Burning Desire For FIRE

This will be many photos and few words as it’s already 9PM and I have a 4:30AM start tomorrow.

Today was finally the day!

We were told that we’d see the sunrise, but that wasn’t ever going to happen. We weren’t scheduled to get onto the bus until 7AM. The queues were enormous, but in a surprisingly short period of time, we weren’t scheduled to on the public bus on the 25 minute ride up to Machu Picchu.
UP being the operative word. The shape of the hills all around Machu Picchu are also the shape of the hill that it’s built on.

The first thing we saw were these thatched huts that were used for food storage.

Llama fat covered the thatch to make it waterproof.

When we were on the top, Claudio pointed to different directions. To Brazil, to the coast, to Cusco etc. Part of what made this city so important to the Incas is that it had trails running along all directions to every corner of the empire.

You’d think that all the tourists here would ruin the ambience but it actually makes it easy to imagine what this place must’ve been like in its heyday. All the people walking around living, working in these buildings so high in the mountains. You hear their conversations, their footsteps, and the city is alive again.

They chose this place because of the location near the rainforest. There was abundant wildlife, to feed them while they built a big city to store food and it had many trade routes to Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil etc.

This place hummed with life, like a huge university, studying astronomy, agriculture, history, technology, engineering, medicine,  and biology. They brought people from all over the empire, the brightest of the bright, and they lived under the protection of the king.  

The city only ran for 100 years, and then it had to be abandoned. Destroying the Inca trails worked. The Inca treasures were safe here until an American found it in the early 1900’s and shipped the treasures back to the US. They’ve never been returned.

In 2003 George Bush snr promised to give the Machu Picchu treasures back.

Three years later, it was announced that Yale University now owns them.

Money talks…

And here’s the money shot.
The picture everyone has seen.

The walk to the top was easy. Yes, there are a lot of steps, and some are made from rocks and so are uneven, but I was getting nervous in the days leading up to the walk. Nearly everyone in my group was buying walking poles.
One pole, two poles… I was starting to wonder what they knew that I didn’t!

I nearly caved, but I thought of the Great Wall. I’d managed to climb those steps without walking poles, so surely I’d be ok here?

Of course I was. There are a lot of steps, as I said, but there are lots of places to stop, take a photo and get your breath back.

And there are plenty of excuses here to take photos. This place is spectacular.

The conquistadors found 200 Inca cities, and destroyed them all. Their orders from the king were to destroy everything and bring back all the gold and silver they could lay their hands on.

The people of the city left all the gold and silver in Vilkabamba, a nearby city. They thought they’d come back to Machu Picchu when the Spanish left.

The Spanish destroyed the Vilkabamba, and the people were killed by diseases that they had no resistance to. Smallpox, syphillis, etc. Fun times.

Cloud coming over the mountain.

This is the main gate that the Inca traders used. The actual gate was made of bamboo.

This semi circular room was the temple of the sun. This was the most important temple here.

Once a year, the king and priests sacrificed a llama.  🦙 

They’d use the organs to foretell the future.

They’d mix the llama blood with beer, and show it to the sun, then they’d pour it on the earth for Mother Nature.

The temple is quite small, as you can see. It was filled with gold statues, so that when the sunlight came through the windows, the light would bounce off and around the statues, filling the temple with golden light. I suppose that’s easier to do in a small room.

This is the rock they sacrificed the llamas on. Poor things.

Remember how I said that some of the group went to Rainbow Mountain, while the rest of us went to the salt mines? This is about the closest I’ll ever get to seeing Rainbow Mountain. Apparently this is not quite as bright as the original.

Claudio took us off the beaten track to show us the Temple of the Condor.

The condor is facing us, and the two big structures are the wings.

Condor was a messenger. It transfers your soul to the afterlife.

Once a year, they’d sacrifice a llama. Again. I was starting to get the feeling that the llamas here had a very limited lifespan.

The locals still leave offerings for the Incan gods, but nowadays the only things that lose their lives are coca leaves.

So how did I feel about this place?

It was never on my bucket list to come here. I knew people dreamed about going, but for me it was never a burn. It wasn’t until I came to Peru and started hearing about the history and seeing the landscape and the people that my interest was piqued.
By this morning, I was psyched to come. I woke up at 4AM and couldn’t get back to sleep.

I loved it. Seeing that iconic view with my own eyes was a very special experience. I was lucky to have a guide like Claudio, whose genuine enthusiasm ignited my own interest.

Will I be back? Well, you know me. There’s plenty more world to explore.
But I’m very, very happy I came here.

Dad joke of the day:

Just an Inca going about his business…

Today there was big excitement as we packed our overnight bags for 2 nights away. At last, we were heading towards Machu Picchu.

To be honest, Machu Picchu has never been on my bucket list of things that I must see or do. However, the more I’ve learned about it on this trip, the keener I am to see it.

We took the train to Aguas Calientes, otherwise known as Machu Picchu Town.

The train travelled at an ambling pace, taking an hour and 40 minutes to get there.

There was some spectacular scenery, including these donkeys earning their living along the Inca Trail.

It was a very pleasant way to begin our Machu Picchu adventure.

Once there, we walked through a huge market to our hotel. It’s right in the centre of town, which isn’t a given thing for TripaDeal, especially in China.

