Friday, July 30, 2004
Cambridge, UK - I was at work today, doing what I do best: photocopying. It's quite nice to be thrown into the deep-end here on the Japanese Summer Schools, else post-Perú I'd feel a bit listless!
The journey back was uneventful. I was asleep on my feet in the check-in queue at Jorge Chavez airport in Lima, after leaving a Barranco watering hole an hour or so before check-in officially opened, at 4.30am. I had to have a final crazy night with the crew, which had started in the lovely chifa at the Club de Regatas in Chorillos, a treat laid on by Cecilia and Eric to say farewell. We moved on to the infamous Bierhaus for my last dance, my last ridiculously huge jugs of beer, the last bad Spanish chatter ... Saying goodbye was so difficult to those people who had become my Peruvian family, and especially to my amazing and lovely Peruvian dentista! And, from then on, it was anonymous airport concourses - the same the world over - populated by a procession of officials who thought it bizarre, suspicious even, that two blokes from Britain called Ben (I'd been chatting to the other in the queue) were catching the same flight, within five minutes of each other in the pecking order. ("Do you know him?" "Is he your brother?"). Miami Airport was wet and unexceptional, Pizza Hut pizza being as deliciously drenched in tasty grease as elsewhere in the world. I sat next to an athletics coach from the Bahamas between Miami and home, who gave me an official badge of his Olympic association. He was on his way to Athens, wearing his bright blue, almost turquoise, jacket and bright yellow hankerchief with pride! (Watch for a young lady Bahamaian 400m runner - you heard it here first!) But, rather than have further fascinating conversation about world sport, nandrolone etc, my body decided to sleep like a baby almost all the way. The films were rubbish anyway, so I didn't miss much on that score.
And here I am in Cambridge. It's not Perú. It's a little weird to be here, amongst the pristine lawns and grand old buildings. If the Puericultorio had the attention from English Heritage that some of these places have ... I'll be back there, no doubt about it. I can't just turn my back on such an amazing place, a wonderful country, and lovely people, just like that! Thanks for reading ... and, siempre, arriba Perú!
The journey back was uneventful. I was asleep on my feet in the check-in queue at Jorge Chavez airport in Lima, after leaving a Barranco watering hole an hour or so before check-in officially opened, at 4.30am. I had to have a final crazy night with the crew, which had started in the lovely chifa at the Club de Regatas in Chorillos, a treat laid on by Cecilia and Eric to say farewell. We moved on to the infamous Bierhaus for my last dance, my last ridiculously huge jugs of beer, the last bad Spanish chatter ... Saying goodbye was so difficult to those people who had become my Peruvian family, and especially to my amazing and lovely Peruvian dentista! And, from then on, it was anonymous airport concourses - the same the world over - populated by a procession of officials who thought it bizarre, suspicious even, that two blokes from Britain called Ben (I'd been chatting to the other in the queue) were catching the same flight, within five minutes of each other in the pecking order. ("Do you know him?" "Is he your brother?"). Miami Airport was wet and unexceptional, Pizza Hut pizza being as deliciously drenched in tasty grease as elsewhere in the world. I sat next to an athletics coach from the Bahamas between Miami and home, who gave me an official badge of his Olympic association. He was on his way to Athens, wearing his bright blue, almost turquoise, jacket and bright yellow hankerchief with pride! (Watch for a young lady Bahamaian 400m runner - you heard it here first!) But, rather than have further fascinating conversation about world sport, nandrolone etc, my body decided to sleep like a baby almost all the way. The films were rubbish anyway, so I didn't miss much on that score.
And here I am in Cambridge. It's not Perú. It's a little weird to be here, amongst the pristine lawns and grand old buildings. If the Puericultorio had the attention from English Heritage that some of these places have ... I'll be back there, no doubt about it. I can't just turn my back on such an amazing place, a wonderful country, and lovely people, just like that! Thanks for reading ... and, siempre, arriba Perú!
Tuesday, July 27, 2004
Miraflores, LIMA - Lake Titicaca was fabulous! I boarded a boat at half seven in the morning and headed out over the glittering lake. It's more an inland sea really - absolutely HUGE, extending almost as far as the eye can see; I could just make out the mountains on the Bolivian side in the distance.
Our first port of call was a visit to the Uros people. They live on floating islands, made from clumps of reeds harvested from the nearby reed beds, which are secured to the lake bottom with stakes and rope. These islands last around twenty years, at which time the islanders begin to notice the stink of decomposition and have to start building a new one. Their main pastime - apart from building the very ground on which they live - seems to be ... selling handicrafts to the tourists that visit in their droves. But, although we were not alone, it was an extremely picturesque spot and fascinating to see the houses and boats which were also made entirely of reeds.
We then spent a couple more hours in the boat to make the journey to Taquile, a "proper" island this time. We hiked up to the main plaza, where yet more islanders assembled to sell woollen goods and a panpipe and charanga bands shuffled around playing the joyous music of the altiplano. The people of the island seemed poor - especially the children, who appeared to be dirty and unkempt, doing their best to sell sweets or simply their own photo to the tourists passing by. The children of Puno itself did a roaring trade in finger-puppets that evening; on the boat, I'd met a bunch of Irish girls and told them all about the Puericultorio. They decided to buy heaps of puppets for my children, which was really really sweet of them. We had a lot of fun playing with them ourselves in the hotel, which elicited some straaaange looks from our fellow guests ...
Back in Lima now, and off to the Puericultorio for the very last time, before flying off first thing tomorrow morning. I'll be back in the UK first thing on Thursday, severely jet-lagged and wondering if it has all been a dream. I'll miss Peru so much - es en mi corazón!
Our first port of call was a visit to the Uros people. They live on floating islands, made from clumps of reeds harvested from the nearby reed beds, which are secured to the lake bottom with stakes and rope. These islands last around twenty years, at which time the islanders begin to notice the stink of decomposition and have to start building a new one. Their main pastime - apart from building the very ground on which they live - seems to be ... selling handicrafts to the tourists that visit in their droves. But, although we were not alone, it was an extremely picturesque spot and fascinating to see the houses and boats which were also made entirely of reeds.
