Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Quito and the Cuyabeno
Big Fish & White Elephants
We found a great way of seeing a bit of Amazaonia paddling downstream for a couple of days. The Cuyabeno and the jungle around it, despite the oil companies' best efforts, are an unspoilt bit of Amazonian rainforest where we saw troops of monkeys jumping from tree to tree, and pink dolphins swimming up the river.
Being the rainforest the trip wasn't without it's fair share of rain, and during one down pour we were just about to give up a very uneventful fishing expedition when Aldemar, the boatman, shouted he had a big fish. It only took him about 20 minutes to land the fella pictured here, with a hook and line meant for piranha! It's a paiche fish... and this is only a little one.
Journey to the Centre of the Earth
Back in Quito, one of the least inspiring capitals I've visited so far, it's just a short journey the Mitad de Mundo (Equator). And I have to say it's a bit of disappointment... apart from the fact that it's at the end of a tatty street in a bit of theme park, at 2400ms above sea-level on a scrubby hillside it just didn't feel like what the equator should feel like: no palm trees or desert island landscape, and no one getting tarred and feathered. But, due to a bit of bad maths a while back, it's actually in the wrong place, 200 meters down the road is a small private museum where they've calculated the real equator using GPS and perform all the science stuff that can only be done on the actual equator, (like balancing an egg on the head of a nail and watching water go down the plughole in different directions on either side of the line).
Sushi survey
There's only so much chicken and rice, cheese and ham sandwiches, sopa de mani and pork and yuca I can eat, so the occassional maki roll has brought a bit of variation. Don't expect the restaurant names, as I've blotted them out with the accompanying white wine, but here's the best to the worst, by city.
I have also eaten Sushi in Santiago, but I have absolutely no recollection of it...
Quitting Quito
My partner in crime for the last five months, Norwegian Chris, is, as I type, on plane back to the land of the midnight sun, and I shall miss her dreadfully. Although, I'm sure there'll be a "Loose End in Lapland" blog some time next year.
We found a great way of seeing a bit of Amazaonia paddling downstream for a couple of days. The Cuyabeno and the jungle around it, despite the oil companies' best efforts, are an unspoilt bit of Amazonian rainforest where we saw troops of monkeys jumping from tree to tree, and pink dolphins swimming up the river.
Being the rainforest the trip wasn't without it's fair share of rain, and during one down pour we were just about to give up a very uneventful fishing expedition when Aldemar, the boatman, shouted he had a big fish. It only took him about 20 minutes to land the fella pictured here, with a hook and line meant for piranha! It's a paiche fish... and this is only a little one.Journey to the Centre of the Earth
Back in Quito, one of the least inspiring capitals I've visited so far, it's just a short journey the Mitad de Mundo (Equator). And I have to say it's a bit of disappointment... apart from the fact that it's at the end of a tatty street in a bit of theme park, at 2400ms above sea-level on a scrubby hillside it just didn't feel like what the equator should feel like: no palm trees or desert island landscape, and no one getting tarred and feathered. But, due to a bit of bad maths a while back, it's actually in the wrong place, 200 meters down the road is a small private museum where they've calculated the real equator using GPS and perform all the science stuff that can only be done on the actual equator, (like balancing an egg on the head of a nail and watching water go down the plughole in different directions on either side of the line).
Sushi survey
There's only so much chicken and rice, cheese and ham sandwiches, sopa de mani and pork and yuca I can eat, so the occassional maki roll has brought a bit of variation. Don't expect the restaurant names, as I've blotted them out with the accompanying white wine, but here's the best to the worst, by city.
- Lima, Peru
- Buenos Aires, Argentina
- La Paz, Bolivia
- Santa Cruz, Bolivia
- Quito, Ecuador*
I have also eaten Sushi in Santiago, but I have absolutely no recollection of it...
Quitting Quito
My partner in crime for the last five months, Norwegian Chris, is, as I type, on plane back to the land of the midnight sun, and I shall miss her dreadfully. Although, I'm sure there'll be a "Loose End in Lapland" blog some time next year.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Up the Peruvian North Coast and into Equador
Sand, sea and security...
In Peru some of the security measures on the buses are pretty tight, but on the bus from Lima they took our passport numbers, finger prints, and all the passengers were bag searched, metal detected and videoed . Whether this is to put off would be hi-jackers and theives or to help identify victims I don't know. It feels vaguely misplaced in what seems to be a fairly safe and stable country, and relatively rich compared to some of its neighbours, even though Norwegian Chris and I had had to fend off a gang of icecream bandits by ourselves.
