Monday, October 23, 2006
The Long Road South
How much time can one man spend on a bus..?
I decided to zip straight through Ecuador and head straight for Peru, only I did it the long way round. After flying out of Cali to Tulcan, and getting x-rayed to see if I was a drugs mule into the deal (they asked me if I'd swallowed any coins lately before I signed the consent form???) - I took a bus to Quito, changed onto an overnight bus to Loja, and then got a bus to a little place called Zumba, a garrison town with only very nasty hotels. The next day I journeyed across the border to Chachapoyas in Peru - this meant travelling in 3 collectivos, 1 minivan, 1 flatbed truck and 2 moto-taxis, all so I could visit the ruins at Kuelap.
To some extent, Norwegian Chris and I sped through Peru the first time, so I'm now mopping up some of the places I missed, now that I'm on my way back down. This includes 4 places of archaeological interest, all billed, as most of the sites I've visited are, as the most important in South America.
Kuelap is a stunning hill top fortress, once home to Inca-hating folk who then fell foul of their supposed conquistador alies, and so there is little other trace of them. It's huge undulating walls enclose numerous circular buildings, not totally unlike those in Colombia's Lost City. Again, like most in South America, the site is as yet mostly un-excavated, however, unlike most there is good preservation and reconstruction work underway.
From Kuelap I moved down to Chiclayo, to visit the Sipán. The huacas, (pyramids) having been built of adobe millennia ago, are fairly shabby, and I didn't think they were as impressive as those of Chan Chan and Sol y Luna, down the road in Trujillo. However the treasures uncovered in the burial grounds are spectacular, (beating the pants off European found grave goods, like Sutton Hoo), and probably worth visiting the museums for than the pyramids themselves. There isn't much to the town of Chiclayo itself, but it does have a great and extensive market, where you can buy all the usual foods and goods, including great fish and black maize, but also curative potions, huge lumps of charcoal from a choice of 50 vendors, and where I almost got abducted by some stall holders attempting to sell me a belt I really didn't want.
The next set of buses, including one that took 8 hours instead of the normal 3, due to break downs and closed roads, at 4000 meters above sea level, (personally I felt sorriest for the chickens stuck on the top all that time), finally got me to Chavin. At first sight the ruins don't seem like all that much: a set of dilapidated ramparts surrounding a sunken central plaza, but within the ramparts are a series of labyrinthine tunnels, one of which leads to El Lanzon, a knife shaped obelisk. Several intricate carvings of gods, men and monsters survive. On the bus back to Huaraz I kept thinking we were passing a lot of sheep until I realised the bleating was coming from one we were carrying in the boot.
From Huaraz, I bussed, via a connection in Lima all the way down to a little oasis town, Huacachina, near Ica to rest up for a night, take in a dune buggy ride and some rather unsatisfying sand-boarding (it just ain't the same as snow: not much speed and little manoeuvrability by comparison), before heading down to Nazca, and its famous lines.
Nazca is another lesson in not listening to the dissenters. I've just heard too much "don't know what all the fuss is about" from fellow travellers I've encountered on my journey. I suppose it's not going to be everyones' cup of tea, but then it's no more or less than advertised either. Etched by the drought besieged Nazcans having abandoned their temples to appeal directly to their gods for rain, spectacularly straight lines and stretch out across the desert plain bisecting shamanic inspired geomorphic figures, (or if you listen to some, they're landing sites for space ships - yeah, right).
The Nazca Lines, like Easter Island and Machu Picchu are places I've wanted to visit since I was a child, are another highlight of my trip. But they are also the last of the major Archaeological sites I shall visit, as I will now head back along the Pan American, into Chile heading yet further south.
Meanwhile, I've also found a candidate for the most un-PC sweet wrapper award. Dona Pepa is a chocolate biscuit bar made by Kraft subsidery Lacta:
...oh, and on the "musical differences" front, I finally got Wang Chunged in the taxi this morning, and currently a Flock of Seaguls are on the radio...