We then spent a couple more hours in the boat to make the journey to Taquile, a "proper" island this time. We hiked up to the main plaza, where yet more islanders assembled to sell woollen goods and a panpipe and charanga bands shuffled around playing the joyous music of the altiplano. The people of the island seemed poor - especially the children, who appeared to be dirty and unkempt, doing their best to sell sweets or simply their own photo to the tourists passing by. The children of Puno itself did a roaring trade in finger-puppets that evening; on the boat, I'd met a bunch of Irish girls and told them all about the Puericultorio. They decided to buy heaps of puppets for my children, which was really really sweet of them. We had a lot of fun playing with them ourselves in the hotel, which elicited some straaaange looks from our fellow guests ...
Back in Lima now, and off to the Puericultorio for the very last time, before flying off first thing tomorrow morning. I'll be back in the UK first thing on Thursday, severely jet-lagged and wondering if it has all been a dream. I'll miss Peru so much - es en mi corazón!
Sunday, July 25, 2004
PUNO - I've just had a chifa (that's a Chinese to you). There was an influx of Chinese immigrants in Peru around a hundred years ago and their legacy lives on in the gaudy signs that are ubiquitous on Peruvian streets, announcing the presence of yet another temple of MSG. The cuisine is particular to Peru, having evolved here and absorbing local influences and ingredients. I was wandering the streets of Puno this evening and I happened upon Chifa Han Song (something like that), a few local families were eating inside, which is always a good sign. I strode in, feeling slight stranger-enters-saloon syndrome, and took a seat in good view of the TV, which was tuned to Fox Sports and showing first international rugby, then a bit of skiing. And why not.
I perused the menu, while taking in the decor, a mixture of Oriental ephemera and panpipes, which just about sums up the whole chifa experience! The guy took my order in beautifully flowing script and I sat back and tried to work out exactly what was going on in the world of snowsports. I was fairly hungry, so ordered an avocado salad - something light to start with, I thought - followed by a plate of noodles in "Sauce Tay-Sa". I had no idea what that was, but it was the most expensive of the noodle dishes, coming in at a ludicrous quid and a half. The others customers munched away, minding their own business, as waiter-guy ambled back and forth, sporting an oh-so-typical woollen cardie adorned with llamas. I had the kitchen door in my sights and every so often, a sage-looking chef emerged to get something from the fridge, which, bizarrely, was in the dining room, obviously too big for the cupboard of a kitchen. Our chef was decked out in a pea-green football shirt, a sky-blue apron with a dinky pink elephant embroidered in the corner and an Oliver-esque workhouse cap. He looked perpetually bemused.
My "light starter" turned out to be a monster pile of vegetable matter, creamy avocado piled on top of the lovely Peruvian-style onion salad, impregnated with citrus. There were boiled carrots too. And potatoes, and even a couple of olives. I had barely finished this when llama-man produced the largest amount of noodles, stir-fried meat and saucy gloop that I have ever seen together in one place. And it was all for me! Traversing this great mountain, digging into its layers, was akin to another Inca Trail, with my jaw taking most of the strain this time around. It was a grand struggle in the best tradition of the gentleman archaeologist-cum-explorer, but by the time I got to a certain depth - the sort of depth where, in my analogy, you might find the ceramics and trepanned skulls of the Moche civilisation - I was defeated, sent back to basecamp to lick my wounds. Llama-man giggled and consoled me with a sachet of Nescafe and a cup of hot water.
* * *
My final day in Cuzco was an epic one. I decided to punish my poor old legs a little more by dragging them, kicking and screaming, up to the ruins at Sacsayhuaman - or, in gringo parlance, SexyWoman - which are to be found on a hill to the north of the city. It wasn't too much of a slog at all; the four day walk had certainly put hills into perspective. It was a lovely sunny morning and, on the way up, I watched a horde of nuns and schoolgirls enact some patriotic ceremony in one of the plazas and got chatting to a painter, who was rendering views of his beloved Cuzco in lively, eye-catching oils. I paid my money and entered the complex, walking up the path towards the main bunch of ruins. Yet again, I got chatting to a local, this time a chap called Dacio who was sitting by the path carving beautiful designs into gourds, a craft typical of his home town of Huancayo. Dacio comes to Cuzco for the three busiest months of the tourist season to sell his wares to mugs like me (I walked off with two, after a bit of a natter). The ruins themselves were fabulous, further examples of the unbelievably impressive craft of the Inca stonemason, who could carve 130 ton rocks to fit together like a hand fits in a particularly snug glove. The views out over Cuzco were excellent - so excellent in fact that Jesus himself was parked on the hill next door (at least, a 15m white stone statue of the geezer) keeping an eye on the city, and probably the gaggle of handicraft sellers at his feet, too.
After lunch and a bit of gift shopping, I went along to Qoricancha, which was, so they say, the centre of the Inca Civilisation. Today, you can see the old ceremonial fountain and a bunch of old walls - and the monastery of Santo Domingo, which the Spanish decided to build on top of the old place, creating a fascinating mix of the colonial and the native. There were even a couple of real Incas there, with headdresses and everything ... unless they were just actors, employed to look authentic in tourist photos. Nah. I'm not that cynical.
I met up with Tom 2 in the evening. Our paths crossed in Aguas Calientes the day before, as I finished my Inca Trail and he finished his day visit to Machu Picchu. We'd arranged to meet up for beer, which was a good thing, since my previous plan to sample Cuzco's nightlife with Kellie had been thwarted by that dodgy sandwich the weekend before. We had pizza and beer to start with; I ate a creation that sums up Cuzco in eight cheesy slices. An alpaca pizza is something that you're unlikely to find anywhere else in the world - and even if you could, you'd be hard pushed to find a couple of bottles of chilled Cuzqueña to wash it down. We're both going back to Blighty on the same day next week, so we were chatting about what the near future back home has to hold - Brian Deane's return to Leeds, for example.
