as peace reigns in Peru the tourist industry will grow and it is perhaps hypocritical of me to wish it wouldn't, after all what was I doing there, but I hope the character of the place survives the inevitable march of progress. That said, it did mean there were endless narrow stone streets to explore lined with shops selling every type of art and knickknack you could ever hope to find (considering the context) and it was rather fun for a day to go rummaging through it all. It would be silly to forget that if tourists didn't buy souvenirs then there would be precious few on sale and although I wasn't going to make anyone rich with what I was prepared to pay for them I still had an eye out for that little something that would in years to come remind me of a day spent mooching. During our explorations we saw more than just shops of course. We passed the large central plaza about which were a number of ornate colonial churches and dominating the scene is the 17 th century baroque Cathedral, built on the site of the 'Palace of Inca Wiracocha'. It was common practice for the Spanish to loot and level Inca monuments and temples and build their own on top.
Anyway, after a hard morning shopping Sandy Simon and I went for a much needed beer before heading back to the Hotel to meet up with Helen and Per (who had found their own way around town) only to discover that Helen had been bitten by a dog. Now you will doubtless remember from part three my mentioning that I never once saw a dog on a lead whilst in Peru. Well I don't think I am being unfair by suggesting that Peru has a feral dog problem. It may be that the dogs that roam the streets of all Peruvian settlements (big and small) have owners and homes to go to but it seems unlikely and if they do have homes they spend very little time in them. Cusco certainly had its fair share of the critters which seemed a little odd as I always got the impression that the Peruvian authorities recognised the value of tourism to their country and tried to take care of tourists. I would have expected them to have employed a dog catcher as the threat of being bitten by an unprovoked canine could put you off a place. Fortunately Helen being a proper Aussie lass (or should that be sheila?) she put a brave face on and didn't let it ruin her day.
After lunch the group split up and I went to find Santo Domingo. This is another Spanish colonial building (a convent I believe) built not only on top of an Inca ceremonial building but also with the same stone. I didn't go to see the Spanish bit though as this fairly mediocre example of the genre is perched on the sturdy curved stone platform that once formed the base of the Qoricancha Temple of the Sun. In front of this is a flat grassy area scattered with sizeable carved stone blocks presumably the plinths on which there once stood gold and silver statues of animals and plants made by the Inca. All gone now. All major Inca centres had a Sun Temple and we would see other unspoiled examples later in the trip but none that would have rivalled this one had it still stood - a pity.
Anyway, for this visit to Cusco that was about it although we would be back there later on. The next day we put our nonessential luggage and souvenirs into the hotel storage and set off on a tour of the 'Sacred Valley'. The Sacred Valley is really just a convenient collective name for a number of Inca archaeological sites running north from Cusco and then west along the Urubamba river valley to Aguas Calientes. The first of the sites we got to was just up on the hilltop overlooking the city. It was called Sacsayhuaman which to English speaking people sounds a bit like 'Sexy Woman' but doesn't mean that. It was a typically beautiful day and as I stepped out of our mini-van onto the pale thin grass and saw before me the great stone walls I felt that at last I had got there. That isn't to say that I hadn't wanted to do all the other things I had done in Peru so far because I had but it has been a long held dream to get to see the Inca ruins and although we had seen small examples earlier in the trip it was only now that I felt I was where I had always wanted to get to. Of course this was just the beginning and the cherry on the cake was to come later in the trip but this was still pretty cool. Sacsayhuaman was originally believed to be a fortress but more recently it has been decided it was a ceremonial centre as buried priests have been discovered and what was thought to be a throne is now though to be an altar. In many ways it is good that so much of it has survived but like all other Inca constructions discovered by the invading Spanish it didn't remain entirely intact. For many years it was used by the new inhabitants of Cusco as a sort of quarry of pre cut stone which means that now the complex of towers and buildings that once stood have been recycled. What remains are three parallel walls over 360m long incorporating 21 bastions. When I say walls though please don't think of what you or I may know as a wall for these were markedly more impressive not to mention massive than any walls I have seen before (sorry Hadrian). The walls are constructed with huge carved boulders, they are not regular even rectangular blocks like bricks, instead all manner of shapes and sizes of boulder are tidied up and carved into the exact shape necessary to fit in between all the other ones with absolute precision. This included some blocks that are estimated to be over 130 tons - not bad going for a nation who only had people power. We were shown around the ruins by our guide for the day and he did his best to recite to us the script he must have had to learn in English to explain the places we visited. Well perhaps I am being a bit harsh on the fellow (who was a nice guy) as he could speak English but when it came to asking questions he didn't seem to understand what we were getting at. Part of the problem he faced however was that surprisingly little is actually known about the Inca or what was left behind when they fell off of the bottom of the worlds list of current civilisations. I have every confidence in the Peruvians (and others besides) to continue to research and scrutinise every Inca thing to surface and maybe in a few more years they will have some more answers, until then I was satisfied just being there pondering the mystery.
