Deepest Darkest Peru

Deepest Darkest Peru

Having successfully completed the Inca Trail (kind of...) and hence the essential Gringo experience of Peru, I figured it was time to explore a little further into deepest, darkest Peru, to get out of Cusco for a while if nothing else. Whilst I was disappointed in the ensuing weeks not to run into a single talking bear (let alone one with a trenchcoat and a liking for marmalade sandwiches) I did however make a number of other discoveries during my two week road trip around the southern half of Peru such as the benefits of valiumon long bus trips, the potency of donkey flatulence, and the disturbing malleability of human skulls amongst other things which I will endeavour to describe in the following entry.

Above are all photos taken during the Santa Cruz trek in Cordillera Blanca.

When hastily cobbling together a rough itinerary for this trip the night before departing, I may have been a tad adventurous and dismissive of a few logistical obstacles that were to cause much discomfort and require military efficiency and execution to achieve. Primarily I refer to the distances involved to traverse half a country that is 5 times the size of Great Britain. First up, a lazy 21 hour bus ride back to Lima where I enjoyed a respite of some 2 hrs before boarding another 8 hr ride to the first destination on my list, Huaraz, the gateway to the Cordillera Blanca national park. Fortunately I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of buses, at least those servicing the gringo rich centres such as Cusco, Titicaca and Lima. Quite a holiday in themselves with food, wine, movies, "relaxing ambient music for a relaxing ambience" (as one bus company eloquently boasted), and best of all the coche cama, or the fully reclining bed seat with which I was to have a love affair that continued throughout my travels in South America.

More scenes from the Santa Cruz trek.

Huaraz and the Cordillera Blanca are quite the adventure hubs with hiking being the order of the day, or days (4 to be exact) in my case. I had heard incredible reports from other travellers waxing lyrically with dreamy reflection about hiking the most accessible trail in the region, the Santa Cruz loop which follows a path amongst some of the highest and most spectacular mountains in all of the Andes. If anything, I think the reports I received may have understated just how good this trek is.

(Left) From the first day of the trek through the valley approaching Punta Union.

Having had no time to waste, I set off the morning after my late-night arrival with the first company I found, or at least the first company I had forced in my face upon stepping off the bus. Despite my hardline bargaining, I was pretty annoyed to find I had paid $20 more than some others in my group. Having paid $20 more, I was thus further annoyed to discover that they had not packed enough tents, and being the only single male, I was shunted to the cramped supply tent with both the guide and donkey leader, who not surprisingly for one who walks behind donkeys all day for a living, permeated quite a pungent odour through the tent.

Glacial lake (above) and below is me in front of a big mountain if it needed any explaining.

This was particularly unfortunate due to the fact that, with no light source of substance, we were forced to retire soon after the sun set behind the mountains towering around us and were not to emerge from our cocoons for some 12 hours every night (I fortunately had slightly less time to kill as I had to wait until the stove was finished with and removed to make way for my "bed").

Every campsite was brilliant, I didn't mind so much waiting outside for the cooking to be done when I was able to enjoy views such as this at every camp.

Fortunately the other 12 hours of the day more than made up for the tedium of hours vainly attempting to find a half comfortable position so as allow even a skerrick of sleep. The whole trek was absolutely spectacular and often reminded me of the amazing treks in Nepal, the diversity of environments encountered being very similar to the Annapurna circuit, only compressed into 4 days as opposed to 16. Lush vegetation, beautiful lakes and expansive valleys made way for cracking glaciers and towering peaks as we ascended over the high pass of Punta Union and more beautiful valleys with paths winding adjacent to crystal clear streams awaited us again on the other side. Absolutely stunning....

Above is a side trip we did to the glacial lake and below is the valley through whence we came.

An interesting little aside which gives further evidence of the park's natural beauty, which I have yet to confirm beyond doubt, is that we walked around a peak by the name of Artesonraju, a beautiful mountain which supposedly is the same mountain as seen in the famous logo of Paramount Pictures, the one with the stars that circle it just before a film starts.

(Above) The Paramount mountain? It kind of looks like it, would help if the stars were there.

One of the many nice places at which to take a break.

