Just over 24 hours until I fly off from Lima to San Fransisco. Then, it’s just under a week until I get my feet back on British soil. Ah, I’ve got to say I’m almost counting down the hours and minutes now. I’m looking back on my time in South America happily on the whole. However, Peru has kind of pounded away at my spirit and my strength, and it feels like a bit of a shame that this country is the finale to my almost complete circuit of the continent. Don’t get me wrong, things like Colca Canyon and Machu Picchu were wonderful, I’ve had some laughs and good times here, and I have met some likeable and seemingly trustworthy Peruvians. I’m afraid to say I can probably count them on the fingers of one hand, though – and, in general, they seem like a few small and gentle fish in a sea otherwise full of hungry and scheming sharks intent on tourist exploitation. Maybe I’ve just been unlucky, I don’t know, but after a week in and around Cusco I’ve lost count of the times people have tried to scam me or rip me off, and it’s wearing my patience thin. My determination in terms of standing up for myself also feels diminished, but it hasn’t been completely quashed quite yet.
The latest in a string of incidents was booking what I thought was a ‘cama’ class ticket for my bus journey from Cusco to Lima (seeing as it will be my last epic bus journey in Latin America, I thought I’d splash out a bit and do the 20 hour journey in comfort). I made what I now realise was the mistake of booking this through the hostel where I was staying, though, foolishly assuming that things would be above board. And what did I discover when I got to the bus station yesterday? Only that the shady operators of the joint had evidently gone and pocketed the best part of the 155 soles I paid them, bought me a cheaper ‘semi-cama’ ticket, and artfully placed a sticker over the part of the ticket where its true value was printed. The operators of the bus company were quite sympathetic about it, and pretty indignant that they had been caught up in the scam. However, there was nothing they could do about my seat. All the ‘cama’ places were occupied so I’ve had to settle for ‘semi-cama’ and spend my final bus journey here bouncing around on a broken seat, with garish Andean pan-pipe music assaulting my ears, and an earwig crawling up and down my armrest as a travelling companion. I’ve also been crossing my legs to avoid having to use the chemical toilet where the ‘solo para urinar’ (‘only for peeing’) rule has clearly been ignored by my fellow passengers (evidence of this is floating around in, and splattered against the sides of, the toilet bowl I’m afraid – yuk!).
Oh well, I guess this brings things to an authentic close in terms of my travels around this part of the world, and I’m sure I’ll look back and laugh about it at some point! At present, though, I’m still feeling a bit aggrieved at being taken advantage of. The nice ‘bus stewardess’ encouraged me to write a report on exactly what happened in the hostel (good practice for my Spanish, I suppose) so that the bus company can investigate the matter and try to stamp out similar incidents in the future. She also said I should go to the tourist police in Lima to tell them all about it (the poor woman did seem genuinely dismayed about what had happened to me, and concerned that it would tarnish my impressions of Peru – which I assured her it wouldn’t completely). I’m not sure if I can be bothered with all of this, though, as it seems highly unlikely that I’ll get my money back, or that anything much will happen. What I will do, though, is very publicly discourage any other travellers from staying in Hostal Resbalosa in Cusco, the dodgy bus ticket being just one of many shifty, suspect and generally not-so-great things about it. One positive thing is that Viva have asked me to write some more travel reviews for them, and therefore this will give me a platform to vent my spleen a bit more about the place and hopefully prevent the same thing happening to anyone else. I know vengefulness is not a particularly pleasant trait, but it is a natural and impulsive one, and I do have a healthy and slightly conniving streak of it in me. If anyone crosses me, or takes me for a fool, I certainly don’t forget about it, and maybe a bit of bad press will hit those scamsters at the hostel where it hurts…. Ha!
Anyway, on to happier things, I really did enjoy my 4–day Machu Picchu trek that started on Thursday morning, and it still makes me smile and laugh to think back upon it. I was lucky enough to have a great group – two very entertaining Australian guys, Rory and Sam, who were cousins, two Irish chicks, Ciara and Claire, and an older Chilean guy called Antonio, who used to be a cabaret singer on cruise ships, and who occasionally warbled away to himself as we walked. Our guide, Silvio, with his wide smile and genuinely happy boyish nature, was also excellent, and one of the handful of Peruvians I came across in the tourism industry who wasn’t out to take people for a ride (unlike his company, Land Adventures, who tried to overcharge me 25 bucks on the pre-agreed price of the tour, thinking I wouldn’t notice, and that I’d be fine about it! Anyway, that’s enough of me grumbling…).
