Peru

Welcome to Peru

We were leaving Bolivia and at the border everything went quite smoothly  all the formalities were completed. There was a policeman at the gate who was quite friendly, he even made fun of me rushing around and getting out of breath. He called us into his office  and explained that his job is to record the details of all vehicles passing through. I recognised this as being spurious record keeping as we had seen this process before in The Gambia where they asked for £40 to record our details . This was so greedy that we just said blankly I am not paying and you can do what you like. Far from chasing us for the money as we got to the van, a policeman asked for a lift into town and we left . In Bolivia, same thing but he only asked for about £4 he was so nice I was almost tempted not to confront him so instead we kind of patted down our pockets and explained that we had changed all our Bolivian money. And he kind of gave in and said ‘AH don’t worry about it!’  So off we went, though it still wrankled  a bit. He opened the gate and with a friendly wave we were in Peru.

We couldn't photograph the officer that wanted a bribe, 
so here are some nice police officers instead.

We had been given all kinds of dire warnings about corrupt cops and customs officers who were exploiting a slightly complicated issue over car insurance. So we entered the customs area forearmed but a bit apprehensive. I had decided to be forthright about it and stay on the side of the angels. I told him that we do not have insurance and that I wanted to buy some. How could I do it. He was so nice and helpful. He said, "before doing any formalities take a taxi into town, the driver  will know where to take you get your insurance and then come back and see me".  So I entered Peru alone with no official status.

One of thousands of 'taxis' that transport just about everything

I got into a taxi and said I wanted insurance. Without further ado I was whisked at breakneck speed into the town up to a little sweetshop kiosk where the delightful woman knew all about it and sold me insurance. She  told me the maximum I should pay the driver and then back to the border I went. I panted up to the customs man who politely told me that I had first to go to immigration. After that we cleared customs got a permit to bring the van into Peru and we were set to drive past the police checkpoint just before the town  where they would be ‘fining’ me for having no insurance.  

One of many attempts to get Peruvians to eat more guinea pigs! 

It was all so nicely done for which I am most grateful. By the way throughout this whole process it rained incessantly and I realised that I had been well and truly soaked. But we were on our way.

Peru was at first not so interesting the roads were narrow and only in fair condition they are raised up on high banks, I presume judging by the rain that this was some kind of flood protection. Having had a bit of an ordeal that took us past lunch and it was too difficult to find a safe place to pull up to eat something. Maybe even rest awhile. 

Passing through a typical Peruvian small town

As we drove on we saw that a peasant farming economy was in place there were people working so hard for a very meagre existence.

Political campaigning on one of many empty roadside buildings

cows     

Sheep and Llamas

Busy Puno

We drove to the town of Puno where Ping went on a mission to get a data card from a phone shop so we could have internet as we travelled. I stayed with the van and she was gone for ages  

The whole family is helping to unload this van

Parked behind a delivery van I watched  as the driver put various sacks, bags and packages on the tailboard and another man came up and took them away. As the driver got nearer to the front of the van the gaps grew longer I was alarmed to see  a toddler in nappies lugging smaller packages and plonking them down on the tailboard for collection then a bigger child got involved. It did become clear that they were just copying daddie and not being made to work. It was very alarming to see this small child putting goods on the tailboard where there was a drop of about 4 ‘ Daddie was engrossed in his work but it  slowly emerged that the whole family was in the back of this lorry. Ping kept me waiting for ages  but she returned triumphant  as the internet card she had bought  unbelievably had , for modest a fixed fee given us unlimited internet for ever!

The cops in Peru are girls!

We had a difficult drive through the city and it started to emerge that nearly all the police were young women Then as we were just on the road out of town we came around a corner and there was a police check and we got pulled in by the only male cop in town. Who told us that you don’t have your headlights on  I acted at not having a word of Spanish, not difficult. He eventually resorted to google translate and ‘you don’t have headlights on,so it’s a fine. I said ok and looked blank, again not difficult. He then pulled out  a ticket and explained with difficulty that he would give me a ticket  to which I said ok and looked blank. It was quite apparent that I was eligible for a significant discount on the fine  if we could dispense with the paperwork. So I told him that he should give me the ticket. He was perplexed and troubled by this. And in the end he threw the towel in and said he would let it go with a warning this time. ‘Thank you very much officer have a good day’. I was pretty pleased with that one.