It was a timely, but not too disastrous, reminder to be on our toes in Trujillo, a colonial town built bang on top Chan Chan the capital of ancient giant-sandcastle builders - having seen a fair chunk of the coast there is little but desert and dunes in the whole stretch. Norwegian Chris and I nearly fell foul of a fairly standard tourist hussle: while wandering along a street, Chris stopped to buy an ice cream, this bloke came up to me mumbling, as a distraction while a couple of other fellas zeroed in on the Viking. The next thing I heard was Chris saying, more in anger than fear, "This man's got his hand in my bag". So I grabbed the bloke in question by the wrist and held his hand aloft - I have to point out that for once in my life, in Peru, I am generally taller than the majority of the population, and this guy was short even by Peruvian standards - consequently holding this fella's hand up felt like hauling a small boy away from a biscuit tin. After the commotion subsided, and the mumbling short fellas ran off, we realised, too late, that Norwegian Chris had never got the icecream she had paid for.
Watch towers, the sort that look useful in a general uprising, on the corners of perimeter walls are also greatly favoured here, and while I see the use in protecting military camps, utilities and the suchlike, it again felt like overkill to see them used on the biscuit factory on the outskirt of Trujillo. I can't really envision a time when a leader of popular revolution is credited with a quote like "We may not have the radio stations or the electricity company, but our people are hungry and now we can truly say, when they call for bread, let them eat c...ustard creams."
Further up the coast is the surf capital of Peru, Manchora, a great place to spend a few days doing nothing...so not much more to add than that.
Banana Repuplic
It isn't really until the very north of the Peruvian coastline that the desert and scrub finally gives up to the lush green of forest and agriculture, and once in Ecuador it is almost overwhelming: I began to believe I might have seen more banana trees than any thing else in my entire life. The plantations stretch for miles with stand after stand, each tree sporting a plastic bag around the stems of the fruits...now that's what I call genetically modified!
Our first stop in Ecuador was it's largest city, Guyaquil, a huge delta town that is spending a lot of money to shed it's reputation as a dangerzone, with a upgraded bus station, new airport and revamped waterfront...however it's a bit like Birmingham meets the Southbank. If you are coming to this town soon, due to the revamp, you get kicked off the bus at a line of bus stands in what is pretty much a building site: buses out of town leave, and have their ticket offices, just around the corner, but don't give into the temptation to jump straight into a cab, get your forward tickets before leaving, as it's a long schelp in and out of the centre.
Call Me Ishmael
From Guyaquil it's a short jump over to the coast to Puerta Lopez, another great place to chill for a few days, and where humpback whales also stop over, off shore, on their way to and from their breeding grounds further north. So yesterday I watched these fantastic creatures throw sumersalts as I stood on the prow of a boat excitedly shouting "Flukes ahoy!" (although don't ask me which bit of a whale is a fluke I just remember it from Moby Dick). One of the National Park guides asked Norwegian Chris where she came from, when she answered, he replied "you eat whales don't you", to which she had to admit she had once...
Even with my inability to spell, I smirked when I saw the "I (heart) Wales" sticker someone has stuck in the boat, although I wondered what someone else was trying to say about the Welsh with the "Exitinction is forever" sticker next to it.
My favourite nautical joke (best told in a West Country accent):
Q: Why are pirates called pirates?
A: Because they ARHHHH!
In Peru some of the security measures on the buses are pretty tight, but on the bus from Lima they took our passport numbers, finger prints, and all the passengers were bag searched, metal detected and videoed . Whether this is to put off would be hi-jackers and theives or to help identify victims I don't know. It feels vaguely misplaced in what seems to be a fairly safe and stable country, and relatively rich compared to some of its neighbours, even though Norwegian Chris and I had had to fend off a gang of icecream bandits by ourselves.It was a timely, but not too disastrous, reminder to be on our toes in Trujillo, a colonial town built bang on top Chan Chan the capital of ancient giant-sandcastle builders - having seen a fair chunk of the coast there is little but desert and dunes in the whole stretch. Norwegian Chris and I nearly fell foul of a fairly standard tourist hussle: while wandering along a street, Chris stopped to buy an ice cream, this bloke came up to me mumbling, as a distraction while a couple of other fellas zeroed in on the Viking. The next thing I heard was Chris saying, more in anger than fear, "This man's got his hand in my bag". So I grabbed the bloke in question by the wrist and held his hand aloft - I have to point out that for once in my life, in Peru, I am generally taller than the majority of the population, and this guy was short even by Peruvian standards - consequently holding this fella's hand up felt like hauling a small boy away from a biscuit tin. After the commotion subsided, and the mumbling short fellas ran off, we realised, too late, that Norwegian Chris had never got the icecream she had paid for.