The plan was to meet the Spanish (Igor, Hugo, Gonzalo) a bit later on, so we needed to kill some time in another watering hole. We walked into the Plaza de Armas, wondering where - until a couple of gringos waved some fliers in our faces, promising free booze and good music. Two minutes later we were in Mama Amerika, supping rum and coke for free and watching an assortment of dreadlocked specimens in Andean knitwear getting on down to some beats. Mmm. It was just about time to meet the Spanish, so we evaded a ¨Peruvian drunk who had been droning on at us incomprehensibly, and jumped in a cab to zoom to the appointed plaza. There were Igor and Hugo, and a vast army of their cousins, plus Gonzalo. They appeared to have a bottle of rum and two litres of Pepsi, which they were supping in the square. It was to be quite a night ... first in the Gipsy Pub, where the beermats decorating the wall numbered amongst them Bank's Bitter, and then some club on the Plaza. Dunno what it was called. The music was good. Their rum was ... rum. My Spanish improved a hundred fold. Lucky, a voice in my head said as the cab dropped me off at the hotel at 4.30am, that I'd already packed and set my alarm for 6:00, so I could make the 8 o'clock train to Lake Titicaca ...
...
I rejoined the sphere of the conscious, which happily endowed me with the faculty of telling the time. It was, inexplicably, 7:41!!!! Nineteen minutes until my train, the only train of the day, apparently one of the most beautiful train journeys anywhere in the world ...!!!! I threw on some clothes and shoved the few things that were left strewn around my room into my bags, before pegging it out of the hotel and waving like a crazy man at the first cabbie I saw. I plonked a cinco soles on the guy's dashboard and told him my predicament in no uncertain terms. Rrrrrrrrapido! He didn't take much notice, to be honest, perhaps because we got stuck just behind a police 4x4, and you don't really want to cut one of those up. But ... we made it. With three minutes to spare. I raced along the platform and onto my carriage, where all of the sensible people had been sitting in the coach, ready and relaxed, for ages. I found my seat, next to a couple of German blokes, who hardly talked for the ten hours of the trip. I thought they perhaps objected to the hollow-eyed wreck who probably smelt of fags and stale booze and who had spoilt their serenity. However, it was just a bit of Teutonic ice - towards the end of the journey, they themselves began to swig a heady-smelling clear liquid from an unmarked white plastic container which looked as if it had been designed for engine lubricant. After a few lid-fuls of that, one of them even smiled.
The journey - once I'd slept a little and been readmitted into the land of the living - was spectacular. The train trundled (there's no other word for it, as we could have easily been outpaced all the way by any frisky llama worth his salt) through fabulous mountain scenery into the immense altiplano, the plateau at well over 3000m that extends from southern Peru into Bolivia, on which alpacas gambol, campesinos eke out a living while looking incredibly picturesque, and into which the waters of Titicaca plunge. We made a stop about half way through the journey and, what do you know, there was a handicraft market, in the middle of nowhere! As the locals attempted to foist unreasonably fluffy hats and outsized cardies on me, I took a few snaps, including one of little Monica, who must have been about seven and spent her days posing for tourist snaps with her hirsute alpaca, whom I'll have to name Dave. Monica, poor thing, looked incredibly annoyed to be there in my photo, pouting at the silly gringo who had parachuted into her sierra with his flashy camera and who would disappear momentarily.
Back on the train, a wandering minstrel called Maximo regaled us for twenty minutes with some fine Andean music, ably supported by his two lady singers and dancers, who plucked poor unsuspecting French tourists from the discomfort of their seats to make them dance like fools, wearing really daft hats. It was greatly entertaining and the music was infectious. And another thing: the food on the train was looovely, from the svelte pile of scrambled eggs for breakfast to the hearty Andean broth that I took for lunch. It almost made me feel human again.
We rolled into Puno at dusk and I got my first glimpses of Titicaca, which is more of an inland sea than a lake. In fact, after Chile nicked their coastline in the War of the Pacific in the 1880s, the lake is the sole stomping ground for the entire Bolivian navy - it's no pond, you know. In the morning, I'll be on a boat, bright and early, to visit the islands of Los Uros and Taquile, to meet the lake people. My alarm is already set for 6am. And I'm giving the rum and coke the widest of berths ...
I perused the menu, while taking in the decor, a mixture of Oriental ephemera and panpipes, which just about sums up the whole chifa experience! The guy took my order in beautifully flowing script and I sat back and tried to work out exactly what was going on in the world of snowsports. I was fairly hungry, so ordered an avocado salad - something light to start with, I thought - followed by a plate of noodles in "Sauce Tay-Sa". I had no idea what that was, but it was the most expensive of the noodle dishes, coming in at a ludicrous quid and a half. The others customers munched away, minding their own business, as waiter-guy ambled back and forth, sporting an oh-so-typical woollen cardie adorned with llamas. I had the kitchen door in my sights and every so often, a sage-looking chef emerged to get something from the fridge, which, bizarrely, was in the dining room, obviously too big for the cupboard of a kitchen. Our chef was decked out in a pea-green football shirt, a sky-blue apron with a dinky pink elephant embroidered in the corner and an Oliver-esque workhouse cap. He looked perpetually bemused.
My "light starter" turned out to be a monster pile of vegetable matter, creamy avocado piled on top of the lovely Peruvian-style onion salad, impregnated with citrus. There were boiled carrots too. And potatoes, and even a couple of olives. I had barely finished this when llama-man produced the largest amount of noodles, stir-fried meat and saucy gloop that I have ever seen together in one place. And it was all for me! Traversing this great mountain, digging into its layers, was akin to another Inca Trail, with my jaw taking most of the strain this time around. It was a grand struggle in the best tradition of the gentleman archaeologist-cum-explorer, but by the time I got to a certain depth - the sort of depth where, in my analogy, you might find the ceramics and trepanned skulls of the Moche civilisation - I was defeated, sent back to basecamp to lick my wounds. Llama-man giggled and consoled me with a sachet of Nescafe and a cup of hot water.