Do not get this wrong we have spoken to many cops here and they are nearly all helpful polite and courteous. Twice now I have been parked somewhere forbidden and the cop has come up and I have pleaded for two minutes  and been told ‘Okay but 5 minutes and no more’! imagine being told that by a traffic warden in Britain.

Going back to my initial assertion here are a few pics as evidence that so many cops are women.

Some are very senior 

Back to the driving.  We stopped overnight at a hotel called The Whitehouse this is the only place suitable for overnighting on our journey to Machu Piccu. The hotel is a 3 storey building in the middle of what is really wasteland and run by a very nice old lady.  The hotel was surprisingly swish, with newly appointed rooms etc. There is a small amount of space on the grassy yard, we were parked next to another car belonging to a nice Brazilian couple.

Happy campers at the white house, in about 4 inches of water

                                                                                                                    We settled down for the night and quite late three other trucks arrived amid much engine noise and grinding of gears. Once again it rained heavily all night. When we woke up the three trucks had gone and the yard was completely flooded. We in turn bid farewell to our Brazilian chums and the lady owner. 

We had a long, long drive to the town of Olayatatambo. This is the town where we can get the train to Machu Piccu. It is a curious town. Very small and kind of seal off from the main road so there is one way in and one way out.  The road is narrow  and very slow moving controlled by cops who vigorously blow whistles for no apparent reason. They do not do much else to ensure the free flow of traffic. 

This will cost you a dollar if you want me to smile it will be $2

We eventually made it to the main square and it became clear that the whole of this tiny town is dedicated to tourists on their way to, or from, Machu Piccu. Having said this it is a really pleasant and charming place.                                                                                                                                         

Something I especially liked was that the station is at the end of a cul de sac and whenever a train is due in or out, all the tour buses and taxis descend on the station.

Tour buses in and out of the station

It is absolute mayhem backing up all the way into town and all the traffic cops behave like it is an emergency! In fact this is something that takes place about 6 times a day and each time it seems to come as a complete surprise.

Where do you want these poles put?

We found a place in a coach park to set the van up. It looked a bit grim but was actually really ok  and the owner was nice. We parked the van up and walked to the station to book our tickets to MP. 

Bargaining with the very nice lady selling bags

There are 3 classes of train one is a real ‘Pullman’ service with free champagne, dancing girls, a stop for afternoon tea and everything. Then there is nice comfy service with coffee and snacks and then there is ‘steerage’ for riff raff.

Posh uniformed porters leading the top class tourists to the train

We had originally said we would like to treat ourselves to the full service  which has free champagne, dancing girls, traditional music and uniformed flunkies. The full works was fantastically expensive, (US$700) and it turned out that the journey was only one and a half hours. We both agreed that we could rough it for that long so we went for the comfy service which was only moderately expensive (US$75). The coffee was lousy and the snack inedible. But hey, I am not one to grumble.

2nd class passengers

So we went to see Machu Picchu which was to be one of the high points of our travels. While on the train we linked up with a Dutch couple Lex and who were doing the same thing  at the end of the line is a town which again does little else than accommodate the tourists and to rinse them of their hard earned cash. 

View through the roof

Having said that it is still quite a pleasant town. It has one notable attraction  and that is, the railway runs right down the middle of the high street. The trains pass within a couple of feet of the front of the shops and restaurant it is pretty amazing.

The train passes right down main street

The train is that close that one of the diners on the left of the picture is Ping

We met our friends for dinner at a restaurant and they were terribly late. They had to navigate their way all around the town using a map app on their phone. But anyway we had a lovely dinner.   At the end of the dinner. We were saying our good byes when they noticed, for the first time, that the building next door to the restaurant was in fact their hotel.  They had managed to turn that into a half hour walk.  Brilliant!

Next day its off to Machu Picchu we had to take a bus up the hill side to the site  The ride up the hill was an adventure. Wow!

A view down from Machu Pichu

We were now a group of six and we clubbed together to hire a guide. Some of us felt he was not the best but he really helped to bring some life into our view of this truly special place.