Watch towers, the sort that look useful in a general uprising, on the corners of perimeter walls are also greatly favoured here, and while I see the use in protecting military camps, utilities and the suchlike, it again felt like overkill to see them used on the biscuit factory on the outskirt of Trujillo. I can't really envision a time when a leader of popular revolution is credited with a quote like "We may not have the radio stations or the electricity company, but our people are hungry and now we can truly say, when they call for bread, let them eat c...ustard creams."
Further up the coast is the surf capital of Peru, Manchora, a great place to spend a few days doing nothing...so not much more to add than that.
Banana Repuplic
It isn't really until the very north of the Peruvian coastline that the desert and scrub finally gives up to the lush green of forest and agriculture, and once in Ecuador it is almost overwhelming: I began to believe I might have seen more banana trees than any thing else in my entire life. The plantations stretch for miles with stand after stand, each tree sporting a plastic bag around the stems of the fruits...now that's what I call genetically modified!
Our first stop in Ecuador was it's largest city, Guyaquil, a huge delta town that is spending a lot of money to shed it's reputation as a dangerzone, with a upgraded bus station, new airport and revamped waterfront...however it's a bit like Birmingham meets the Southbank. If you are coming to this town soon, due to the revamp, you get kicked off the bus at a line of bus stands in what is pretty much a building site: buses out of town leave, and have their ticket offices, just around the corner, but don't give into the temptation to jump straight into a cab, get your forward tickets before leaving, as it's a long schelp in and out of the centre.
Call Me Ishmael
From Guyaquil it's a short jump over to the coast to Puerta Lopez, another great place to chill for a few days, and where humpback whales also stop over, off shore, on their way to and from their breeding grounds further north. So yesterday I watched these fantastic creatures throw sumersalts as I stood on the prow of a boat excitedly shouting "Flukes ahoy!" (although don't ask me which bit of a whale is a fluke I just remember it from Moby Dick). One of the National Park guides asked Norwegian Chris where she came from, when she answered, he replied "you eat whales don't you", to which she had to admit she had once...Even with my inability to spell, I smirked when I saw the "I (heart) Wales" sticker someone has stuck in the boat, although I wondered what someone else was trying to say about the Welsh with the "Exitinction is forever" sticker next to it.
My favourite nautical joke (best told in a West Country accent):
Q: Why are pirates called pirates?
A: Because they ARHHHH!
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Lost Worlds
Machu Picchu & The Sacred Valley
Walking into Machu Picchu was, for me, one of those unrepeatable "first" expericences that will live with me forever. Having wandered around many ruins over the previous week or so, I had developed an expectation that I would see some fairly impressive stuff, but the vastness and preservation of the site is utterly amazing. It was made all the better by being virtually the first onto the site that morning - I have to report that I was sad enough to insist that Norwegian Chris rehearse the route to the bus stop from our hotel with me the night before...I was, obviously, annoyingly excited!! And here's a picture of me looking vaguely stunned by the whole experience.
Other unforgettable "firsts" in my life include:
First artistic performance (smell of the greasepaint): As a shepperd in St Michaels Nativity Play, aged 6, led on stage by sweaty palmed angel played by Victoria Chomerton.
First time in the stands (roar of the crowd): Boxing Day 1984 Fulham at home to Sheffield United (2:0) - bit of a late starter with footy and never much of a fan, because:
First concert (smell of the crowd): The Clash, Thursday 22/10/1981, at the Lyceum, and the start of my relationship with tinnitus.
...and lots more "firsts" in later life, but my mum reads this blog so this'll do for now...
If you're going to visit Machu Picchu, (especially in high season) allow at least half a day to wander around Cusco getting your train tickets, bus tickets, and entry tickets from three different locations in town. Get your train tickets first, then ask where to go to get the bus and entry tickets. If you decide to get bus and entry tickets down the track NOTE you can't get entry tickets at the site, you have to buy them in Aguas Calientes.
After returning to Cusco we wandered around the Sacred Valley to some more Inca sites, which I likened to having a Mr Whippy after having feasted on Ben & Jerry's, so we left for Lima, which is not in "darkest Peru", although very foggy at this time of year. The 9 million inhabitants of the city, a third of the country's poulation, crowd the town, and everyone seems to drive a cab for extra cash.