* * *
My final day in Cuzco was an epic one. I decided to punish my poor old legs a little more by dragging them, kicking and screaming, up to the ruins at Sacsayhuaman - or, in gringo parlance, SexyWoman - which are to be found on a hill to the north of the city. It wasn't too much of a slog at all; the four day walk had certainly put hills into perspective. It was a lovely sunny morning and, on the way up, I watched a horde of nuns and schoolgirls enact some patriotic ceremony in one of the plazas and got chatting to a painter, who was rendering views of his beloved Cuzco in lively, eye-catching oils. I paid my money and entered the complex, walking up the path towards the main bunch of ruins. Yet again, I got chatting to a local, this time a chap called Dacio who was sitting by the path carving beautiful designs into gourds, a craft typical of his home town of Huancayo. Dacio comes to Cuzco for the three busiest months of the tourist season to sell his wares to mugs like me (I walked off with two, after a bit of a natter). The ruins themselves were fabulous, further examples of the unbelievably impressive craft of the Inca stonemason, who could carve 130 ton rocks to fit together like a hand fits in a particularly snug glove. The views out over Cuzco were excellent - so excellent in fact that Jesus himself was parked on the hill next door (at least, a 15m white stone statue of the geezer) keeping an eye on the city, and probably the gaggle of handicraft sellers at his feet, too.
After lunch and a bit of gift shopping, I went along to Qoricancha, which was, so they say, the centre of the Inca Civilisation. Today, you can see the old ceremonial fountain and a bunch of old walls - and the monastery of Santo Domingo, which the Spanish decided to build on top of the old place, creating a fascinating mix of the colonial and the native. There were even a couple of real Incas there, with headdresses and everything ... unless they were just actors, employed to look authentic in tourist photos. Nah. I'm not that cynical.
I met up with Tom 2 in the evening. Our paths crossed in Aguas Calientes the day before, as I finished my Inca Trail and he finished his day visit to Machu Picchu. We'd arranged to meet up for beer, which was a good thing, since my previous plan to sample Cuzco's nightlife with Kellie had been thwarted by that dodgy sandwich the weekend before. We had pizza and beer to start with; I ate a creation that sums up Cuzco in eight cheesy slices. An alpaca pizza is something that you're unlikely to find anywhere else in the world - and even if you could, you'd be hard pushed to find a couple of bottles of chilled Cuzqueña to wash it down. We're both going back to Blighty on the same day next week, so we were chatting about what the near future back home has to hold - Brian Deane's return to Leeds, for example.
The plan was to meet the Spanish (Igor, Hugo, Gonzalo) a bit later on, so we needed to kill some time in another watering hole. We walked into the Plaza de Armas, wondering where - until a couple of gringos waved some fliers in our faces, promising free booze and good music. Two minutes later we were in Mama Amerika, supping rum and coke for free and watching an assortment of dreadlocked specimens in Andean knitwear getting on down to some beats. Mmm. It was just about time to meet the Spanish, so we evaded a ¨Peruvian drunk who had been droning on at us incomprehensibly, and jumped in a cab to zoom to the appointed plaza. There were Igor and Hugo, and a vast army of their cousins, plus Gonzalo. They appeared to have a bottle of rum and two litres of Pepsi, which they were supping in the square. It was to be quite a night ... first in the Gipsy Pub, where the beermats decorating the wall numbered amongst them Bank's Bitter, and then some club on the Plaza. Dunno what it was called. The music was good. Their rum was ... rum. My Spanish improved a hundred fold. Lucky, a voice in my head said as the cab dropped me off at the hotel at 4.30am, that I'd already packed and set my alarm for 6:00, so I could make the 8 o'clock train to Lake Titicaca ...
...
I rejoined the sphere of the conscious, which happily endowed me with the faculty of telling the time. It was, inexplicably, 7:41!!!! Nineteen minutes until my train, the only train of the day, apparently one of the most beautiful train journeys anywhere in the world ...!!!! I threw on some clothes and shoved the few things that were left strewn around my room into my bags, before pegging it out of the hotel and waving like a crazy man at the first cabbie I saw. I plonked a cinco soles on the guy's dashboard and told him my predicament in no uncertain terms. Rrrrrrrrapido! He didn't take much notice, to be honest, perhaps because we got stuck just behind a police 4x4, and you don't really want to cut one of those up. But ... we made it. With three minutes to spare. I raced along the platform and onto my carriage, where all of the sensible people had been sitting in the coach, ready and relaxed, for ages. I found my seat, next to a couple of German blokes, who hardly talked for the ten hours of the trip. I thought they perhaps objected to the hollow-eyed wreck who probably smelt of fags and stale booze and who had spoilt their serenity. However, it was just a bit of Teutonic ice - towards the end of the journey, they themselves began to swig a heady-smelling clear liquid from an unmarked white plastic container which looked as if it had been designed for engine lubricant. After a few lid-fuls of that, one of them even smiled.
The journey - once I'd slept a little and been readmitted into the land of the living - was spectacular. The train trundled (there's no other word for it, as we could have easily been outpaced all the way by any frisky llama worth his salt) through fabulous mountain scenery into the immense altiplano, the plateau at well over 3000m that extends from southern Peru into Bolivia, on which alpacas gambol, campesinos eke out a living while looking incredibly picturesque, and into which the waters of Titicaca plunge. We made a stop about half way through the journey and, what do you know, there was a handicraft market, in the middle of nowhere! As the locals attempted to foist unreasonably fluffy hats and outsized cardies on me, I took a few snaps, including one of little Monica, who must have been about seven and spent her days posing for tourist snaps with her hirsute alpaca, whom I'll have to name Dave. Monica, poor thing, looked incredibly annoyed to be there in my photo, pouting at the silly gringo who had parachuted into her sierra with his flashy camera and who would disappear momentarily.
Back on the train, a wandering minstrel called Maximo regaled us for twenty minutes with some fine Andean music, ably supported by his two lady singers and dancers, who plucked poor unsuspecting French tourists from the discomfort of their seats to make them dance like fools, wearing really daft hats. It was greatly entertaining and the music was infectious. And another thing: the food on the train was looovely, from the svelte pile of scrambled eggs for breakfast to the hearty Andean broth that I took for lunch. It almost made me feel human again.
We rolled into Puno at dusk and I got my first glimpses of Titicaca, which is more of an inland sea than a lake. In fact, after Chile nicked their coastline in the War of the Pacific in the 1880s, the lake is the sole stomping ground for the entire Bolivian navy - it's no pond, you know. In the morning, I'll be on a boat, bright and early, to visit the islands of Los Uros and Taquile, to meet the lake people. My alarm is already set for 6am. And I'm giving the rum and coke the widest of berths ...
Friday, July 23, 2004
CUZCO - My calves are feeling a little tender today. I'm back in the mountain city after the four day walk of legend, which went something like this ... (and I'm going to be as brief as I can ...)