This one is so central, the train to Machu Picchu runs right by the front door. I’m on the 5th floor, directly above the tracks, but luckily the trains stop at 9 PM. 🤣

This place is almost like a pedestrian mall wedged in between huge, steep mountains. Claudio showed us around, but it only took about 10 minutes because it’s so small.

Then we had the rest of the day to ourselves.

It was 3PM when I was looking for lunch, so I decided to choose a big meal and call it Linner. (Lunch + dinner.)

This little cutie belongs to the owner of the cafe I ordered my burger and chips with free Pisco Sour. He’s what we call in Australia a Mexican Hairless, but the guy serving me was insistent that he was a Peruvian breed.

Afterwards, I gently perambulated around the town. It aids in digestion.

I visited the market, but every stall looked like this. I’ve pretty much bought everything I want to buy. I just haven’t bought any art.

This is outside my hotel. It reminds me of Train Street in Hanoi, but with a little more room.

Then Fortunate Frogdancer struck again. Literally right at the front door of our hotel, an artist was sitting there, plying his trade. Val from NZ came along at just the right moment. We chose two very similar paintings, got a 20AUD discount on each, and the deal was done!

I didn’t want a generic picture of Machu Picchu, or llamas wearing sunnies. This has the vivid colours of Peru, so I’m happy.

We have an early start tomorrow. Hopefully, we’ll get there just before sunrise.

Dad joke of the day:

This morning we packed a bag for 2 nights, just as we did for the Amazon, and we started heading for the Sacred Valley of the Incas and Muchu Picchu.

The views all along here are spectacular. Though when I turned around…

… there were some gum trees. There are so many here. Every time I idly think that those trees over there look like proper trees, of course they’re gum trees.

I was so happy. We stopped at a tiny village for a toilet break, (1 sol payment, but she gave us toilet paper), and I saw a shop selling hats. AT LAST they had mesh as an inner covering, so now the kids going with me to Egypt have these fantastic hats.

Our first stop was Pisac, which looks like the open greenhouse we saw yesterday, but was actually a place that provided lots of food all year round. This one supplied Cusco, heading one way over the mountains, and Muchu Picchu, heading a different way.

They farmed the valley all the way to Machu Picchu. They terraced the hills to make more room.

They actually made wicking beds from the terraces, using clay to keep the water in. They didn’t need irrigation, as the wicking beds saved all the water, exactly as my wicking beds do today.

We’re at 3,400 metres elevation.

The elevation is still affecting people. One guy, who has the double whammy of having a cold and being a smoker, was having a hard time today.
I’m ok, but I’ve noticed that when I want to take a deep breath, sometimes it’s not as satisfying as it usually is.

The houses at the top of the terrace were for the privileged people. The labourers lived down at the bottom.

They used Guinea pigs like a living doona, as they didn’t use any internal heating. Families would share a bed, along with Guinea pigs when it got nippy. Imagine how cold it would get at night, especially during the rainy season when it rains nearly every day? I’d grab every guinea pig I could!

Inca mummies were buried in the caves in the cliffs, around 10 mummies per cave. This was the biggest Inca cemetery ever found.

The bodies were crouched, to make them smaller. Inside the shrouds were tucked food, jewellery, toys, instruments of their trades, to take with them to the afterlife.

Most were destroyed by looters. It wasn’t the Spanish, as they never discovered them. The cliffs were covered with thick vegetation.

It was people in the 1980’s with metal detectors.

Llamas are wandering around free, undisturbed except for tourists wanting a selfie with them.

In the van again. I kept dozing off, but I saw these triangular hills.

Claudio pointed these pods out to us. You have to hike two hours up the mountain to get to your pod. It’s totally self-contained, and you spend the night suspended from the side of the mountain. The cheapest one is 600USD a night.

Two seconds later as our van kept moving, we saw hikers on their way to a night of bliss… or terror, depending on their faith in the machinery holding them up there.

After a huge buffet lunch, we drove to Ollantaytambo, a name that really rolls off the tongue. Quite apart from the Inca ruins, this is a terrific market town. Practically everyone bought something.

Ta da! I bought a dog-walking poncho.

Alpaca. All undyed. Babybaby.

This place was the gateway to go to Muchu Picchu. The buildings at the top of the hill are a temple to the Sun. The reason they moved huge rocks to the top of the hilltop was to be closer to the gods.

They were always watching the skies and these hills framed the Milky Way for them.

There were 7 different trails to get to Machu Picchu from different Inca cities. The trails were paved with small rocks to make it easier to pass. When it was realised just how destructive the Spanish conquistadors were, people moved the stones of the paving into the scrub and planted grass and plants. Fortunately, the plants had time to grow.

Six years later, when the Spanish and indigenous peoples had finished fighting, the Spanish were unable to ever find Machu Picchu. When the conquistadors arrived here, they asked for directions to any cities in the area.

The people here used gold statues on the cliffs leading away from Machu Picchu as a treasure hunt. The Spanish were led to a really big city. The Spanish destroyed the city and killed many people.
It would have really sucked to be them, but it saved Machu Picchu as an intact time capsule.

Most of our group climbed up to the top of the mountain, but I thought I’d save my leg muscles for Machu Picchu in two days’ time. As I was walking around the market, I saw what I swear must be Scout’s cousin!