Overheard on the street, (OK, it was Norwegian Chris in response to my suggestion we visit one of the many casinos in Lima) : "Why would I spend money on that when I could use it to buy cake!?!?"
Walking into Machu Picchu was, for me, one of those unrepeatable "first" expericences that will live with me forever. Having wandered around many ruins over the previous week or so, I had developed an expectation that I would see some fairly impressive stuff, but the vastness and preservation of the site is utterly amazing. It was made all the better by being virtually the first onto the site that morning - I have to report that I was sad enough to insist that Norwegian Chris rehearse the route to the bus stop from our hotel with me the night before...I was, obviously, annoyingly excited!! And here's a picture of me looking vaguely stunned by the whole experience.Other unforgettable "firsts" in my life include:
First artistic performance (smell of the greasepaint): As a shepperd in St Michaels Nativity Play, aged 6, led on stage by sweaty palmed angel played by Victoria Chomerton.
First time in the stands (roar of the crowd): Boxing Day 1984 Fulham at home to Sheffield United (2:0) - bit of a late starter with footy and never much of a fan, because:
First concert (smell of the crowd): The Clash, Thursday 22/10/1981, at the Lyceum, and the start of my relationship with tinnitus.
...and lots more "firsts" in later life, but my mum reads this blog so this'll do for now...
If you're going to visit Machu Picchu, (especially in high season) allow at least half a day to wander around Cusco getting your train tickets, bus tickets, and entry tickets from three different locations in town. Get your train tickets first, then ask where to go to get the bus and entry tickets. If you decide to get bus and entry tickets down the track NOTE you can't get entry tickets at the site, you have to buy them in Aguas Calientes.
After returning to Cusco we wandered around the Sacred Valley to some more Inca sites, which I likened to having a Mr Whippy after having feasted on Ben & Jerry's, so we left for Lima, which is not in "darkest Peru", although very foggy at this time of year. The 9 million inhabitants of the city, a third of the country's poulation, crowd the town, and everyone seems to drive a cab for extra cash.Overheard on the street, (OK, it was Norwegian Chris in response to my suggestion we visit one of the many casinos in Lima) : "Why would I spend money on that when I could use it to buy cake!?!?"
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
The Salars and the Altiplano
Salt, sand and a lot of lurid knitware ...at altitude
Finally some time to jot down the last few weeks, which have been a hectic journey from Argentina, through Chile, Bolivia and Peru.
Firstly, I am pleased again to report I have made it through Bolivia without suffering from food poisoning or being mugged or killed... doubtless I will now be kidnapped, stripped naked and left by the road - but then there are some people who'd pay a lot of money for that.
Having got stuck in Jujuy, (slightly reminiscent of a old East European city, but a resonable place to watch the World Cup final and go to the cinema for the first time in 6 months - X-men III - don't bother), Norwegian Chris and I finally made it out across the Andes and into salt flat territory. The journey takes you past two smaller salt flats in Argentina, before crossing the border to Chile to San Pedro, the Atacama desert and the salar of the same name. Not that the salt flat is the only thing to see: San Pedro is surrounded by spectacular scenery, with volcanes, geezers, and even some Inca ruins - all of which are a stones throw away, and all of which makes it a magnet for tourists, as reflected by London prices and, as a gringo, you are immediately addressed in English.
If you're visiting San Pedro a great place to stay is the Incahausi, a reasonably priced German run B&B. Also, the guidebooks say there are no ATMs in the pueblo but there is now one, which takes Mastercard and Cirrus, but not Visa.
San Pedro is also a starting point for trips into Bolivia, through more breath-taking landscapes to the Salar de Uyuni. Apparently it will take a million years before the footsteps are erased from the moons surface, and, if I remember correctly, the fine for just walking on the salt flat in Death Valley is $1000. So I can't help wondering what the impact of at least a half dozen or so 4x4's racing across the desert and salars in both directions every day must be. Theoretically the Uyuni Salar is rejuvinated every year when the rains wash the minerals out of the surrounding hills and flood the flats, but in some places the desert looks like a ploughed field from the tyre marks.
Top tip if you are doing the trip... take some tastey snacks with you, but let some air of the crips packets as they tend to explode at altitude...which I discovered all too late. The Dutch people travelling with us thought we were being shot at, but it was only my cheesey puffs making a bid for freedom in my bag.
