Onward!!

I am drowning in pictures of the past few days. My laptop’s poor hard drive can’t take them all so I’ve had to manage them in batches. But here are some of them to illustrate my trip to what is arguably the main objective of any traveller to Peru: the Inca citadel Machu Picchu. It was a breathtaking journey and a wonderfully mystical place. I can see why it retains such a magnetism despite the droves of tourists that ascend the mountain every day. With the clouds swirling around the mountaintop, momentarily descending to blanket the entire ruins, it was pretty amazing.

The location of the city could not be more spectacular: hugging a mountaintop, surrounded by cloud forest-covered hills on all sides. For a people who worshipped the Sun and the very Earth as gods, it was a place that provided proximity to both. The Incas wanted to build with and out of the Earth, not changing it, and in many ways Machu Picchu does feel like an extension of the existing mountain, the agricultural terraces following the natural contours and the shape of the city dictated by the shape of the mountain and not vice versa. Though it started raining, I sat down in the grass at the end of a flight of steps at the side of the mountain and just absorbed the view and solitude for the better part of an hour.

Machu Picchu was, when abandoned, still a work in progress. The massive granite quarry gives clues to the methods the Incas had for handling stone, and of the ultimate purpose for the site still covered in these massive rocks. Apparently, it was to be extended by terracing and be used for buildings. As it stands now, it is an eerily desolate scene, with rocks strewn every which way.

We were lucky to be able to catch an early train through the Sacred Valley (on which hopefully later) and arrive among the first groups of tourists. Sure, there were people around when we got up to the city at around 9:30am, but not nearly as many as there were by lunchtime. Maybe the foggy morning kept them away. In any case, the relative peace of the place just added to my appreciation. By the time I’d reached the central plaza after visiting the various temples and astronomical devices, I came face to face with a scene straight out of a nature documentary: A male llama aggressively pursuing and mounting a female (who seemed really disinterested in the whole huffing and puffing going on behind her throughout the mating). The scene drew a round of applause and cheering from the top, where the intihuatana ritual stone is located. I got around two minutes’ worth of video because, well, what else are you going to do with your camera when a llama couple decide to start fucking right in front of you but let it document the entire thing?

The llama episode was in stark contrast to the ponderous feelings I’d had until that point. I kept wandering around afterwards, both with my brother and by myself, snapping pictures like crazy. I guess I could have stayed for longer, but the rain got pretty intense at around 2 o’ clock. I didn’t get wet but both my fingers and toes started to get a little cold, so we decided to have our box lunch at the tables outside the main gates and board the buses taking visitors to the town of Aguas Calientes down in the valley.

The town of Aguas Calientes is actually a pretty dismal place. Growing much too rapidly to be managed, it feels like I’d imagine one of those informal settlements springing up around Chinese growth centers to be like – filthy restaurants, rickety rooms for hire, market stalls… everything oriented toward selling to the visiting public, but seeming like it provides nothing sustainable for the local community. I could, of course, be wrong, my impressions having been taken throughout a few hours in the afternoon waiting for my train back to Ollantaytambo.

There’s a lot more to the past few days, this having been the obligatory centrepoint. I won’t bother with the little details, but will hopefully manage to post again with pictures of scenery around the Sacred Valley.

I promised a certain someone that I would post a full update of what I’ve been doing along with the promised continuation to this post. I would, were there much to tell other than “lazing around, with occasional sights and shopping”. In other words, a few days of holidays. I tried to capture the pretty magnificent view from the other apartment with the sun setting into the Pacific right in front of me, but so far I could get little better than this:

I probably won’t be able to post until early next week. If you are bored over the holidays and come and view this, I wish you the best possible Christmas should you celebrate it or any related holiday, and a peaceful time during the holidays.

My entire face is tingling.

This is a weird, weird drug to be taking, but if it helps combat the effects of altitude sickness, I’m all for it.

“Most of you probably think just about Incas when you think about Peru,” said the guide, “but Pucllana was built before them, by the Lima people”. The remains of their temple complex, smack in the middle of Lima, was discovered only recently. He described how as a boy he used to cycle on the gravel mound that hid the masses of walls and courtyards. Much of it has been lost to development, but archaeologists are continually unearthing more discoveries in the preserved section. On first sighting, it looks like a load of sun-baked clay, and though that’s what it is the historical context makes it absolutely fascinating.