***
DAY 1: I peeled myself out of bed at 6am ready for the early morning pick-up from the hotel. I'd already met Hernan the guide the previous evening who seemed a relaxed sort of character, very laid back about the whole thing, years of experience in the Sierra etched into his Andean face. He took me through the various stages of the Inca Trail on a little map he'd brought with him and told me some of what to expect. It was to be a small group - just the six of us - and I met the merry band as I stepped onto that bus which, being Peruvian, was about an hour late. There were three lads from Spain. Igor and his brother Hugo were staying with their Peruvian gran and had been to Cuzco several times, but had never walked the Trail. They were from Zaragoza, but Igor studied in Barcelona, from where he knew his mate Gonzalo, who they had brought along for the ride. He reminded me of a Spanish tennis player - wiry, sporting a bandana and wispy goatee. And then there were the Belgians - Robert, a University professor in Antwerp, in the field of Development, and his partner (wife? I never asked) Lud, who worked for a clinical trials company.
A few hours later, we arrived at the evocatively named "Kilometre 82" (a modern name, surprisingly not Inca!), a point on the valley railway line from where the classic trail begins. We started by eating lunch in the car park. I'd heard all kinds of stories about food on the Inca Trail. Frankly, I was expecting beany slop, rancid meat and a high likelihood of gastric catastrophe. How wrong I was. Three courses arrived, beautifully presented - soup, a sumptuous chicken dish and some gelatinous dessert. How you can cook stuff like that on a couple of camping stoves I'll never know. The other great surprise was that the package provided by my particular travel agency included some bloke to carry the bulk of my stuff. I hadn't planned it - I was all pumped up and ready to shift it myself - but I wasn't going to argue! With just a little bag to carry water, sun cream, raisins and the other necessities of the trail, I'd enjoy the experience a whole lot more.
Off we trekked, crossed the ceremonial suspension bridge next to the ticket checkpoint to enter the Inca Trail. The first installment began by following the valley a little way, walking through pleasant agricultural grasslands, with the odd ruin to take in across the river and next to the railway line. Everything was framed by mighty snow-capped mountains; I had to remind myself to look where I was going, instead of gazing at the peaks we were leaving behind.
The first haul uphill came into view, with a procession of people diagonally ascending the sheer wall in front of us. It wasn't too bad a climb - but it was here that I first noticed the prodigious powers of the Inca Trail porters. These guys, usually pint-sized Andeans, take loads on their backs that look about twice their size! Sometimes they are backpacks. Sometimes a couple of backpacks tied together, with other stuff hanging off the side. Sometimes a whole assortment of the detritus of camping - huge gas canisters, tent poles, water containers, and even trays of eggs, delicately poised on top. And don't think they struggle up the slopes. Oh no. They were nimbly trotting past the likes of us, taking rest from time to time, but always outpacing the weedy gringos. And when it came to downhill stints - they'd run, even down the steepest of steps!
After that first ascent, we emerged onto a wide table of rock and, looking down into the valley on the far side, we took in our first major Inca ruin - Llaqatapata - which was a large collection of farming terraces. From there, it was only a couple of hours along similar, gently undulating paths, to our first campsite, at Huayllabamba. We had the best trout for dinner that I've ever tasted. Cooked on camp stoves?! Our tents were set up in the top field of the site, which boasted a hole in the wall selling water, above which was the legend, scrawled in green paint: "Shoping Center - Visa and Mastercard accepted." Donkeys ambled past, driven by vibrantly clothed old ladies. Chickens and dogs wandered around the yard. We retreated to our tents soon after dinner, not long after darkness fell - aided in no small part by Johnny's head torch, thanks for that mate! The next day was said to be the hardest, so we'd need all the sleep we could get ...
DAY 2: We were up at the crack of dawn to press on, which we did, after a terrific breakfast of pancakes, toast and bucketfuls of the ubiquitous coca tea. The day involved a long, long haul uphill. It was around 4 hours up to the top of Dead Woman's Pass, climbing from 3000m to 4200m during the course of the morning. There were fantastic views at the top though - utterly stunning vistas in both directions - which made up for the thousands of steps that we had pulled ourselves up. Going down is arguably worse, picking your steps sooo carefully to ensure you don't fall off the mountain. We arrived at our campsite in time for a late lunch, and then an afternoon reading a spot of Latin American Lit in the sun, peering out over yet more jaw-dropping Andean scenery.
DAY 3: Cold. Coooold!!! There was ice on the inside of the tent door as Gonzalo peeled it open at 6am, or whatever time it was. It was a struggle to get out of bed, although that had been fairly chilly too - my hired sleeping bag wasn't the warmest, unfortunately! The terrain was easier on the third day, and there was more diversion in terms of ruin count - Sayacmarca and Phuyupatamarca, clinging to the mountains (somehow), with their various functions explained to us by the informative Hernan. Arguably more spectacular were the table decorations at lunchtime, a hummingbird carved out of various vegetables crowning a platter of rice. After 17km of trudging up and down, up and down, we arrived at Wiñay Wayna, the most commercial of the campsites, also accommodating the noncy two-day trekkers, who obviously couldn't cope without a restaurant and hot showers. The bogs still stank like fetid guinea pigs though. Or, like somebody had just eaten a fetid guinea pig.
DAY 4: I go to bed at 4am more often that I get up at that ungodly hour. But, 4am it was ... to join a QUEUE of tourists waiting for the gate to open to allow entrance to Macchu Picchu. An hour or so of walking ensued, which, for all of the beautiful scenery, felt a little like a commuter motorway, choc full of knackered people, robotically making their way to a common destination. We arrived at the Sun Gate - and there it was, just like in all of those photos! Macchu Picchu, spread imperiously across a ridge of rock, with Winay Picchu, a large rocky outcrop, standing guard over the site. I thought I might be underwhelmed by this place - after the hype and the years of seeing it, drooling over it, in books. Oh no. It cuts an awesome impression as you walk down the path from the Sun Gate, your perspective constantly changing and the sun's rays gradually warming up its intricately carved stones sometime after 7am. All of the other tourists melt away, as you amble through the places of religious significance, the extraordinary masonry, the renditions of condors in rock, the impressively exact alignments with the sun and stars. It's a wonderful place. So wonderful, that Gonzalo and I were imbued with the extraordinary powers that allowed us one last physical exertion and clamber up the giddy, excessively steep Winay Picchu for yet more vertiginous views. Breathtaking, in every sense.