Look. His little face is exactly like hers. I messaged Izzy to see how the dogs were doing.
“They are very energetic hahaha, and love cuddles all the time.”
Hopefully that means Hazel has recovered from her separation anxiety.

On our way out, these little girls offered to sing and dance for us. The second the song was over, the hats turned into tip receivers. They’re learning how to milk the tourists early. 😀

Dad joke of the day:

The group split up today. A few of us went to see Rainbow Mountain, but most of us chose the more varied tour on offer.

Unfortunately, I was sitting on the wrong side of the van, so there were reflections on the window. I tried my best. Also, it’s really hard to get photos from a van. You have absolutely no warning if something interesting is approaching and then whoosh! It’s gone.

This is low- lying morning cloud over Cusco as we climbed the road out of the city.

The locals feed the stray dogs and the dogs stay near houses that feed them and protect the houses. “You never see a thin dog in Peru,” said Claudio.

We were talking about this in the taxi coming home from dinner. It’s true. We’ve all seen scrawny dogs around the world, but not in Peru.

The Peruvian people are not fond of Trump. At all.

They used to buy their petrol from Venezuela. Ever since Trump kidnapped the Venezuelan president, the United States has taken all of Venezuela’s oil. Peru doesn’t have its own oil, so now they are buying it from Mexico at vastly higher prices.

People living here in the Andes have a life expectancy between 90 – 100 years old. 

People in the cities? 70 – 90 years.

They have a simpler life, their food is pure and organic and they have less stress. They are living the lives their ancestors lived. Arthritis gets them, though.

The houses are adobe.

Look at all the blue doors in Maras!

Donkeys! Everyone loves a donkey or two.

This is quinoa. I could make a quilt out of these colours.

These women are harvesting ocra. I’ve tasted this before, when my friend Bev with the food forest gave me some. It’s crunchy and sweet.

We are at the top of the sacred valley of the Incas. Tomorrow we go down, and the next day we travel by train through the mountain to reach Machu Picchu. 

5,680 metres elevation.

The biggest laboratory.  The Incas used this place to experiment with agriculture. There are 23 microclimates in this layered place.

They believe that the Incas found a conical shape in the ground and engineered around it. There are 6 months of rain water here, plus there’s a spring running underneath. Perfect for growing plants, and with a rapidly growing population, the Incas required secure food sources.

3,600 metres elevation here; higher than Cusco. They brought seed from the coast and the jungle. Planted them from top to bottom and saw what grew where. Cacao, tropical fruit, potato, corn, beans, squash etc.

Tobacco, cotton, and medicine. 

They were able to learn how to feed, clothe and nurture 12 million people.

Where we’re sitting, above the laboratory, it’s 16C.

Down below, up to 29C. There’s a different temperature on each terrace. In effect, it’s a greenhouse.

For 300 years, they used this place. The conquistadors came and found thousands of people living and working here.  

They grew exotic plants in the Sacred Valley. They were started here and then transplanted in the cities and villages that needed the food.

Machu Picchu has its own Inca greenhouse.

1635, the conquistadors arrived. 4 years later, the Incas decided to escape into the mountains and they took all their knowledge with them.

Those who stayed, became slaves for 300 years.

On the way to the salt mines, we stopped at a local place that taught us about the different kinds of salt, and also how the salt was actually produced.
They said they were a small family business, just starting out. I may have bought a present for my nearest and dearest…

40,500 pools. 

The salt crystallises in the dry season. It takes 25 days to crystallises in 3 levels.

1. Diabetes, tired etc. Good
2. Pink salt. Very good with Guinea pig.
3. Medicine salt.

The women dance on the salt and break it down and harvest it.

The men pack and lift the 50kg bags of salt. They take them to the drying sheds where they are emptied out and left for 6 weeks to dry in the sun. Then, the bags are repacked.

The spring water here is saltier than the ocean. This is 3,600 metres high

The owners of the salt mine are the people of Maras. The money we spend here stays here.

It was originally discovered by pre-Incas, but when the Incas arrived, they added channels along the walls of the ponds to continually fill with salty water.

The Incas left them alone to make salt. 

The Spanish took over control of the salt and introduced currency so the people had to buy their own salt. From 1530 – 1820 the Spanish sent a lot of money to Spain from this place.

Now, after 300 years as slaves, the people now own the salt again.

Each pond is about 50 cms. In 3 days, it evaporates. They do this 3 times before they harvest it. They scoop the salt off, just like I did in the salt lake in Dimboola.

The white ponds are almost ready to harvest.

The brown ones have been filled for the first time.

Working with the salt makes you blind. People work early in the morning and late in the afternoon.

They only make salt in the dry season. Rain falling on the salt forming isn’t good for it.
The spring water comes through the roots of a volcano to the left of us. It washes the minerals and salts into these pools.

On the way back to Cusco, we stopped at a weaving shop.

They fed us a simple lunch of a fritter and baked potato, which was very welcome at 2:30PM!

Here are the balls of alpaca wool they’ve ed and spun, placed in with the plants that gave them their colours.

Boil the plants for one hour with the wool and it absorbs the colour. The red was made by cochineal beetles. They are pests that attack the cactuses. Yes, it’s the same cochineal we use in baking.