Pucllana contains burials as well as sacrifices, both material and human. Curiously, as the Lima people built their stepped structure, they filled the previous levels in order to build on them. Eventually, the entire pyramid was covered by gravel brought from the cliffs surrounding the coast, which, despite its proximity to the sea is still a formidable achievement for people of 400 AD with no wheel. The scale of the original Pucllana site is immense, as the fractional remainder already towers high as well as wide. The walls the Lima people built were trapezoidal in shape, made with vertically aligned bricks. The alternating trapezoids of the wall sections allowed for massive strength during earthquakes which were then, as now, an ever-present threat in Peru.

It practically never rains in Lima. The desert-like conditions are actually a reason for the preservation of Huaca Pucllana, as any rain would begin to erode the simple mud bricks. The guide commented on the rare sunniness of the day, and I do think I managed to burn my neck in the sun. It’s the only part still tender to the touch, and I’m thinking it’s a good idea to avoid the sun today as much as possible. Hopefully it won’t start to peel. Our guide was really friendly and knowledgeable, and urged us to keep up to date with the continual discoveries at the site via the Pucllana website. But I could not help but feel he was debasing himself as a professional archaeologist and Peruvians in general when to bade us farewell with “and remember, dos pisco sours mas and try the guinea pig!” I don’t know, am I going off the mark?

I got a chance to go clubbing with some local expats which while not the totally authentic experience was still cool. We started the evening at a shared house run by Hare Krishnas where the atmosphere seemed really immediate and friendly, but I was a little concerned about how the philosophy of the house would go with a bunch of studenty types sharing beers and a bottle of pisco. I was told not to worry, though, so I didn’t. I like how guys and girls meeting for the first time here kiss on the cheek. I was told to expect an upset stomach at Cuzco when we head there next week, but that it is apparently worth all kinds of discomfort. That’s reassuring, I guess.

Eventually we made our way to the club, Sargento Pimienta (Sergeant Pepper), all six of us piled into a normal-sized taxi. “Oh it’s normal here” the Dutch girl commented as she sat folded in half in my lap. We sped through dark Lima streets down to Barranco, where club touts tried to direct us to stop at their specific establishment. It was pretty cool – at that moment I did think that I’m experiencing something memorable.

The Sargento Pimienta is really big. It’s also one of the few places in Lima where they play rock music, I was told. The crowd was pretty varied, from the really young (as in are they of legal age at all) to thirty-something ex-pats dancing away in circles next to our group. The beer they sold came in 1.1 litre glass bottles which were shared around in plastic cups. The music was incredibly loud and the air thick with cigarette smoke. I had forgotten how much your clothes smell after a night out where people smoke indoors. We were there for a few hours, deciding to leave sometime around 2am as people needed to get to work the next day. As we made our exit the place was just beginning to get packed. This Finnish girl told me I should stay because I would make all the ladies swoon being tall and blonde but I think my lack of dancing ability would counteract that quite effectively. So, I decided to head out with them. Quick best wishes and thank-yous later I was in the lift to the flat. What a day.

People I meet here tend to ask whether I’ve enjoyed Peru so far. To be fair, I’ve had one full day and like half another, during which I’ve tried to get to grips with geography and stuff. I’ve had fun but can’t say to have seen or experienced all that much. Yesterday my brother and I went for a rambling walk down to the beach and sat on the shingles for a while watching the waves come in. There were loads of tiny dry crab shells that cracked at the slightest touch. I assumed they were sloughed off by little crabs molting. There were also bigger crab shells strewn across the beach with their shells and pincers cracked, probably eaten by sea birds.

I guess a surefire way to know you really are on the other side of the world is when bird calls sound like nothing you’ve ever heard. I bet it’ll be even more apparent once we get out of Lima and the scenery is less “generic urban with exotic overtones”. And speaking of that, this glorious dinner we had was pretty impressive. I don’t think I’ve ever had so much (raw) fish at once in my life.

(Sorry about the picture quality, I only had my phone camera on me)

There is a party we’re invited to later on tonight to which will be interesting. It’s in the district of Barranco at a club. The invite says 11pm start, which is pretty late for me but completely normal here. Well, at least I won’t have to be anywhere in the morning. We were offered a pretty sweet way to finish off the night, too: A set of keys to an apartment (about which more later) that is a lot closer to Barranco than the one we’re staying at currently. You will come to see why this arrangement excites me more than a bit.