Unfortunately the notion of a four day trek is a bit misleading as I was disappointed to discover our last day consisted of barely an hour of humid, sweaty slog through thick vegetation, (an inconcievable thought having been colder than a brass monkey's only the day before) which we completed by 9am. Having been told we were not arrive back in Huaraz (not even 100km away) until late that evening, we were slightly stumped as to how we could take that long to get back.

Our donkey friends, slightly stinky but very friendly and overly inquisitive. Will eat anything in your hands.

Peruvian timing and punctuality of course played their significant part (some 5 hours of waiting on the side of the road) but considering the nature of the road required to be traversed, I was more than happy for the driver to take his time and utilise all of his concentration and (hopefully) extensive experience. Absolutely terrifying but exhilarating without doubt, the road kept winding up and up until one thought we may drive straight over the summit of Huascaran, which at 6768m, is the second highest mountain in all of the Andes.

The valley on the other side of the pass at Punta Union.

The descent from the high pass of nearly 5000m, was even worse, a single lane, two-way road that only barely hugged the incredibly steep slope of the mountain and wound down for a vertical drop of over a kilometre. The road was so narrow at the hairpin switch-back turns that when looking out the window, I could see the front tyre passing within millimetres of the edge. Hair-raising stuff for sure but we safely made it back to Huaraz. Two hours late.

Scenes from the ultimate and most green day.

Unfortunately I have no photos of this particular road as our designated photographer of the group (my camera was stored away in my pack on the roof) had his camera stolen in that evening in one of the most deft pieces of thievery I have yet encountered. Whilst eating at the flashiest polleria (omnipresent chicken restaurants) in town, some little devil managed to dash off with a bag slung over my mate's chair, which he was not only sitting on at the time, but which two of us were facing directly when it occurred. Writing of pollerias, I think Peru would probably implode if bird flu were ever to strike the country, chicken and chicken restaraunts are positively everywhere, and being that a half chicken, salad, chips, drink and desert will cost you about $2.50, I ate at them far more often than my weak stomach wished of me.

This isn't my photo, I pinched it from the web but is the same road we descended in the van.

Next stop, via another overnight bus (in 12 days I slept in a tent 3 nights, and a bus 5 nights... thankfully I discovered valium during the course of these relentless travels and have been dependent ever since) was the town of coastal town of Pisco. Pisco doesn't really have a lot going for it unless you like dried fish, or particularly the smell of it which is unsuprisingly potent considering there are drying beds that line the highway in and out of town. It is however a popular point for tourists due to its proximity to Islas Ballestas, a small island only a few kilometres off the coast of Pisco which has been dubbed the "poor man's Galapagos". As I fitted that bill quite nicely, I figured it was worth forking out my 25 sol (about $10 as opposed to a typical $1000 Galapagos trip) for a brief but fascinating boat trip.

Lots of seals and birds. Below is the "famous" candelabra, supposedly made many hundreds of years ago but just looks like the work of a bunch of Peruvians with shovels to me.

Well if value for money was to be measured by the amount of seals and birds on display, I dare say I picked up a pretty fair deal. The birds were so numerous as to give the entire craggy island a splotchy black coat, such was their density. The seals were similarly prevalent and not only clogged the limited beach areas, but were lazing on any available piece of flat rock and yet still the water around our boat seemed to be crowded with them. Quite the nature-lover's delight.

Like the Gold Coast during school holidays.

Immediately following the return to dry land, a short bus trip whisked me away to Ica, another entirely unappealing town again with only the attraction as I far as I could gather being its proximity to my desired destination of Huacacina. Flat, barren desert plains surrounded us as we drove into Ica but a hard right, another 3 or 4 km over a sand dune or two and suddenly I found myself in the middle of the most stereotypical desert oasis I could have imagined.

Huacacina at dusk.

Huacacina (the oasis) is a great place to do nothing and take in the surroundings, but as ever on a tight budget of time, I immediately signed up to partake of the most popular activity in town; sandboarding the monstrous dunes. Thankfully we were chauffeured to the appropriate spot avoiding the need to trudge deliriously up each slope (after attempting to ascend only a pathetically small dune, I have decided against ever getting myself lost in a desert) but I had been expecting a tranquil ride, a ferry service of sorts that would just take us back to the top a few times. I was thus pleasantly surprised upon the discovery that our ferry was in fact a very loud and very fast beast of a dune buggy complete with roll cage and completely manic driver.