Talitha , Marcella and Kikin

Lex looking cool

I will not go into too much historical detail. The history is so well documented on the interweb. Suffice to say that this great big holy housing estate had been perched high up in the clouds for hundreds of years more or less without discovery until an American academic historian  called Hiram Bingham turned up. Actually it seems that he was looking for any evidence of the Inca civilisation. He arrived in a nearby village and was asking around when he was told  ‘you should take look up that hill there is a load of  Inca stuff up there’. 

A view up from MP to Waipichu above.
Look closely you can see there is a lot more Inca stuff up there.

It appears that the high ranking Incas that lived up there left around the time that the Spanish started taking over and on the way out they destroyed and hid the path. Old Hiram is eager enough that he manages to make his own path and what he discovered was the holy and spiritual site of Machu Picchu. This did not do his reputation as a historian any harm at all.

Pretty remarkable It seems that this was mostly a place for priests,
 astronomers and virgins, not necessarily in that order

As you will see from the pics it was a pretty good find and answered a lot of questions about the Inca civilisation. It shed light on their incredible engineering and building methods as well as their interest and understanding of astronomy lots more besides.

So well done Hiram take your place in history, you have discovered something amazing.

After several hours of looking at the site and  learning a bit about the precision  of their building techniques. It was also very enlightening to see just how much they knew about the stars and the importance they placed on them.

Then it was a queue of 1 ½ hours for the death defying bus trip back to town.

Was it all worth it? This is a hard question to answer. MP is a pretty impressive place  and learning more about it was really interesting And we very much enjoyed the whole business of getting there and back, but it was very expensive! 

Fantastic agricultural engineering

I particularly disliked that the operation of the site had been handed over to a foreign company  and the railway to another similar company as a monopoly and a going concern. There was a real sense for me that once we were on that train we had surrendered our free will for the privilege.

I walk the line

We caught the last train back to  town this time going as steerage passengers. I was infuriated to find that we still got a cup of horrible coffee and an inedible snack on the way back. We arrived  back at about 1130 to find the place completely deserted. When we left there were tuk tuk taxis and tour buses and brightly coloured tourists   buzzing about all over the place . and now it was like the fairground had been closed the parked up tuk tuks gave the impression of fairground rides that had been switched off for the night. As we walked down to the coach park where lay our bed for the night, we realised the inevitable. Of course it was closed and locked up and in complete darkness.


We rattled the gates and shouted, nothing. A policeman came and looked at our predicament  said there was nothing he could do and said good night in a very friendly way.

After a time a woman came out and said she would phone the owner. And he eventually came out obviously woken from his bed  and with no hint of protest or indignation he opened the gate let us in and said good night

The next morning we set off for Cusco,stopping briefly to have the puncture repaired that we had discovered on waking, bum! It was repaired by an unspeakably incompetent youth, but I eventually got done. With Lex and Talitha on board we went off. it was long drive with loads of tiresome twists and turns. 

Wiggly road to Cuzco

CUSCO

Cuzco

Cuzco is another town that appears to have been crudely glued not the side of, a deep valley by a ten year old. Not the sides of this valley are incredibly steep.We had read a warning that there are two routes you into the city  one Is easier but is nearly 100km longer and the other route came with a serious health warning!

Now with Ping in the navigator's seat there are always surprises. As we gently boogied our way down the road she suddenly screeched, 'you should have turned left back there.’  
So I caused the vehicle to face in the opposite direction by means of forward and reverse gears, as driving examiners like to say. 

Turn Left here! right 

Actually I did a screaming Uey! As we went back I almost missed the turn as it was so small. I made the turn which doubled back sharply. I found myself looking down what anyone would call a precipice. It was narrow an desperately steep. I selected the lowest gear and continued. When I opened my eyes I saw all the tell tale signs of being in a one way street facing the wrong way.

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One way street

Now at this point I should explain something I have mentioned before.
It is this. South Americans all over are the kindest, easygoing, patient helpful people,until that is, you go the wrong way in a one way street and suddenly all bets are off! Fists are shaken. The most vile oaths are forcibly uttered.(fortunately my limited Spanish prevents a detailed understanding.) Children hang out of windows hurling helpful hints, I even caught sight of a priest muttering under his breath. Suddenly everyone wants a piece of you



Only one course of action, retreat. 
Into reverse and inch back up to where I had come from. As the crowing crowd receded they were still gesticulating. I turned left, apparently Ping, armed with 20/20 hindsight knew all along. All was we'll once more until we turned a bend and faced another precipice! 