All that remained was for us to descend to backpacker haven Aguas Calientes, the portal town in the valley, for beer, pizza and a couple of hours flopping in the thermal springs. What a great four days ...
***
DAY 1: I peeled myself out of bed at 6am ready for the early morning pick-up from the hotel. I'd already met Hernan the guide the previous evening who seemed a relaxed sort of character, very laid back about the whole thing, years of experience in the Sierra etched into his Andean face. He took me through the various stages of the Inca Trail on a little map he'd brought with him and told me some of what to expect. It was to be a small group - just the six of us - and I met the merry band as I stepped onto that bus which, being Peruvian, was about an hour late. There were three lads from Spain. Igor and his brother Hugo were staying with their Peruvian gran and had been to Cuzco several times, but had never walked the Trail. They were from Zaragoza, but Igor studied in Barcelona, from where he knew his mate Gonzalo, who they had brought along for the ride. He reminded me of a Spanish tennis player - wiry, sporting a bandana and wispy goatee. And then there were the Belgians - Robert, a University professor in Antwerp, in the field of Development, and his partner (wife? I never asked) Lud, who worked for a clinical trials company.
A few hours later, we arrived at the evocatively named "Kilometre 82" (a modern name, surprisingly not Inca!), a point on the valley railway line from where the classic trail begins. We started by eating lunch in the car park. I'd heard all kinds of stories about food on the Inca Trail. Frankly, I was expecting beany slop, rancid meat and a high likelihood of gastric catastrophe. How wrong I was. Three courses arrived, beautifully presented - soup, a sumptuous chicken dish and some gelatinous dessert. How you can cook stuff like that on a couple of camping stoves I'll never know. The other great surprise was that the package provided by my particular travel agency included some bloke to carry the bulk of my stuff. I hadn't planned it - I was all pumped up and ready to shift it myself - but I wasn't going to argue! With just a little bag to carry water, sun cream, raisins and the other necessities of the trail, I'd enjoy the experience a whole lot more.
Off we trekked, crossed the ceremonial suspension bridge next to the ticket checkpoint to enter the Inca Trail. The first installment began by following the valley a little way, walking through pleasant agricultural grasslands, with the odd ruin to take in across the river and next to the railway line. Everything was framed by mighty snow-capped mountains; I had to remind myself to look where I was going, instead of gazing at the peaks we were leaving behind.
The first haul uphill came into view, with a procession of people diagonally ascending the sheer wall in front of us. It wasn't too bad a climb - but it was here that I first noticed the prodigious powers of the Inca Trail porters. These guys, usually pint-sized Andeans, take loads on their backs that look about twice their size! Sometimes they are backpacks. Sometimes a couple of backpacks tied together, with other stuff hanging off the side. Sometimes a whole assortment of the detritus of camping - huge gas canisters, tent poles, water containers, and even trays of eggs, delicately poised on top. And don't think they struggle up the slopes. Oh no. They were nimbly trotting past the likes of us, taking rest from time to time, but always outpacing the weedy gringos. And when it came to downhill stints - they'd run, even down the steepest of steps!
After that first ascent, we emerged onto a wide table of rock and, looking down into the valley on the far side, we took in our first major Inca ruin - Llaqatapata - which was a large collection of farming terraces. From there, it was only a couple of hours along similar, gently undulating paths, to our first campsite, at Huayllabamba. We had the best trout for dinner that I've ever tasted. Cooked on camp stoves?! Our tents were set up in the top field of the site, which boasted a hole in the wall selling water, above which was the legend, scrawled in green paint: "Shoping Center - Visa and Mastercard accepted." Donkeys ambled past, driven by vibrantly clothed old ladies. Chickens and dogs wandered around the yard. We retreated to our tents soon after dinner, not long after darkness fell - aided in no small part by Johnny's head torch, thanks for that mate! The next day was said to be the hardest, so we'd need all the sleep we could get ...
DAY 2: We were up at the crack of dawn to press on, which we did, after a terrific breakfast of pancakes, toast and bucketfuls of the ubiquitous coca tea. The day involved a long, long haul uphill. It was around 4 hours up to the top of Dead Woman's Pass, climbing from 3000m to 4200m during the course of the morning. There were fantastic views at the top though - utterly stunning vistas in both directions - which made up for the thousands of steps that we had pulled ourselves up. Going down is arguably worse, picking your steps sooo carefully to ensure you don't fall off the mountain. We arrived at our campsite in time for a late lunch, and then an afternoon reading a spot of Latin American Lit in the sun, peering out over yet more jaw-dropping Andean scenery.
DAY 3: Cold. Coooold!!! There was ice on the inside of the tent door as Gonzalo peeled it open at 6am, or whatever time it was. It was a struggle to get out of bed, although that had been fairly chilly too - my hired sleeping bag wasn't the warmest, unfortunately! The terrain was easier on the third day, and there was more diversion in terms of ruin count - Sayacmarca and Phuyupatamarca, clinging to the mountains (somehow), with their various functions explained to us by the informative Hernan. Arguably more spectacular were the table decorations at lunchtime, a hummingbird carved out of various vegetables crowning a platter of rice. After 17km of trudging up and down, up and down, we arrived at Wiñay Wayna, the most commercial of the campsites, also accommodating the noncy two-day trekkers, who obviously couldn't cope without a restaurant and hot showers. The bogs still stank like fetid guinea pigs though. Or, like somebody had just eaten a fetid guinea pig.