I bought a hat, some wool and a woven table runner. They’re lovely.

At 5:30 we met up to go to a goldsmith’s shop, and walked through streets crowded with revellers celebrating the last day of the Cusco Festival. It was a long walk, but the experience of walking through the happy crowds was amazing. How lucky we were to experience this!

As we got closer to the city square the crowds grew denser. Claudio asked us to line up one by one behind him and to follow the TripaDeal flag through. Somehow, we formed a conga line and started dancing along to the rhythm of the music. Smiles from everyone around us!

The air was full of the aromas of food cooking, the sound of music and people chattering and singing… it was amazing to be a part of it.

This is how silver looks when it comes out of the ground.

Of course, you need to see gold as well.

Here’s an ounce of gold, worth just over 4K in today’s market.

Our group dinner was a real surprise. It was a gourmet degustation menu, with one of the courses being guinea pig. I was rapt, because it saved me from looking for it on every menu in Peru.

I liked it. To be honest, I think guinea pigs are useless pets. You may as well eat them.

The people from Rainbow Mountain had a great time and said it was stunning, but they all struggled with the altitude and a couple of them had to have oxygen.
I’m perfectly happy with our day. We saw so much and learned so much!

Tomorrow, we pack an overnight bag for two nights. Guess what’s coming up in a couple of days???

Dad joke of the day:

A weaving woman was in the lobby of the hotel this morning, and I couldn’t resist this alpaca bag. Look at the colours! I may be a tightarse, but I’m still human. This is coming back to Australia, along with the canvas shopping bag I bought in the Galapagos, with two blue footed boobies on it, with the caption, “I love boobies!”

Our first stop on the Cusco city tour was a place called Qorikancha, which was a srange meld of Inca and Spanish buildings. I took the time to cuddle this baby alpaca, before I bought the best hat I’ve ever owned in my life!

This photo was taken in the gardens after we went through the buildings. Seriously, I’m in love. It has a cap at the front and long shady things on the sides and down the back. No more burnt neck for Frogdancer.
June and Peter have been wearing hats like this and I’ve been struggling with hat envy. I had a chat on the boat with them yesterday and Peter found me the link, but today there it was… for $8AUD.

I was looking for 3 more for the kids I’m going to Egypt with in November, but the rest of them didn’t have mesh as the inner coating for the head. This would make the hats sweaty as hell.

So I’m on the lookout.

The Incas were ultra serious about their Gods… and there were many of them 

This was once the Rainbow temple.

There’s no mortar between the stones. That’s one of the ways that you can tell the difference between Inca-built and Spanish-built.

See the perfect symmetry of the windows?

The Incas didn’t invent mortar. They just had perfect engineering with each stone. The arrangement and the weight of the stones hold everything in place.

They used metal chisels and hammers. They followed the veins of the rock and these veins decided the shape of the rock.

We saw a model of how the temple used to be.

No wonder the Spanish lost their minds. The walls here were topped with gold. See the bottom left corner of the photo? There were gold, human sized statues.

Gold everywhere.

It’s a bit sad when we come out of the Inca part and went straight into the conquerors part.

When the Spanish landed in the south, the Incas were conquering tribes in the north. Good luck for the Spanish, I guess.

Another piece of the puzzle fell into place today.
Remember how in Quito we were told that when the Incan inhabitants heard that Pissarro had killed the king, they burned Quito to the ground rather than let the Spanish have any of it?

When Passaro met the last King a priest handed him a Bible. Of course the King looked at it and couldn’t understand a word of it because it was in Latin. He even held it to his ear to see if it made a noise.
When it appeared to be utterly useless, he threw it to the ground. Instantly, he was thrown into prison for heresy.
When he was in the prison cell begging to be released, they agreed on a ransom. The cell he was in was the measure. The outstretched arms above his head to that level would be filled with gold. The prison cell would be filled with gold and two more cells with silver.

When the ransom was paid, Pissarro shot him in the head.

That was why in Cusco,when they heard the news they destroyed the city. Claudio said, “yes they did. That’s absolutely true and they also destroyed cities everywhere and even their trails through the forests. That’s why the Spanish never found Machu Picchu…”

This was originally made from pure gold. The Southern Cross is at the top.

The grid at the bottom is a kind of census.

Then it was off to the Temple of the Sun, with the hilarious “Sexy Woman” sign. The real meaning is something to do with a falcon, I think.

Claudio was saying that in the 60’s, National Geographic found tribes who hid high in the Andes in the most inaccessible places from the Spanish and were still there.

They saw the genocide and vowed to never go back. They had food (potatoes) , llamas, water, and they were close to the gods.

They had everything they needed.

Christ the Redeemer in Rio is 3 times bigger than this. A Palestinian gave them this as a gift in 1953. 

120 – 150 ton rocks. 

In the quarry, they found stone rollers. This is how they moved the rocks, like the Egyptians did with the pyramids. Sally is here, giving some perspective.

I liked the plane flying over the ancient ruins.
They had a ceremony once a year on June 24. The whole population would come here to be ready for the sunrise. 

The royal family were covered in gold. As the sun rose, they gleamed. 
They hold the ceremony again in modern times, but as there’s no royal family, professors take their place. I don’t know if they are covered in gold, though.

