Landed in Lima after an excruciatingly long flight from Madrid (11 hours). The longest flight i’d ever done before this was Delhi-London and this one was (naturally) even more painful. I tried all sorts of things to keep myself occupied - walked around, tried to sleep, fidgeted, tried to watch the movie, got bored, tried to count sheep, looked out of the window, read a book but the bloody time just wouldn’t pass.
A third of Peru’s population lives in Lima. The hub of downtown Lima is the Plaza de Armas (as I was to later find out, that is the name of the main square in every city/town in Peru). Lima’s Plaza de Armas has the Palacio de Gobierno (President’s residence) and La Catedral de Lima. It was here (Plaza de Armas) that a certain Francisco Pizarro established a settlement in the 16th Century (which was to later become Lima).
I stayed (just one night) in the seaside neighbourhood of Miraflores (‘Look at the flowers’) which is the modern hub of Lima, and has wide avenues with beautiful houses. I had planned to spend more time in Lima on my way out of Peru. What struck me about Lima were the large colonial houses with beautiful balconies. And there are a high number of VW Beetles on the roads (not only in Lima, but all across Peru). An interesting fact about Lima is that it NEVER rains there. The last time it rained was in the 1960s – and that too for a spectacular 20 minutes!
From Lima, I took a short (1 hour) flight to Arequipa which is Peru’s second largest city. The city lies under the gaze of three volcanoes – El Misti (5822m), Chachani (6075m), and Pichhu Pichhu (5571m). As always, the centre of town is the large Plaza de Armas which is bounded by a majestic catedral on one side. The city is often known as Ciudad Blanca (‘White city’) because of the white volcanic rock (sillar) used for the city’s buildings. Since the city lies in an earthquake-prone zone it is very flat with hardly any multi-storeyed structures – apparently there are tremors every day!!!
Visited the covered San Camillo market where one could buy just about everything from meats to flowers to fruits. There was one shop selling herbal remedies including a box with herbs for treating inflammation of the ovaries – guess who was on the label? Aishwarya Rai Bachhan!
The Museo Santuary houses the mummy of ‘Juanita’ - the frozen body of a young Inca girl who was sacrificed about 500 years ago on the peak of Ampato volcano. However this mummy is not on display from January to April so we had to make do with the frozen body of another sacrificed girl (‘Sarita’) found on the same volcano. Her hair and skin was intact (as her body had remained frozen on the volcano’s slopes.
Monastario de Santa Catalina (a 16th century monastery for cloistered nuns) – the monastery now used by very few nuns was awash in bright reds and blues and had flowers everywhere. It was very easy to get lost in this huge monastery (which is a city in itself). Outside the monastery was a very gregarious traffic policeman who talked to everyone (in very exaggerated tones) to everyone who was passing on his streets. With his large hat he made quite a sight and was happily posing for tourists like me!
The Peruvian countryside is full of interesting animals. We got to see horses, cows, Vizcachas (wee rabbits), guinea pigs, and all varieties of camelids - there are 4 main kinds of camelids – Vicunya and Guanaco (wild); Alpaca and Llama (domesticated) – we managed to see many of them throughout out travels in Peru especially in the region between Arequipa and Chivay (near Colca Canyon). On the way to Chivay, the road passed through Patapampa pass which is at 4910 m (I was worried about altitude sickness – and I did end up getting a headache the first day but after that even though we were in the 3400-4000m range it seemed to be ok). Of course I kept on filling myself with Coca leaves tea (not a drug, as Peruvians like to remind you. Really?).
Colca Canyon is the second deepest canyon in the world (twice the size of the so-called Grand Canyon) and apart from the spectacular views one also gets to see condors in flight. The drive to the canyon was very scenic with strategically placed clouds in the sky and snow-clad mountains in the background. The idyllic scene was completed by streams and terraced fields with an assortment of horses and cows.
Our first stop was the Mirador Cruz del Condor (a viewpoint) below which are the condor nests – hence it is the best place for condor sighting. However when we reached there it was awash in clouds and we could see neither the valley nor any condors. We hung around for about an hour and a half and got see nothing but clouds.
We then moved on towards Cabanaconde and on the way we stopped at a couple of places from where we finally got to see the condors in flight. It is, to use a cliché, a sight to behold – to watch these graceful birds glide around in the sky looking for carrion and other food (they eat dead or dying meat).
We had lunch at Cabanaconde, a back-of-beyond town which backpackers use as a base to trek in the Colca Canyon. On our way back we stopped again at the Mirador Cruz and got to see more Condors. All in all we had about 15-20 condor sightings that day (we were far more successful than we thought we would be when we were waiting for that hour and a half and staring at the clouds at Mirador Cruz).