DAY 4: I go to bed at 4am more often that I get up at that ungodly hour. But, 4am it was ... to join a QUEUE of tourists waiting for the gate to open to allow entrance to Macchu Picchu. An hour or so of walking ensued, which, for all of the beautiful scenery, felt a little like a commuter motorway, choc full of knackered people, robotically making their way to a common destination. We arrived at the Sun Gate - and there it was, just like in all of those photos! Macchu Picchu, spread imperiously across a ridge of rock, with Winay Picchu, a large rocky outcrop, standing guard over the site. I thought I might be underwhelmed by this place - after the hype and the years of seeing it, drooling over it, in books. Oh no. It cuts an awesome impression as you walk down the path from the Sun Gate, your perspective constantly changing and the sun's rays gradually warming up its intricately carved stones sometime after 7am. All of the other tourists melt away, as you amble through the places of religious significance, the extraordinary masonry, the renditions of condors in rock, the impressively exact alignments with the sun and stars. It's a wonderful place. So wonderful, that Gonzalo and I were imbued with the extraordinary powers that allowed us one last physical exertion and clamber up the giddy, excessively steep Winay Picchu for yet more vertiginous views. Breathtaking, in every sense.
All that remained was for us to descend to backpacker haven Aguas Calientes, the portal town in the valley, for beer, pizza and a couple of hours flopping in the thermal springs. What a great four days ...
Sunday, July 18, 2004
CUZCO - It's official, I'm now a tourist, prey to postcard-sellers, gringo-piercers and vendors of horrendous fluffy models of llamas...
The last days in Lima were hectic ones. On Thursday, Julia and I finally managed to get hold of the necessary material to finish the Puericultorio polo shirts; when I go back briefly before flying home, I'll be able to see the final product, and ceremonially receive my own! That same day, I went with Fiorella to the house of Señor Olea, our Mr Piano, to view the instrument he proposed to sell us. It certainly looked lovely, a chestnut brown upright gleaming under the Señor's well-placed desk-lamp. I had a bash and it played pretty well, apart from a bit of an excessive echo in the middle register - we asked about this, and the Señor said it could be fixed before he delivered it the next day. Perfect; he made some noises about wanting a deposit there and then, but Fiorella slapped him down, saying that no money would change hands before the piano was installed in the Puericultorio. He then insisted on giving us a guided tour of the other instruments in his house, which we could never have afforded, but which played beeeeautifully, especially the baby grand Yamaha, mmmm ... After sorting all of that out, it was time to face my last full night in Lima, which demanded a bit of a knees-up. Naturalmente, we headed down to Barranco, for Peruvian food - anticuchos y picarones once more, that heady combination of cow's heart and doughnuts that we all know and love - and Latin dancing into the early hours.
The next morning was a bit of a write-off, but I needn't have worried because a good number of lessons were cancelled due to, guess what, a spot of marching! The banners and berets were being dusted off in preparation for the celebration of Independence Day in a couple of weeks time, so English lessons went straight out of the window. Oh well. At 1pm, I headed down to the gate with Lloyd to receive our piano, which turned up on the back of a green pick-up accompanied by three burly Peruvians, including our Señor. We led it round to the English Lab, to inquisitive looks from the children, and the piano chaperones heaved it onto a trolley and rolled it into the room. I gave it a play and it seemed in good nick - they hadn't swapped it for a rubbish one while we weren't looking - with the echo rather better, but still not perfect. The Señor said that he would come back the week after and tweak it some more; all part of the service apparently. We're going to keep the piano inside the English Lab until the Music Room is renovated. It's got broken windows and a dodgy door at the moment, which, in effect, leaves it open to the elements, and the moist, salty air of the nearby sea is not the best thing for a piano. Lucky thing is that the Señor provided us with a key for the instrument, pretty important for avoiding random bashing ...
On the final afternoon, my adult students had insisted on throwing a small party for me in the Lab. They brought along nibbles, wine and a huuuge jug of Pisco Sour. Well, as you can imagine, things got rather excitable after a few glasses; the stereo was pumped up with Latin tunes and Charro began to give us an impromptu lesson in the traditional dance of the sierra, which rather reminded me of the sort of dancing that a hobbit might be seen practising in the Inn at Bree. Touchingly, I was presented with a really sweet "Muchas Gracias" card, a couple of little badges and a message on the white-board, in English, saying thank you too!
I was planning a quiet one before my 3.30am flight, but Lloyd, Johnny, Greg and I ended up going to a gig in an Irish pub with Eric, Manolo and Tato. The band were mates of theirs and had been doing rather well for themselves, apparently having a video shown on MTV in Peru ... It was good stuff, the Peruvian rock-anthems delivered to an appreciative audience in a venue that, to be honest, was about as Irish as fried guinea-pig. It was also an instructive evening in the art of colloquial Peruvian-Spanish, with Manolo reminding me exactly what to say to any taxi driver that tried to rip me off, in the coarsest terms.
It just remained for me to pack, and wait a couple of hours for my taxi ...
* * *
And here I am in Cuzco, Peru's biggest tourist city. It is beautiful - an elegant mixture of colonial architecture and Inca stone-work - and, although rammed with backpackers from all over, still feels very chilled out and not particularly hassly. The Plaza de Armas, as always in Peruvian cities, is the centre of things, and boasts an incredible cathedral complex on one side, which I had a look at earlier on today. It is magnificently rich, full of glittering altars and an amazing wood-carved choir, not to mention ancient paintings covering almost every inch of the huge stone walls. The best, for me, is a uniquely Peruvian rendition of the Last Supper - with Christ about to tuck into a prone cuy on a plate in front of him, and wash down the little tyke with a glass of chincha!
When arriving in Cuzco by air, you have to watch out for the sudden jump in altitude - you're up to 3310m without any of the acclimatisation afforded by a gradual ascent by road. You have to take it easy. Unfortunately, I ate a bit of a dodgy sandwich after my first few hours ... That, coupled with the altitude and knackeredness after a full-on week in Lima, confined me to bed, sleep and cable TV for much of yesterday afternoon. I popped out in the evening to meet up with Kellie, who happened to be in Cuzco as part of her tour, but must have been the worst dinner date ever, looking green and sleepy ... All better today though, after a gloriously long time in bed; which is just as well, because I'm off on the Inca Trail in the morning. I've been accumulating the last bits of kit needed - hired a sleeping bag, bought a rain poncho and stocked up on trail snacks! Johnny's lent me his head torch too, which is real honour, the pinnacle of Parsons gadgetry. It should be an amazing four days - the weather is gorgeous today, too. Let's hope that it's a taste of things to come!
