Stefan and I are back from Peru. I was hoping to post while I was there but when we were near internet facilities I didn’t have the time. When I had the time we were near the end of the world. A couple hours of electricity a day. Something akin to food riots to fight for the available charging spots. I sent a quick email message to Lise to post for me but it took four days for her to get it.
Capturing this experience succinctly in words just isn’t possible. Too many thought streams. Plus over 1300 pictures to process. This may be a series of posts hitting on different themes.
Essentially we hit four areas; the cloud forest, the Inca Trail, the jungle, and Inca sights around Cusco and the Sacred Valley. Everything wrapped within the remains of the Inca culture. Books can and have been written about all of these and I doubt I can do them justice in a blog post.
There’s something about any exotic locale. Sights, sounds and smells we just don’t have back in Okemos. Things that seem exotic to us but I guess are the normal course of affairs to those that live there. Like insane driving. Apparently the car horn is a sign of masculinity in Peru. The double yellow line is strictly a guideline.
Fruits at the market.
Two way street our hotel is on.
A car entering the street our hotel is on. You go through the far left archway and make a real hard left turn. Then proceed uphill. Unless someone is coming downhill and they honked their horn first.
Apparently some people don’t like horns.
So we ate some interesting things. Like Guinea Pig and Llama. Llama steaks were pretty good. You could cut off a piece and bite into it. The Guinea Pig was a little different. It comes out decorated but then they whack it into quarters for you. You have to pull it apart with your hands to get to any bite sized morsels. Not unlike eating crabs but the crabs taste better. Not that Guinea Pig tasted bad for a rodent. On the Pets as Food scale I would rate it under cat but above dog. Yes, I have sampled both protein sources. It’s just that Guinea Pig is hard to eat. I think the best thing to do would be to boil it down for scrapple. Then at least you can slice it and fry it for breakfast.
Dinner is served.
I have no idea of the significance of the garnishments.
Bon appetit
The cloud forest was great. Few places on earth have the same combination of elevation, climate, and moisture. Or the number of bird species. We got something like 130 bird species there. Some of them quite strange.
Why it’s called the cloud forest.
The bump on the tree (dead center) is an Andean Pootoo. It hides by sitting in plain sight and looking like a stick.
Cock of the rock (Galletos de la Roches), Peru’s national bird.
We did the Inca Trail. Part of a pathway established over 500 years ago to link Cusco to the holy city of Machu Picchu. This trail is part of a large Inca Trail network that stretched throughout the Inca Empire. The high point, Dead Woman’s Pass, is at an elevation of 4,215 m (13,829 ft) above sea level. At one point there is a 1,000 foot descent on 1500 steps carved into the rock. All built by hand.
Stefan and Jaime, our guide, in the cloud forest section.
A tunnel cut with steps through stone.
We spent three nights on the trail. It wasn’t quite like backpacking though. We had porters to carry the food and camping equipment. They also set up camps and did the cooking. So in some ways this was like a Tarzan movie with elevation. Just call me bwana Ed.
Stefan waiting for lunch on the first day. I did the same thing.
The first day on the trail, where we go over Dead Woman’s Pass, was possibly the hardest physical activity I have ever done. Overall I’m pretty damn proud of what I did. At 60 years old I carried an 18 kilogram pack (camera gear) for 26 miles, over some incredibly steep terrain, at high elevation. But, to put it in perspective, one of our porters was 63 years old, carried more weight, twice as fast, wearing sneakers. Some of the porters wore sandals. They would serve us breakfast, we would head off, they would break camp, pack everything up, pass us on the trail while giving us a thumbs up, and set up camp for lunch. After lunch the process would repeat for dinner. Lunch was three courses, dinner four. Since the trail is about the length of a marathon, naturally someone set one up. The winner was a native Quechua. He ran the course in 3 hours 40 minutes, wearing sandals. These are tough dudes.
Dead Woman’s Pass.
Jaime (our guide) and Stefan at the pass. The trail and his Inca past were a spiritual thing for Jaime.
Jaime explaining the offerings like cocoa leaves at shrines in the pass.
The crew. Jaime (the guide) Goliat, Bruno, Simeon, Evangelio, German, and Federico.
Federico, age 63. Four children and three wives. I’m not sure but that may be concurrently. Which may be why he likes to porter on the trail.
The trail wound through various ecosystems and past Inca ruins only accessible from the trail. It ended at the Sun Gate into Machu Picchu. More on Machu Picchu and Inca engineering later.
Views along the trail.
Views along the trail.
Ruins only accessible from the Inca Trail. For a while it was only us and the llamas that were there. Later five other people showed up.
The llamas.
Machu Pucchu from the Sun Gate at dawn.
More on Machu Picchu later.
After the trail we went down into the jungle at the Tambopata Research Center. This is just about as far away as you can get. No roads. Eight hour boat ride to the edge of the earth. Elevation, 200 meters. Lush vegetation, interesting animals, and humidity that could fell an ox. Not without amenities though. They had a bar where you could get just about the worst gin and tonic in the world. But, still a gin and tonic you could sip while staring at the jungle. And, there was a pool table in the staff “lounge”. It wasn’t intended for the guests but they let me play a game. Let’s just say I was taught a lesson in Peruvian pool.
Our boat. Let’s be thinking African Queen.
The ride.
The bar at the end of the universe.
Stefan with our gin and tonics at the end of the universe.
This table had to come upriver by boat and be assembled at the lodge. This was their main entertainment and had only been there a couple months.
The sharks that can live on the land. Really, it was a bit of a privilege for them to let me come back and play a game.
A 600+ year old fig tree at Tambapata. Our guide said, “this tree was alive when we were still Inca.”
Me in there for scale.
Blue macaw flyby.
Macaws and parrots.
A pootoo doing what pootoos do – looking like a tree limb.
Anyway, more to come when I can write in a little detail. Including about the tarantula that was big enough to filet for dinner.
Ed's and Lise's Biggish Years 