A fine place to chill, my American mate Dave contemplates a crossword puzzle.

Slightly terrifying at times when our driver nearly lost it several times on the steep slopes, but it was unbelievably fun to tear up a massive dune and teeter on the lip before plummeting down a 60 degree slope at ridiculous speeds, much like a rollercoaster but without the assurance that you would stay on the rail... We had so much fun burning around the dunes that we barely got a few runs completed on the sandboard. 'Twas sufficient however to humiliate myself with the most inept display of co-ordination of our group and to lodge fine sand in every imaginable orifice that remained for days.

Dave, his girlfriend Vanessa and me aboard our dune beast.

By this stage I was lacking a little culture in my activities diet so I headed along the Ica museum, supposedly a treasure-trove of pre-Incan and Incan artefacts. Was slightly disappointed to discover many of the displays were actually empty except for a tag describing in spanish what I could only assume used to be there. In some cases, colour photos were on display of various tapestries and rugs that had also "used" to have been there but were stolen.

The dunes surrounding Huacacina, like a scene out of Star Wars. Unfortunately, even out in the middle of the dunes there was still garbage everywhere.

Thankfully the exorbitant entry fee for a relatively artefact-free museum was not entirely wasted due to the disturbing array of deformed and mutilated shrunken heads and various other mummified remains. I wouldn't be surprised if the creators of the Alien movie franchise took inspiration from some of the skulls on display, it really is quite disturbing what results when a wooden board is strapped to the forehead from birth....

The volcano El Misti that dwarves the city of Arequipa on the other side.

Anyways, with the museum done and hence all activities available in Ica exhausted, I was off to Arequipa. I was filthy to discover no Coche Cama was available and was hence forced to slum it with the locals on a regular seat that barely reclined even 45 degrees. Barbaric. Seats aside, it was arguably the worst bus trip ever as not only was the bus overflowing its capacity, so to was the mid-section of the overly rotund gentleman sitting next to me, crushing me against the window with his bulk. So 13 hours of no toilets, dubbed movies, sweltering temperatures, a snoring walrus as my neighbour all resulted in a particularly forgettable experience. Once again valium saved my sanity.

Scene from the drive out to the Cañon del Colca.

I nevertheless arrived safely in Arequipa, a beautiful colonial town which boasts beautiful architecture, easily summited 6000m peaks in the immediate vicinity and the far less physically challenging opportunity to park your arse on a ubiquitious tour bus for a tour out to the Cañon del Colca, the premier location for viewing condors, arguably the ugliest bird/animal/thing on the planet. I of course chose the later as I still had some sort of preoccupation with seeing some condors in the wild, probably a result of watching Cities of Gold too much as a kid. I can say the golden condor is infinitely prettier than the real thing....

Above was about as close as I got to a Condor. Still, it was spectacular scenery.

To be honest, I'm not really sure why everyone lists the Cañon del Colca as a must do, you basically drive for the 2 days there and back to sneak an hour or two at the canyon (admittedly a spectacular one, debate continues as to whether it is in fact the world's deepest) where you might see a dozen of the incredibly ugly things flying about in the distance. I think we saw about 8 and everyone was pretty stoked but having seen hundreds of vultures (which look very much like condors, only slightly smaller) a few months previously in Kenya and Tanzania, I felt an overwhelming sense of being underwhelmed. Very pretty area however and the I'll never tire of drinking a cold beer in a hot spring as we were fortunate enough to include in the tour.

Me about 20m down the canyon. Only about 2000m more to go.

With an impending departure date for Bolivia rapidly approaching I was forced to hightail it back to Cusco upon arriving back in Arequipa from the canyon, thus bringing my tour de Peru to an end. Fortunately I was back in business with a full cama seat but all that greasy polleria dining came back to haunt me as I probably spent most of the journey on the white porcelain seat downstairs which didn't even recline at all...

Another American friend Libby from the canyon tour trying out a Peruvian specialty, fried guinea pig. You can still see it's little claw all covered with fur in her left hand.

Til next time.