There are 4 Sun Temples in the world. In Egypt, Cusco, India and MESO America. A woman in the group was saying that if you look at a map, they line up.

When the Spanish arrived, they punished the people who turned up for the Sun ceremony each year. They’d pull the women’s finger and toe nails out, while the men…

The Inca men had long ponytails down to their hips. The Spanish would tie the men’s hands behind their backs, then tie their ponytails to their testicles. Then they’d castrate them.

This is why the locals left if they could avoid being caught and enslaved.

1951 Japanese people came here to study Inca construction.

Round rocks under flat stones. It protects against earthquakes. The Japanese have used the technology that the Incas invented.

See the tower? It was 28 metres high. The Spanish destroyed it.

As you can see, this temple never had a roof. The sun was the whole point of the place, so it had to be freely available.

The top shows how it is now, the bottom how it was. It was filled by spring water.

Next stop was an alpaca farm and shop. I was very interested in the shop.

See my worried face? I had 3 ponchos I was trying on and I didn’t want to make the wrong decision. That cowl neck can be pulled up over my head if I want. I also bought 2 balls of baby alpaca knitting wool.

There’s an oxygen tank to my right. Altitude sickness is really a thing, and hotels, some shops and buses for tourists have oxygen tanks just in case.

I’m not feeling any symptoms, but I’m taking my altitude pills just in case. Three or four people in the group have felt it in differing degrees.

The statue they’re dragging through the streets represents the farming people from the Andes. They have dancing and music competitions once a year that run for nearly a whole month. The place was going OFF!

I finally tracked down this rain poncho. Mary from the Balkans tour had one. It literally covered her from her head to below her knees and it looked fabulous. When she said she bought it in Cusco, I was rapt. Claudio found some shops that sold it, so I ducked into one and snapped this baby up.
It was the main thing I wanted from Peru.

Then it was off to the cathedral. This reminded me of the Jesuit church in Quito, totally covered in gold.

Cusco used to have 45 churches, but now they have 23. Earthquakes keep knocking them down.
The people come here every Sunday to hear mass in an indigenous language. They cry, because it’s in their language, not Spanish and Latin like every other day of the week.

This is the first cross that the Spanish brought to South America. The silver on it is newer. Guess where the silver came from? And no, it wasn’t Europe.

If you converted to Catholicism, if you didn’t go to church regularly, they’d kill you. 

Frankly, it’s amazing to me that so many people are still Catholic here. After all that went on, surely you’d want nothing to do with it?

Underground is the Inca temple for astronomy.

Lord of the Flowers. The protector of Cusco.

They took Jesus outside to stop the over 400 tremors that were happening one day in the 1650’s. Apparently it worked.

Fat and smoke from the candles has turned Jesus’ skin dark brown.

Remember The Last Supper painting we saw in Quito? Here’s another one, also with guinea pig and corn on the table.

Pissaro is the front guy facing us, taking the place of Judas. People used to say he had 2 eyes… one eye for silver and one eye for gold.

He was so corrupt that after 10 years, he was killed. His two children fled to Spain and never returned. I don’t blame them.

Forgive the flare on the picture. I had to be sneaky.

This is the only image of Jesus that I find relatable. Look at his expression as he’s dragging that cross around.

Liz and I chose to walk back to the hotel. On the way, we passed lots of dance groups from the different regions. There appeared to be a lot of twirling involved. They all seemed to be having a good time, though as Claudio said, “Those guys drink a LOT!”

Dad joke of the day:

We were rudely awoken at 5:30 AM by a member of our group loudly exclaiming, “Oh no! I lost it! Where is it?” And she kept on projecting her voice in a constant stream, effectively killing sleep for the rest of us. She should get a job as an opera singer. She certainly has a good pair of lungs on her.

Remember how I said that all we had was flyscreens in the windows? We all heard her as if she were in our rooms with us. She was LOUD. And it was nearly 2 hours before we needed to get up. The sun was only barely peeping over the horizon. I think she woke him, too.

She constantly talks, but this was next level. As we were all lying in our beds, jolted out of sleep, she ran, still exclaiming at the top of her voice, to get the manager. He comes back, she’s still TALKING at the top of her voice, then they go into her room and I swear I heard furniture being dragged around.

It turns out that she couldn’t find a plastic envelope with the photocopies of the itinerary, her travel insurance etc. Let me emphasise that she still had all these things digitally. She still had her original passport and yellow fever vaccination form. Everything was fine. It was just photocopies.

She sat opposite me at breakfast. “I’m worried that I put my house keys and car keys with them,” she said. Them, 5 minutes later, she fished around in her bag and lifted up… “ my house keys!” She smiled as if she had performed a magic trick and expected a round of applause. No one at the table was feeling it… When she lifted up something else and said, “ My gym card!” you can imagine the lack of response she got.

We asked if she could have left the envelope in her big suitcase that she left at the depot in Puerto Maldonado. ( We brought only a small bag to the lodge.)

”Oh no, I was looking at the pages the first night I was here.”

She put in a report of stolen property to the manager. I’m sure he needed that stress.

When we were back at the depot and repacking our bags, I saw she had a plastic envelope full of papers beside her case.