Once at the bottom we were faced with a fork in the road. Which way I innocently asked. Ping said, eeeeerrrrrrr. It turned out that one road had a wall at the end so it wasn’t that one. The other was completely blocked by a table with a lot of people sitting at it.        They were playing cards drinking and eating, they looked pretty happy about being there, but as we  entered the very narrow road. They all got up amid much amusements the table was moved kids were swept aside and this alley was cleared for us. As we passed by all hell broke loose it was apparent that I had run over someone's dog. It was howling and wailing and sounded I've he was under our van! But the expression on everyone's faces was not what I have come to expect from people who have just lost a family pet. They were all laughing! So with some trepidation I drove on the continued but the party mood remained. the table was replaced and the card game resumed.  Later examination did not reveal any doggie parts or blood stains.
There were still more narrow steep alleys to go down it was quite exhausting. Being afraid of disaster does take it out of you. Eventually we reached the bottom. 

Ping was quietly satisfied with a job well done. but we had arrived at the bottom of the valley but had not yet arrived at our destination. We had yet to go up the other side. more first gear up the narrow alleys slippery surfaces slightly wet. It was great fun i have not laughed so much in a long time. So up we went  eventually linking up with some more normal looking roads. We had directions for the site we were going to. These directions also included some quite garbled warnings about avoiding the drainage system on the right side of the road. So now according to a now established custom. 

I was just getting up into third gear when the boss said: Thats it!!! I stopped as quickly as I could but was just past the turn so I did a hard left into the road. Well not quite, it was into the drainage system i had been warned about. a deep trough in concrete about a metre deep and just wide enought accept all of my front wheels. So there was a bone jarring crash as the chassis hit the concrete. Oh Bum! I managed to get it out by using my unique combination of skill and determination. our campsite was now just along the road and the nice lady who runs it was waiting at the gate, presumably alerted by a familiar sickening crunch of metal and concrete. but our bed awaited.

Talitha and Lex got a taxi to their hotel they didnt say much but they were still shaking.
We settled in and the following day we met some of the other campers. our next door neighbours a Frenchman called Guy had just called a mechanic as his big Mercedes would  not start. Later the mechanic was to pronounce the need foe a set of injectors which is a very expensive repair. Guy was very good natured about it and as he had already arranged to go on to Machu Pichu he arranged instead to get a bus and train. I was impressed at the manner in which he handled this I think I would have been crying gently into my beer.

Jordan and Forrest our very nice Alaskan chums 

Also staying here was an American couple who were from Alaska, they were very entertaining and good company although I had to contain my bitterness at how talented they were both. Clever intellectuals as well as very practical people, speaking an enviable array of languages between them, including Japanese! I imagine that could both wrestle grizzly bears as well! One night ping cooked for everyone and Lex and Talitha came and joined us  we had a very entertaining evening.

Some of the old architecture of Cuzco

One day we walked down the hill to the centre of Cuzco. it is a nice looking town in the centre. Quite old and interesting somewhat dedicated to tourism, but nice just the same .
Most importantly we were able here to fill Ping up with Kentucky Chicken and put that smile back on her face.

Cuzco main square

On a more sombre note I suddenly had the realisation that it was here in this small town that The late ,great and generally nice man John Peel died. he was fulfilling a long held wish to come to South America and in the lobby of his hotel he just collapsed and died. this was felt as a personal loss to everyone he had helped or even just heard his voice on the radio. when I realised this it certainly had an effect on me.

After a couple of days R&R, we started to realise that we were needing to get a bit of a move on, deadlines were looming and we still have 7000 kms to go. We were up bright and early, dressed in our fresh clean clothes, and after a hearty breakfast, we got ready to drive off.

When we came to leave I found we were deep in the mud

However, the van was not going anywhere, were stuck in the mud and no amount of vrooming, engaging 4WD was not doing any good. Eventually, with the help of Guy and sympathetic advice from the owner of the campsite, we had to jack the van up, putting wood and support under the squelching mud to stop the jack from sinking further, we managed to free the back wheel after an hour.

Jack it up and fill the hole with rocks 

Then we had to have a shower, changed out of the now dirty smelly clothes that were freshly laundered this morning before leaving.

So we have to get moving, over the mountains to Nazcar andthen to Lima.