Before we moved on from Sacsayhuaman we walked over to the edge of the hill to look at the view of Cusco, I could see the cathedral and the plaza from which the day before I had looked up at the hill I now stood on not then knowing what lay just over it. Something I noticed again about Peruvian towns and cities is that apart from in Lima there are no skyscrapers nor anything even close. Often the churches are the tallest thing around and although these churches are of fairly grand construction they are quite blocky buildings, no tall spires to add to the height. I suppose it is a good thing really considering the attitude they have toward building things and a world without skyscrapers wouldn't be such a bad thing. Anyway, a short drive from Sacsayhuaman was Tambomachay. This was a small but unspoiled spring shrine thought to have been the connected to a water cult. Even after all these years water still flows out of the masonry through the original hidden underground channel then through some open stone channels and into a small rectangular pool at ground level.
From here we carried on northwards to meet the Urubamba river at the town of Pisac. I had lunch (Lomo Saltado again, its good stuff) outside a café in front of the plaza where the market was set up. Pisac wasn't just a lunch stop though as before lunch we headed up the mountainside overlooking the town to find some more Inca rocks. The site at Pisac is quite extensive and can be split into two functional areas but with the amount of time we had there we really only got the highlights of one of these. We saw some more exceptional Inca masonry in the form of curving walls and also some palaces to the sun and moon. From this part of the site, looking across to an adjacent mountainside we could see the other area of ruins. Strategically positioned at the head of the valley affording its inhabitants an excellent view and early warning of any approaching visitors be they friend or foe was an Inca garrison. Beneath the garrison, terraces stretched down the mountain which would at one time have been farmed by hand by those that depended on them for food. Terraces are a common sight in Peru and a feature of Inca civilisation that is sometimes still employed by present day Peruvians. From here there was the longest drive of the day along the course of the Urubamba river to our last stop of the day and also the place we would be staying that night. The town and associated ruins were called Ollantaytambo. Here we climbed up a great many stone steps which ran up the centre of some well preserved terraces to a ruined temple and other buildings on top. Here there was evidence of how the stone blocks were carved and positioned as several lay about unfinished as the workers (who had been brought in from elsewhere) are thought to have deserted the project half way through. From our vantage point on top of the hill we could see down both sides. In one valley there of course lay the town which we were told the Inca had built to represent 'corn' although this was tricky to make out as so much more had been built since then. Beyond the town was a steep craggy mountain on the side of which were more Inca ruins and a natural feature that was supposed to resembled a face but you needed a certain amount of imagination to see it. Moving over to the other side of the hill we could look down onto the flat cultivated land either side of the Urubamba where the field boundaries had been so arranged that from our position it looked like a sort of flat-3D 'pyramid' if you see what I mean. Only a simple optical trick but novel none the less.
And so that was the Sacred Valley, it had been great to be able to walk about in places I had previously only read about or seen on TV even if so far only a little is known about them. There was one more set of Inca ruins however that still beckoned, a place never found or spoiled by the invading Spanish. This place despite its relatively recent discovery is probably as famous to Peru as the pyramids are to Egypt or Ayers Rock is to Australia, which for those of you who haven't guessed already is Machu Picchu. Now, it's possible to get the train to Aguas Calientes from where a bus can be taken up the steep mountainside to the site - easy peasy. Needless to say we wouldn't be doing that because as I mentioned in part one this wasn't some five star cushion class tour, oh no, instead the next day at 8am we were to get in another mini-van to drive to a place commonly known as 'kilometre 88' from where we would begin to walk there on the Inca Trail. Not that I'm complaining as I wouldn't have wanted to get there any other way.
As it turned out when the time to leave arrived the (only) road there was closed for repairs and while we waited for them to open it again we sat outside a café in the sunshine beneath the terraces drinking coca tea and speculating on what lay ahead. The story of which I shall endeavour to relate to you in part six of my Amazing Adventures.
David.