I decided to zip straight through Ecuador and head straight for Peru, only I did it the long way round. After flying out of Cali to Tulcan, and getting x-rayed to see if I was a drugs mule into the deal (they asked me if I'd swallowed any coins lately before I signed the consent form???) - I took a bus to Quito, changed onto an overnight bus to Loja, and then got a bus to a little place called Zumba, a garrison town with only very nasty hotels. The next day I journeyed across the border to Chachapoyas in Peru - this meant travelling in 3 collectivos, 1 minivan, 1 flatbed truck and 2 moto-taxis, all so I could visit the ruins at Kuelap.
To some extent, Norwegian Chris and I sped through Peru the first time, so I'm now mopping up some of the places I missed, now that I'm on my way back down. This includes 4 places of archaeological interest, all billed, as most of the sites I've visited are, as the most important in South America.
Kuelap is a stunning hill top fortress, once home to Inca-hating folk who then fell foul of their supposed conquistador alies, and so there is little other trace of them. It's huge undulating walls enclose numerous circular buildings, not totally unlike those in Colombia's Lost City. Again, like most in South America, the site is as yet mostly un-excavated, however, unlike most there is good preservation and reconstruction work underway.
From Kuelap I moved down to Chiclayo, to visit the Sipán. The huacas, (pyramids) having been built of adobe millennia ago, are fairly shabby, and I didn't think they were as impressive as those of Chan Chan and Sol y Luna, down the road in Trujillo. However the treasures uncovered in the burial grounds are spectacular, (beating the pants off European found grave goods, like Sutton Hoo), and probably worth visiting the museums for than the pyramids themselves. There isn't much to the town of Chiclayo itself, but it does have a great and extensive market, where you can buy all the usual foods and goods, including great fish and black maize, but also curative potions, huge lumps of charcoal from a choice of 50 vendors, and where I almost got abducted by some stall holders attempting to sell me a belt I really didn't want.
The next set of buses, including one that took 8 hours instead of the normal 3, due to break downs and closed roads, at 4000 meters above sea level, (personally I felt sorriest for the chickens stuck on the top all that time), finally got me to Chavin. At first sight the ruins don't seem like all that much: a set of dilapidated ramparts surrounding a sunken central plaza, but within the ramparts are a series of labyrinthine tunnels, one of which leads to El Lanzon, a knife shaped obelisk. Several intricate carvings of gods, men and monsters survive. On the bus back to Huaraz I kept thinking we were passing a lot of sheep until I realised the bleating was coming from one we were carrying in the boot.From Huaraz, I bussed, via a connection in Lima all the way down to a little oasis town, Huacachina, near Ica to rest up for a night, take in a dune buggy ride and some rather unsatisfying sand-boarding (it just ain't the same as snow: not much speed and little manoeuvrability by comparison), before heading down to Nazca, and its famous lines.
Nazca is another lesson in not listening to the dissenters. I've just heard too much "don't know what all the fuss is about" from fellow travellers I've encountered on my journey. I suppose it's not going to be everyones' cup of tea, but then it's no more or less than advertised either. Etched by the drought besieged Nazcans having abandoned their temples to appeal directly to their gods for rain, spectacularly straight lines and stretch out across the desert plain bisecting shamanic inspired geomorphic figures, (or if you listen to some, they're landing sites for space ships - yeah, right).The Nazca Lines, like Easter Island and Machu Picchu are places I've wanted to visit since I was a child, are another highlight of my trip. But they are also the last of the major Archaeological sites I shall visit, as I will now head back along the Pan American, into Chile heading yet further south.
Meanwhile, I've also found a candidate for the most un-PC sweet wrapper award. Dona Pepa is a chocolate biscuit bar made by Kraft subsidery Lacta:
...oh, and on the "musical differences" front, I finally got Wang Chunged in the taxi this morning, and currently a Flock of Seaguls are on the radio...
# posted by Barney @ 7:20 pm 
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Dona Pepa is also the nickname of the black woman that invented this type of candy in 1711.
The entire history of Latin America is about the subjugation of one people to the will of the other, and the mass extermination of those people.
As such, African slavery doesn't stand out in history as much as it does in British North America .
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The entire history of Latin America is about the subjugation of one people to the will of the other, and the mass extermination of those people.
As such, African slavery doesn't stand out in history as much as it does in British North America .
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