”Is that the envelope you woke us all up for?” I asked loudly… though not as loudly as her.

She pursed her lips sulkily and said, “ I not talking.”

There was no apology, no “Sorry everyone, I panicked and didn’t realise I was so loud.”

Nothing. I hate it when people aren’t accountable for their actions.

Still, let’s look on the bright side. The rest of the group are great!

So we’re all a little sleepy at the end of the day. It’s just past 8PM and I’m going to be climbing into bed as soon as I press ‘Publish’ on this.
But omg – we’re in Cusco. Land of the Incas!

Lots of people stayed in the hotel and took it easy for fear of getting altitude sickness, but I was fine running around Quito, which is far higher than Cusco. I did a bit of washing, because rainforests and socks don’t go well together. The stink was abominable.
I decided to take a walk to have a look at the place. I was feeling just fine.

Of course, as my name is Frogdancer, I had to take a picture of this.

Cusco was the capital of the Incas.

The city sits in a bowl surrounded by mountains.

They conquered the Andes and Peru, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile.

There were 12 million Incan people.

There were only 1,200 Spaniards,and they conquered them. How? Superior technology (guns etc) as well as superstition. The Incas had never seen white skinned, blue eyed men riding horses.

“They showed them too much respect,” said Claudio.

Originally, there were 14 Inca kings. Only the last one met Pissarro, and we learned in Quito how that meeting ended up!

Spoiler: not good for the Incan king.

Cusco only has 600,000 people.

That was all the information Claudio had before we got to the hotel. It was a short ride.

There was a handicraft market right over the road from the hotel, so of course I had to have a look. I made a deal with myself that I wasn’t going to buy anything on the first day, but I took photos of the stall numbers who had things I liked.
We’re here for 3 nights, so I have time to go back. The shops don’t close until midnight on weekdays.

Should I order an alpaca burger for dinner? I’m tempted…

Dad joke of the day:

I was woken at 2AM with the predicted storm lashing the lodge… and my face. Thunder, presumably lightning, combined with rain hurling itself on the roof with vicious abandon. The rain hitting me wasn’t too heavy, so I went back to sleep, only waking a couple more times when a particularly heavy gust splashed me again.
This shot was taken at 5:30 AM during breakfast, when the rain had slackened slightly. The water was still coming down, though.

This was my room. Remember when I told you yesterday that there was no glass in the windows, just fly wire?

Fly wire doesn’t do a great job of waterproofing. I hung my merino t shirt in the wardrobe to air out, and the whole thing was damp when I went to put it on, as were my socks and jeans.
I just told myself that they’ve been washed, and my body heat would soon take care of it.

Val lent me a novel. I started reading it before I turned the light out and I put it on the bed beside mine. It didn’t get wet, but the moisture in the air certainly had an effect!

The plan for the morning was to go on a boat ride to an island, hike for 3 kms, climb a 30 metre tall tower to look at the forest canopy, see a lake and then reverse our steps.

Again, I did the canopy thing in Borneo. It wasn’t raining then, and there was minimal mud. I was weighing things up.

About half the group didn’t even bother to get up, while those of us who did faced Claudio with revolution on our minds. He offered to change the departure time to 8AM instead of 6:30, and also offered the use of rubber boots to cope with the mud.

At 8, it was still raining. Remember when I was in Borneo last year in a raging storm and the motor stopped on our boat and we were swept downstream? I felt like I’ve already had that experience, plus I knew from Borneo that the only things we’d see on the boat ride and walk would be miserable monkeys and sodden birds.
Stephen in our group also made the point that wearing rubber boots for 6 kms would probably leave us with blisters. I have Machu Picchu in a few days!!
I chose to stay home.

I ended up sleeping for nearly 3 hours.

omg.

When the others got back it was exactly how I thought it would be. No animals and plenty of mud.

These plants are indoor plants back home. Here, they grow happily in the garden.

After lunch, we jumped into a boat and headed off to Monkey Island.

Five minutes after we got off the boat, we were greeted by young brown Capuchin monkeys. These are the result of cross-breeding between the black and the white Capuchins.

Many of the monkeys are rescues, most from being pets. These ones rely on the food the lodge brings every day when they bring people like us across.

Their babies quickly work out how to live in the wild.

We were listening to the guide, and this little person was chilling, right behind us.

Depending on where you stand, you can get up close and personal with them. Later on in the trip, some of us were even handing them banana halves.

I tested out the vertical panorama to show you how high the trees were. The spider money retreated to the top of the tree with a full banana. A few seconds later, there was a “thump!” as the empty banana skin landed on the ground beside me.

This is Josephine. She was once a pet and was surrendered with a broken leg.

The lodge had a vet come out to monitor her every few days until she recovered.

The furthest part of the walk was where we were hoping to see the White Capuchin monkeys. Despite the best efforts of our guide, none of them showed up.
That was a little disappointing, but after all, there are no guarantees with wildlife.

The guide kept making a 3-toned whistle, which was being echoed by some birds deeper in the forest. It reminded me of the Mockingjays in The Hunger Games. When I asked, he said they were Tinanou birds, and they were very cheeky.

We retraced our steps and went back to where the spider monkeys were.

On the way, someone asked what the black lumps in the trees were.