The first day started with us biking about 50 kilometres down some of the impressive mountainous slopes around Cusco into a small town called Santa Maria - literally cycling through the clouds at the highest and chilliest altitudes down into sun-kissed valleys where all sorts of pretty wild flowers were tangled amidst the bushes on either side of the path. Then, the next morning, after an early night in a simple but perfectly adequate ‘hospedaje’, it was up at 6.00am to start an 18 kilometre trek that would pick up parts of the Inca Trail and take us to our ‘reward’ for the day – some hot springs where we would be able to sit and soak our weary limbs in naturally warm waters. The trek was great – not as arduous as the week before in the Colca Canyon, but taking us through equally magnificent (although totally different – much greener) scenery. This was not a hike for anyone with vertigo, for at points we were walking along very narrow ledges with vast abysses beneath us. At times I felt a bit nervous and light-headed, but on the whole I was fine. The only things that really bothered me that day were the sandflies and mosquitoes who decided to feast on my flesh in spite of me liberally spritzing myself with repellent (English blood must be particularly good stuff as they weren’t too interested in my trekking companions). I’ve now got loads of lovely scabby bite-marks all over my body to match my receding shingles spots, so I’m not looking or feeling at my most attractive, and I’m also itching like hell. Nevermind, though, I’ve heard they fade away quite soon...
The hot springs were wonderful (and a lot cleaner and nicer than those ones I went to in Venezuela!) and afterwards we bussed into another small village called Santa Teresa. Here we spent the rest of the evening, after a good dinner (the food included in the trip was great), imbibing pisco sours in a local bar. Claire made the accurate observation that pisco sours taste rather like alcoholic lemon meringue pie, and she couldn’t have been more spot-on. Frothy, tart, lemony and sweet, they really are delicious, and it is easy to drink far too many, which is, of course, what we did. Getting up the next day for another early morning start was a bit of a struggle, but actually day 3 wasn’t too challenging, and by late afternoon we were in Aguas Calientes – the enchanting and quite mystical little town at the base of Machu Picchu, which is literally surrounded by dizzyingly steep mountains and clouds.
Getting up to the actual Inca settlement of Machu Picchu itself is a bit of a trial as there are so many tourists trying to do it every day that the buses to the entrance get very crowded (you can walk from Aguas Calientes but we decided to save our strength for the mountain itself). Silvio advised us to get in the queue for the first bus just after 5.00am so it was a very anti-social start, especially considering we were all quite tired from the last couple of days walking. The words of the guide who gave us a 2 ½ hour tour around the site pretty much went in one ear and out of the other for me, I must confess, as my heavy eyelids kept fluttering, and I couldn’t stop myself from dozing off (he was a bit monotonous, which didn’t help). However, seeing Machu Picchu close up was nothing compared to the spectacle of gazing down on it from afar, where the planning and architectural skills of the Incas could best be appreciated. After we had gathered our strength together again, my little group and I hiked up to a place called the ‘sun entrance’, where you could get the finest views down onto the settlement. Here we relaxed in the sun for a while, and the Ozzie boys pulled out a bottle of rum which we used to toast our trekking achievements, and with which we made a small offering to ‘Pacchamama’ (mother earth) along with some coca leaves donated by Antonio. Then, feeling happy and relaxed, the Irish girls produced a certain something for us all to share a few puffs of in order to make our descent back down the mountain path a bit more giggly and fun. It certainly did that! I’m not sure I’d totally recommend climbing down Machu Picchu having been at the old ‘herbalicious’. It was definitely interesting, though – suddenly seeming all at once like the funniest, scariest and most surreal experience of my life (and the longest – although it only took about 45 minutes, it felt like we’d been walking ever since the Incas built the darn settlement!). The general sense of strangeness and spookiness was further augmented, believe it or not, by us actually witnessing a llama giving birth en-route! Yep, I checked this out with my trekking mates when we got to the bottom and got back to being our normal selves – we really had all watched that happen! All I remember was seeing a really fat llama (about twice the width of a normal one) and then noticing that two hooves and a little nose were poking out of its, er, rear end. A baby llama then slid out in a mucusy-membrane and was on its tiny feet stumbling about in next to no time. What a small miracle to have observed in such a sacred place?! It was a bit of a freaky sight to behold in the state that I was in, that’s for sure (and I know my parents and some of their friends are reading this – so I’d like to stress that I don’t make a habit of this kind of thing, I only do it very occasionally!) but it was amazing nonetheless, watching a new life come into this crazy world on the hills behind an old Inca settlement.