We needed no reminding we were in Bolivia as in the very first town we reached there was a band playing - they love a bit of a marching band the Bolivians do. And it was good to reach Uyuni (although it's a cold, ugly and dirty town), but after 3 days of freezing temperatures, so-so food and accomodation, and although our driver/guide was great, members of the tour in the other two cars in our caravan had had to take over the wheel as their drivers were too drunk. To save face, one of the drivers insisted taking his vehicle back the last leg to the agency office in Uyuni, and then promptly drove in to a power pylon... maybe that's why the town was without electricity until 9pm that night..?
From Uyuni we dropped a few meters to Sucre, with the briefest stop in Potosi, once the richest town in the world due to the silver in them there hills. In Sucre, (a beautiful Colonial town with probably the best mercardo central I've been too - a warren of stalls and wonderful aromas), I met Vicky, an English teacher from Texas (no jokes now) and who also earned the title "my America mom" as she has a son the spitting image of me... yes dear reader, I sent commiserations to her family on your behalf.
Overnight from Sucre to La Paz: an amazing city filled with sprawling markets and a million souls all clinging to the side of a steep valley, and the shoe shine boys wear ski-masks to hide their identities, as percieved meanial workers... oh, and a very good Japanese restaurant, not to be dismissed because it is namesake to Wagamamas. I can understand why people get stuck in La Paz, you can wander the same streets and see something new every day.
From La Paz it's a short hop to Lake Titicaca, a place not only rich in trout but more Inca and Pre-Inca stuff you can shake a stick at. The first major players in the area based themselves at Tiawanaku, a must-see archaelogical site, along with the Isla del Sol, the funerial towers near Puno, and a bit of living (if commercialised) history: the floating islands - a throw back to when the Uros people took to the water on islands mades of reeds, to avoid neighbouring warlike tribes, and have stayed there ever since.
Once in Peru Norwegian Chris started on the guinea pigs, a local delicacey. Bear in mind her first language isn't English, but when the first roast fella arrived at the table, complete with head and legs, she said "It's sad enough that it comes like this, but now I'm going to violate it" - I said she could just eat it, but I think it was the Viking in her coming to the surface. For the record, I reckon you need a brace of guinea pigs to make a worthwhile meal, but to be honest they don't taste of much, not even chicken.
Peru is also the hub of the Gringo Trail and it's the first place I've been on a standard bus journey where the tourists have out numbered the locals. I'm used to seeing a huge chunk of the tourist contingency clad in ponchos and some very nice Andean knitware, but I was taken aback to see a guy sporting a mohawk haircut, black PVC jacket and trousers, and a Anti-Nowhere League "Nazi Punks F**K Off" t-shirt, swaggering the beachfront of Lake Titicaca. For a moment there I was back in Camden Town, 1984, keeping Alex company while he flogged posters outside Sid Strongs, and Benjy Biff got people to buy him cans of Red Stripe if he´d jump into the lock.
The next hop was to Cusco, which I'd been told had been built on the foundations of the Inca town, but it is utterly staggering how much of the original Inca stonework remains, and how much has been used in the walls of the cities buildings. But be warned, if you're ever in this neck of the woods, it's expensive, especially where the companies that have monopolies over the routes, trains, buses and entry fees to Machu Pichu exert them to a disgraceful extent, with the a lack of concern or service that had me mumbling into my beer about writing letters to the government.
However, this morning I arrived in Aguas Caliente and tomorrow I will visit Machu Picchu....and I'm very exicted!!!
Finally some time to jot down the last few weeks, which have been a hectic journey from Argentina, through Chile, Bolivia and Peru.
Firstly, I am pleased again to report I have made it through Bolivia without suffering from food poisoning or being mugged or killed... doubtless I will now be kidnapped, stripped naked and left by the road - but then there are some people who'd pay a lot of money for that.
Having got stuck in Jujuy, (slightly reminiscent of a old East European city, but a resonable place to watch the World Cup final and go to the cinema for the first time in 6 months - X-men III - don't bother), Norwegian Chris and I finally made it out across the Andes and into salt flat territory. The journey takes you past two smaller salt flats in Argentina, before crossing the border to Chile to San Pedro, the Atacama desert and the salar of the same name. Not that the salt flat is the only thing to see: San Pedro is surrounded by spectacular scenery, with volcanes, geezers, and even some Inca ruins - all of which are a stones throw away, and all of which makes it a magnet for tourists, as reflected by London prices and, as a gringo, you are immediately addressed in English.If you're visiting San Pedro a great place to stay is the Incahausi, a reasonably priced German run B&B. Also, the guidebooks say there are no ATMs in the pueblo but there is now one, which takes Mastercard and Cirrus, but not Visa.