These are ants nests. Remember the huge ones I saw in Arnhem Land? I suppose over here, they build them up high so they escape armadillos and ant eaters.

Josephine and a White Capuchin.

White Capuchin, checking who has bananas.

Josephine jumped onto our guide’s back.

“She’s kinda heavy, about 8 kms.”

Their tails are so strong that they can support their full weight.

There are only female Spider Monkeys here at present. There was a male, but he was killed by the Capuchin monkeys, who are more aggressive (and jealous).

There are plans to introduce more males, to keep the colony going.

Happy hour tonight. Two Pisco Sours for 114AUD.

After dinner, we put on our life jackets again and went out on the river to look at the stars. Once we got away from the lights of the lodge, we could see thousands.

We had a two minute stretch where we sat in silence, motor engine off, no phones, and just listened. We could hear birds and monkeys calling from far away, the low, constant hum of insects, and the water of the river flowing.

Val, who clearly has a better sense of smell than me, could smell the forest, and wood smoke.

We did the same exercise in Antarctica, and I still remember the sounds of water dripping into the sea from the icebergs, the wind, and the distant sounds of colonies of penguins calling to each other. The people on that boat sat very still, with no rustling of clothes and drinking from water bottles, which made that experience even better than this one.

It was a lovely way to end our Amazon forest experience. Tomorrow – Cusco!

Dad joke of the day:

Our alarms went off at 2AM, and by 3AM we were climbing into the bus to reach the airport. There wasn’t a lot of happy chatter.

I was lucky enough to lift my head from my book on the flight, just in time to see this.

We landed in Puerto Maldonado minus a couple of passengers. A husband packed both passports into their big suitcase, checked it in, and then they were stuck when they needed to show both passports and boarding passes for the flights.

Just keep it in mind… domestic flights overseas sometimes require passports, unlike Australia. It’s always best to keep them close.

They were able to get their suitcases off the plane, and took a later flight to join us. They’re still married, by the way. 😂

Imagine our excitement when we saw some sloths in a tree right beside the luggage drop-off in Port Maldonado! This is a mother with a baby in front of her.

Here they are from another angle.

Annette took this video. I like it because you can see the baby’s face.

This was the snack offered to us on the boat taking us to the lodge. Anyone who knows me IRL knows that I can’t stand bananas.
As the boat droned on, most of us fell asleep. I was dreaming…

… when all of a sudden the boat stopped moving.
“A family of howler monkeys on the river bank!” called Claudio, and we all grabbed our phones. I was too late, but someone else on the WhatsApp group was quicker.

After 90 minutes, we arrived at the lodge. We were assigned our rooms. I have the Anaconda room, which is essentially a cabin with fly screens instead of glass, to let the breeze through and the mozzies out.

This will be important later.

I thought this was a capybara, but it turns out it’s an Aguti , which are like squirrels. They hide seeds and nuts in the ground.

This is.the guide for our walk, carrying a machete. Jaguars are occasionally seen here. We were going on a gentle walk to a lake 1km away from the lodge, to try and see caiman/alligators.

Along the way, we saw an Ironwood tree… just a young one of 200 years old.

Our guide did a panorama shot, going up instead of across the. I’ve never thought of doing this. I experimented with the next tall tree we came across and it worked a treat.

I find out something new about my phone on nearly every trip. That’s why I have to keep going; just to get my money’s worth from my phone.

Our guide saw a hole in the ground near the track and invited us to come down with him. Once he mentioned “spider”, only Annette and I took him up on the offer. I brought my wide-legged jeans on this trip and they sometimes touch the ground, so I had sturdy rubber band around my ankles to lift the legs up a bit.

I figured I was safe from any creepy-crawlies running up my legs inside my jeans, so I took up position right outside the hole.

Meet the Chicken tarantula. It’s bloody massive. I was keeping a close eye on where it was going, I can tell you!
Its bite won’t kill us, as we’re too big. Its venom just makes us sick. 

They catch their prey with a claw, bite them, and then butcher them with the claw as the venom takes hold.

It’s called ‘Chicken’, because when she hunts, her babies are behind her. She calls them to her when the food is ready, just like a mother hen.

Here’s the caiman lake.

This is the only caiman we saw. Yes, I promise it’s real.
It was more like a shape under the water, so it was a bit of a fizzer.
It was starting to get dark, so we headed back.

Anteaters and armadillos destroy the trail looking for ants. They think the raised trail might be an ants nest.

This was lying in the path in front of us, with the broken part hidden. Our guide made us stay back while he checked it out, cautiously turning it over with his machete.
it’s a Bell Wasp nest, fortunately empty.

Just before our beautiful dinner, I wandered down to the dock to take these photos.

We’re meant to go on a 6 km walk early or tomorrow morning. I looked at the weather prediction for tomorrow and it was a 95% chance of storms.
Hmmm…

Dad joke of the day:

Here’s me in another life.

“They’ll never believe it!” said Terry, one of the guys in our group, as Liz was taking the picture.

Today was a city tour of Lima. Our group has 18 people this time, most of whom are travelling with friends and family. They all seem great, though.

11 million people live in Lima. It’s the second-driest city in the world, after Cairo. Hardly any rain falls here.

1535 Pissaro established modern Lima. He visited in January, it rained in the mountains and so the rivers were full. It was sunny, and it has a great port. He thought this was the perfect spot for a capital city.

