Machu Picchu in all its glory

Adventures in Peru

I took a week break from slaving away at the office and headed to Peru last week. It’s not too hard seeing as I live only 2 hours from the border.

The first stop was Cusco, the ancient capital of the Incas to start the Inca Trail. The trail traverses mountains and has several high passes (4200, 3900 & 3650 meters), and the second day is a 1200 meter climb, but the porters run up and down it (mostly in sandals) so they can set up lunch with tents and all – quite impressive. The trail itself is a marvel of engineering – it is still well preserved despite being constructed almost a thousand years ago, and being lost in the jungle for almost 500 years. The steps they carved into the rock are almost as amazing as the scenery itself. I woke up 2 hours before sunrise with 2 Slovenian friends so we could be the first people to Machu Picchu. We had a good hour of peace before all the tourists that stayed in the hotel and the nearby town invaded. Being alone at Machu Picchu was better than I could ever have imagined. It’s simply magical.

Then I took the overnight and painfully monotonous bus to Nasca through the desert and down a seemingly endless valley. Nasca is a tiny hole in the wall town that is only famous for the Nasca Lines, which are lines and shapes of animals carved into the earth between 2,000 and 1,000 years ago that can only be seen from the sky, and hence were only discovered after modern air travel about 50 years ago. The lines are all the more amazing because from the ground they are scarcely visible – they just look like someone moved a few rocks out of the way. After that I went to the Nasca cemetery, which is also pre-Inca, and was very surprised at how impressive the site was. It’s in the middle of nowhere in the desert with a few excavated tombs that have mummies in them. Apparently the Nascans mummified everyone, and the mummies are just sitting out in the open only a few feet from reach – perfectly preserved because of the dryness off the desert. They were first found about 70 years ago and then they had a major problem with grave robbers so the entire site is littered with bones and pottery. Literally everywhere you walk you can see all different bones, ancient broken pottery, and pieces of textiles other mummies were wrapped in. You would have to see it to believe it. I don’t think there could be anything like that anywhere else in the world.

Then to Arequipa for a 3 day hike into the Colca Canyon, the 2nd deepest canyon in the world and over 100 meters deeper than the Grand Canyon (the deepest is only 50 kms away). After that I stopped at Puno on the way home and saw their famous “floating islands”. There are about 30 manmade islands that people have created with dried reeds. They’re only about 1 meter deep and they have to remake them (as in put down more reeds) every 3 months because the reeds disintegrate and sink, and they have to remake their houses (also made of reeds) every 6 months to a year – not my idea of the ideal place to live!