San Pedro is also a starting point for trips into Bolivia, through more breath-taking landscapes to the Salar de Uyuni. Apparently it will take a million years before the footsteps are erased from the moons surface, and, if I remember correctly, the fine for just walking on the salt flat in Death Valley is $1000. So I can't help wondering what the impact of at least a half dozen or so 4x4's racing across the desert and salars in both directions every day must be. Theoretically the Uyuni Salar is rejuvinated every year when the rains wash the minerals out of the surrounding hills and flood the flats, but in some places the desert looks like a ploughed field from the tyre marks.Top tip if you are doing the trip... take some tastey snacks with you, but let some air of the crips packets as they tend to explode at altitude...which I discovered all too late. The Dutch people travelling with us thought we were being shot at, but it was only my cheesey puffs making a bid for freedom in my bag.
We needed no reminding we were in Bolivia as in the very first town we reached there was a band playing - they love a bit of a marching band the Bolivians do. And it was good to reach Uyuni (although it's a cold, ugly and dirty town), but after 3 days of freezing temperatures, so-so food and accomodation, and although our driver/guide was great, members of the tour in the other two cars in our caravan had had to take over the wheel as their drivers were too drunk. To save face, one of the drivers insisted taking his vehicle back the last leg to the agency office in Uyuni, and then promptly drove in to a power pylon... maybe that's why the town was without electricity until 9pm that night..?
From Uyuni we dropped a few meters to Sucre, with the briefest stop in Potosi, once the richest town in the world due to the silver in them there hills. In Sucre, (a beautiful Colonial town with probably the best mercardo central I've been too - a warren of stalls and wonderful aromas), I met Vicky, an English teacher from Texas (no jokes now) and who also earned the title "my America mom" as she has a son the spitting image of me... yes dear reader, I sent commiserations to her family on your behalf.
Overnight from Sucre to La Paz: an amazing city filled with sprawling markets and a million souls all clinging to the side of a steep valley, and the shoe shine boys wear ski-masks to hide their identities, as percieved meanial workers... oh, and a very good Japanese restaurant, not to be dismissed because it is namesake to Wagamamas. I can understand why people get stuck in La Paz, you can wander the same streets and see something new every day.From La Paz it's a short hop to Lake Titicaca, a place not only rich in trout but more Inca and Pre-Inca stuff you can shake a stick at. The first major players in the area based themselves at Tiawanaku, a must-see archaelogical site, along with the Isla del Sol, the funerial towers near Puno, and a bit of living (if commercialised) history: the floating islands - a throw back to when the Uros people took to the water on islands mades of reeds, to avoid neighbouring warlike tribes, and have stayed there ever since.
Once in Peru Norwegian Chris started on the guinea pigs, a local delicacey. Bear in mind her first language isn't English, but when the first roast fella arrived at the table, complete with head and legs, she said "It's sad enough that it comes like this, but now I'm going to violate it" - I said she could just eat it, but I think it was the Viking in her coming to the surface. For the record, I reckon you need a brace of guinea pigs to make a worthwhile meal, but to be honest they don't taste of much, not even chicken.Peru is also the hub of the Gringo Trail and it's the first place I've been on a standard bus journey where the tourists have out numbered the locals. I'm used to seeing a huge chunk of the tourist contingency clad in ponchos and some very nice Andean knitware, but I was taken aback to see a guy sporting a mohawk haircut, black PVC jacket and trousers, and a Anti-Nowhere League "Nazi Punks F**K Off" t-shirt, swaggering the beachfront of Lake Titicaca. For a moment there I was back in Camden Town, 1984, keeping Alex company while he flogged posters outside Sid Strongs, and Benjy Biff got people to buy him cans of Red Stripe if he´d jump into the lock.
The next hop was to Cusco, which I'd been told had been built on the foundations of the Inca town, but it is utterly staggering how much of the original Inca stonework remains, and how much has been used in the walls of the cities buildings. But be warned, if you're ever in this neck of the woods, it's expensive, especially where the companies that have monopolies over the routes, trains, buses and entry fees to Machu Pichu exert them to a disgraceful extent, with the a lack of concern or service that had me mumbling into my beer about writing letters to the government.
However, this morning I arrived in Aguas Caliente and tomorrow I will visit Machu Picchu....and I'm very exicted!!!