During our time there, there was some sort of a carnival going on. No one seemed to know or care what the carnival was for. There would be very colourful processions around the main town square (people in finery followed by a band that would play the same rhythm again and again and again and again. In Chivay, we saw the procession at around 5 in the evening and could hear them throughout the night (till about 7 in the morning). This long duration of this repetitive (but catchy music) was obviously facilitated by the beer crates that were being carted around behind the procession. Though these processions were great to watch, there was an unfortunate side effect – teenagers would go around with spray cans of foam and would spray them on each other. Even tourists were fair game. We were caught in the worst of such ‘foam fights’ on Lima street in Puno. Just to walk from one side of the street to the other was like entering a war zone as there would be teenagers covered from head to toe in foam ready to spray it on anyone. I managed to escape untainted.
The drive from Chivay to Puno (7 hours) passed through Patapampa again (no headache this time – I guess I had acclimatised by then). Patapampa is replete with wee stone towers (stones placed one atop another) – these apachetas are supposed to bring good luck to those who build them . From Patapampa one can see any number of volcanoes – El Misti, Ampato, Hualca Hualca, and Sabancaya. We had a nice picnic by the lake Lagunillas where we saw flamingos and ducks lazing around in the waters.
Just before Puno we visited a pre-Inca-cum-Inca burial site at Sillustani (along lake Umayu). Incas believed in three worlds – the world of the Gods represented by the Condor, the human world represented by the Puma, and the underworld represented by the snake. These burial sites had tall (about 12 m) cylindrical towers where the families placed their dead. These towers had a wee entrance facing the east. The mummies were placed after their stomachs and internal organs were removed (to prevent decay). Besides burials, the Incas also carried out animal sacrifices there to appease the Gods – black Llamas were sacrificed and their hearts taken out, burned, and buried. A practice which is carried on even today when a new house is constructed – they sacrifice a Llama or an Alpaca and burn the heart and bury it in a corner of the house for good luck.
Puno is situated on the edge of Lake Titicaca (which is one of the highest navigable fresh-water lakes in the world and is shared by Peru and Bolivia). We went onto the lake to the Uros Islands which are ‘floating’ Islands made of reed. The islanders use blocks of reed on which strips of reed are placed to create the floating islands. It felt a bit odd to walk on these islands knowing that they were simply ‘floating’ on the water (which was around 20 metres deep there). There are 47 such inhabited islands with 6-7 families on each island. The women wore colourful dresses (perhaps for the visiting tourists) and some families even had solar panels!
At Puno, we also saw the steam-ship Yavari (built in the 1860s) – it was put together using around 2600 pieces that were transported from Britain to Peru by ship and then carried piece by piece inland to the lake where it was assembled. The pieces had to be designed in such a way that they could be carried by mule (the whole process of carrying the pieces inland took 6 years).
Our sightseeing in Puno done, we took the train from Puno to Cusco which was a luxury train (‘Andean Explorer’). Most of the train journey was over 3400m (with a maximum of 4300m). It was a very plush train with wooden panelling and brass fittings and old-style lamps. The last carriage of the train had a very comfortable bar with a nice brass viewing platform. I was expecting Monsieur Hercule Poirot to be lurking about somewhere but unfortunately he did not make an appearance. When the train passed through Juliaca it went through a crowded market that made way for the train as every one folded their tables / stalls away. And the moment the train passed, they immediately brought their stalls back on the track! Ofcourse, since it was carnival time, kids were throwing water and spraying foam onto the people on the viewing platform (I managed to save my camera from the relentless onslaught!). Even though the train journey was 10 hours long it passed very quickly as they plied us with live Andean music, a fashion show, and Pisco sours (including a class on how-to). The highest point was at La Raya (where the train stopped for about ten minutes – there was an obligatory souvenir and local crafts market. After La Raya the scenery changed dramatically – there were lush green mountains and a river (Rio Vilcanota) ran alongside the train track throughout the rest of the journey before we reached Cuzco (the heart of Inca country).
Cuzco onwards in the next post.
Tastes
- Pisco sour – a cocktail made of Pisco (an extremely strong alcohol made from grapes) with lime, egg white, sugar, and bitter. Very potent!
- Most ‘touristy’ restaurants in Peru have a Pena show – a kind of cabaret where they even call upon the tourists to take part (including making the men wear skirts etc. – fortunately I was spared that indignity. Though I was called upon to take part in a chuc-cho dance where I was whipped!)
- Food was not easy – most of it is meat (Alpaca meat, which tasted quite nice, is low on cholesterol). I survived mainly on dieta de pollo (a very tasty chicken soup).
- Inca Kola is a drink far more popular than coke/pepsi. Though it had a not-so-pleasant colour, it tasted really nice.
- Rocoto is probably the spiciest chilli i’ve ever tried.