Everything else was the opposite in the rest of the year, except the port.

Oops.

Earthquakes happen here. “ Too late!” said the guide. “ You’re already here!”

Many centuries before Incas… 

… in 1981 they discovered this 5,000 year old pyramid. It’s solid. It was for ceremonial offerings, human sacrifice… always women, “because they had to offer the gods the best they had.”

(Our guide for the city tour was a woman.) 😂

They can restore, but not rebuild. We didn’t get out of the bus for this, which was annoying, particularly as I was on the wrong side of the bus.

1746 earthquake and tsunami. It was 7.9 on the Richter scale.Nowadays there are little tremors all the time. The buildings are built like the ones in Japan.
The older buildings are pretty much left abandoned after the 2nd floor, as people are scared of the risks of earthquakes.

The first thing we did was go to an ATM to get Peruvian Sol. I bought a crocheted Llama key ring from this girl, purely to get some coins. It’ll be my Peruvian Christmas tree decoration.

La Mercy church. 64% of the population is Catholic.

In Peru they celebrate Incan traditions in the Catholic Church. In order to get people on board, the Spanish had to become a little creative. I’ll show you a painting later on that illustrates this perfectly.

Still La Mercy church. She looks like she’s thinking about hurling herself off the balcony.

4,000 different kinds of potatoes are grown here. I love spuds, so Peru had me at “Land of the potato.” Come for Mucho Picchu, stay for the potatoes!

Back when the Spanish invaded, their culture was heavily influenced by the Moorish (Muslim) people who lived in the south of Spain. The women were not allowed out in public unless they were swathed in fabric like this, with only ONE EYE exposed so the poor things could actually see where they were going.

Balconies were built so that the women could see out onto the streets, without being seen themselves. Heaven forbid a man loses control if he sees a woman looking at him with two eyes…

Vultures on top of the cathedral next door.

The main square was fenced off because there was a political protest going on a few streets away. We could hear the yelling.
There’s a fountain here that, on their Independence Day, runs with Pisco Sour instead of water.
Damn! We came in the wrong month!

On the walk to the cathedral, look who I saw?

I’ve visited his tomb in Florence!

Atmospheric, isn’t it?

This is a statue of St Francis of Assisi in the Convent of San Francisco. Here, monasteries are where nuns live and convents are where monks live. The monks who live here are Franciscans and are dedicated to a life of service.

Every day, they make lunch for 400 needy people, and also provide medical care as well.

This place was founded in the 1530’s and has withstood many earthquakes.

The tiles used in this church were made in Seville and transported here in the early 1600’s.

Diego de la Puerto’s famous 1696 painting of The Last Supper — notably featuring guinea pigs and potatoes on the table. 
When the Spaniards first arrived and started spouting the gospel to the South Americans, they were met with very little enthusiasm. The Inca people worshipped the sun, moon, stars and nature in general. How could a man be God?

Quickly, the Spanish changed their propaganda, turning from sculptures to paintings, which can easily tell a story. The Incans conflated Mary with Mother Nature, which is why Mary is more central than Jesus to South American Catholics. Many Incan special days are celebrated in Catholic churches here.

Then we went down to the catacombs. Or over 200 years people paid to be buried here. The were wrapped in shrouds and all bundled in together. When the archaeologists found them, all the bones were mixed together.

Honestly, these were very sanitised. This arrangement was the only interesting part. It fell far short of the Paris catacombs.

See? It was a little dull.

”They had to pay to be buried here. Now the tourists pay to see them. It’s still a business.”

In a little street off the main square is this monument for all of the indigenous people who were killed by the Spanish.

Weirdly, it’s about 30 metres from a statue of Pissarro, the conquistador who started it all.

Our guide was raving about this ice cream called Lucuna, made from a Peruvian fruit. Amazingly, it tasted just like golden syrup.

Most people went to lush with Claudio, our guide, but I came back to the hotel. I’d locked my passport in the safe in my room, and I couldn’t open it. I definitely wanted to get it sorted out!
Once done, Liz and I met up with everyone and we walked to a viewpoint of the Pacific Ocean.

The Love Garden. Couples reproduce the statue.

I, of course, just had to cuddle myself.

The Love Garden is a popular place to propose. Unfortunately, too many rejected lovers were jumping off this bridge, so huge protective barriers have been put in place. Even so, there’s a policeman on either side of the bridge, just in case.

I’ve never been into Paddington, but it makes sense that he’s here. He came from Peru originally, after all!

Early night tonight. We leave the hotel at 3AM for our flight to the Amazon jungle…!

Dad joke of the day:

Not much to report. We left Quito, flew to Lima, met the new group ( they all seem nice) and went out for dinner.

The guy who drove us in from the airport recommended a few Peruvian dishes and also pointed out a restaurant a block from the hotel.

I ordered one of the dishes. I can’t remember what it’s called, but it’s like a lasagne of mashed potatoes, avocado, tuna, mashed potatoes and shrimp on the top. Around 14AUD.

Delicious.
I made the rookie error of ordering a couple of glasses of red wine without asking the price. My meal came to just under 60AUD.

OUCH.

Dad joke of the day: Walking Dead fans. 😀