So, I couldn’t have asked for more fun over the weekend and I hope that once I’ve linked up again with the members of ‘Team Baby Llama’ (as we named ourselves!) on Facebook, I’ll be able to get hold of some of the photos that they took on our little adventure. As you can see, I managed a few days ago to upload some of the Colca Canyon weekend, and some of my final days at the school in Arequipa, thanks to Amanda, and these compliment my last entry.
Thinking back to Arequipa, it was somewhat sad saying goodbye to everyone in the ‘casa’ there last week (I’m now realising how much has happened in the space of 7 days, and how it’s been a while since I last wrote anything). Although parts of it were a bit exasperating in an oh-so-familiar way (dirty pans with dried pasta stuck to them cluttering the sink, people ‘borrowing’ your toothpaste and leaving the lid off), I did really enjoy the experience of living in a big shared house just as I did back at university, and then again in London in my early twenties. On my last night there, in true ‘student style’, I remember sitting around the big dining room table with the others, having endless and rambling conversations about the childhood chocolate bars and sweets of our homelands (us Brits were lamenting the way Crème eggs kept diminishing in size, and how Kit Kats no longer came in foil wrappers – for the Australians it was more pining for Tim-Tams). Then the subject matter for discussion shifted to the perpetually amusing issue of funnily named products in foreign supermarkets. Peru pretty much tops it in terms of anywhere that I have been recently, and the others tended to agree with me – where else can you start your day with a breakfast consisting of ‘Fanny’ jam and ‘Horniman’ tea (if you thought Fanny jam was bad, I’m afraid to say Fanny is a whole foodstuffs range and you can unfortunately also get Fanny tuna!)?! Very juvenile, I know, but this kind of thing had us sniggering away and at the end of the evening tears of laughter were rolling down my cheeks…
So, Peru has meant a mixture of states of being for me – ranging from hilarity and hedonism, to feeling taken advantage of, tense, and tetchy. Along the way, as with other South American state, there have been even more helpings of dramatic natural and man-made splendour, and plenty of warm human encounters that, in general, surpass the not-so-friendly and antipathic ones. I’m thinking primarily of the kids at the school when I speak of this warmth, as their innocence and spontaneity really shone through, perhaps more when I was just twirling a skipping rope in the playground with them, or helping them to make mud-pies, than when I was actually teaching them. Warmth and humanity also brings to mind the great massage I had after the Colca Canyon trek at an institute for the blind in Arequipa, where they train blind people in massage therapy. The guy who gave me an hour long 15 sol (£3) massage was fantastic, and seemed to have honed his missing sense of sight into an astonishingly accurate sense of intuition about just where I was aching (principally the bottom of my calves and around my shoulder blades) and pretty much how I was feeling (usually I switch off when I’m having a massage, but somehow I found myself chatting away about my life to this guy in Spanish as he kneaded away all my knots of tension). That experience touched me in more ways than one and, thank-goodness, I think to myself as I draw towards the end of my journey, I have two eyes and have been able to see all the wonderful things I’ve seen on this trip with them.
Hopefully I’ll get the chance to write a few more entries between now and the big blast back to reality when I land at Gatwick next week. Keep reading if you’ve followed me this far, not so long to go now. I feel a bit like I did when I ran my first marathon the year before last – pretty worn out, still enjoying it, but, with the end in sight, longing to cross the finish line.
|