The last days in Lima were hectic ones. On Thursday, Julia and I finally managed to get hold of the necessary material to finish the Puericultorio polo shirts; when I go back briefly before flying home, I'll be able to see the final product, and ceremonially receive my own! That same day, I went with Fiorella to the house of Señor Olea, our Mr Piano, to view the instrument he proposed to sell us. It certainly looked lovely, a chestnut brown upright gleaming under the Señor's well-placed desk-lamp. I had a bash and it played pretty well, apart from a bit of an excessive echo in the middle register - we asked about this, and the Señor said it could be fixed before he delivered it the next day. Perfect; he made some noises about wanting a deposit there and then, but Fiorella slapped him down, saying that no money would change hands before the piano was installed in the Puericultorio. He then insisted on giving us a guided tour of the other instruments in his house, which we could never have afforded, but which played beeeeautifully, especially the baby grand Yamaha, mmmm ... After sorting all of that out, it was time to face my last full night in Lima, which demanded a bit of a knees-up. Naturalmente, we headed down to Barranco, for Peruvian food - anticuchos y picarones once more, that heady combination of cow's heart and doughnuts that we all know and love - and Latin dancing into the early hours.
The next morning was a bit of a write-off, but I needn't have worried because a good number of lessons were cancelled due to, guess what, a spot of marching! The banners and berets were being dusted off in preparation for the celebration of Independence Day in a couple of weeks time, so English lessons went straight out of the window. Oh well. At 1pm, I headed down to the gate with Lloyd to receive our piano, which turned up on the back of a green pick-up accompanied by three burly Peruvians, including our Señor. We led it round to the English Lab, to inquisitive looks from the children, and the piano chaperones heaved it onto a trolley and rolled it into the room. I gave it a play and it seemed in good nick - they hadn't swapped it for a rubbish one while we weren't looking - with the echo rather better, but still not perfect. The Señor said that he would come back the week after and tweak it some more; all part of the service apparently. We're going to keep the piano inside the English Lab until the Music Room is renovated. It's got broken windows and a dodgy door at the moment, which, in effect, leaves it open to the elements, and the moist, salty air of the nearby sea is not the best thing for a piano. Lucky thing is that the Señor provided us with a key for the instrument, pretty important for avoiding random bashing ...
On the final afternoon, my adult students had insisted on throwing a small party for me in the Lab. They brought along nibbles, wine and a huuuge jug of Pisco Sour. Well, as you can imagine, things got rather excitable after a few glasses; the stereo was pumped up with Latin tunes and Charro began to give us an impromptu lesson in the traditional dance of the sierra, which rather reminded me of the sort of dancing that a hobbit might be seen practising in the Inn at Bree. Touchingly, I was presented with a really sweet "Muchas Gracias" card, a couple of little badges and a message on the white-board, in English, saying thank you too!
I was planning a quiet one before my 3.30am flight, but Lloyd, Johnny, Greg and I ended up going to a gig in an Irish pub with Eric, Manolo and Tato. The band were mates of theirs and had been doing rather well for themselves, apparently having a video shown on MTV in Peru ... It was good stuff, the Peruvian rock-anthems delivered to an appreciative audience in a venue that, to be honest, was about as Irish as fried guinea-pig. It was also an instructive evening in the art of colloquial Peruvian-Spanish, with Manolo reminding me exactly what to say to any taxi driver that tried to rip me off, in the coarsest terms.
It just remained for me to pack, and wait a couple of hours for my taxi ...
* * *
And here I am in Cuzco, Peru's biggest tourist city. It is beautiful - an elegant mixture of colonial architecture and Inca stone-work - and, although rammed with backpackers from all over, still feels very chilled out and not particularly hassly. The Plaza de Armas, as always in Peruvian cities, is the centre of things, and boasts an incredible cathedral complex on one side, which I had a look at earlier on today. It is magnificently rich, full of glittering altars and an amazing wood-carved choir, not to mention ancient paintings covering almost every inch of the huge stone walls. The best, for me, is a uniquely Peruvian rendition of the Last Supper - with Christ about to tuck into a prone cuy on a plate in front of him, and wash down the little tyke with a glass of chincha!
When arriving in Cuzco by air, you have to watch out for the sudden jump in altitude - you're up to 3310m without any of the acclimatisation afforded by a gradual ascent by road. You have to take it easy. Unfortunately, I ate a bit of a dodgy sandwich after my first few hours ... That, coupled with the altitude and knackeredness after a full-on week in Lima, confined me to bed, sleep and cable TV for much of yesterday afternoon. I popped out in the evening to meet up with Kellie, who happened to be in Cuzco as part of her tour, but must have been the worst dinner date ever, looking green and sleepy ... All better today though, after a gloriously long time in bed; which is just as well, because I'm off on the Inca Trail in the morning. I've been accumulating the last bits of kit needed - hired a sleeping bag, bought a rain poncho and stocked up on trail snacks! Johnny's lent me his head torch too, which is real honour, the pinnacle of Parsons gadgetry. It should be an amazing four days - the weather is gorgeous today, too. Let's hope that it's a taste of things to come!
Friday, July 16, 2004
Miraflores, LIMA - Where was I ...
We met up with Tom 2 after breakfast who was the man with the tickets to the games in the afternoon. The atmosphere was building in the main square. Of course, the traditional pursuit of the English in such a situation is to pour unheard of quantities of lager down our throats, swear unashamedly, sing xenophobic songs and throw chairs and bottles and attempt to throw the riot police. The Costa Rican fans that we met were a little more sedate, appearing more like a Saga holiday party than a bunch of lary likely lads. There was also a bloke dressed as a huge football boot, who shuffled around periodically, adding the usual ingredient of football tournament surrealism.
And so to the stadium. Johnny and Tom 2 were both wearing Brazil shirts - if you can't beat 'em, join 'em I suppose - and on the way round to our entrance, we were assailed by a TV camera and excitable broadcaster wanting a quick 'chat to the fans' before the big game. The wind was taken out of his sails a little when he realised that we weren't Brazilian and our grasp of Spanish wasn't fantastic ... But all was rescued with the following priceless exchange between our journalist and Johnny, who he had somehow decided looked like Luis Figo.
Broadcaster (in Spanish): "How many Peruvian girls have you been with?!"
Johnny Figo (jauntily): "Ronaldo!"
A staple of outtake shows for years to come, methinks. It did apparently make it to broadcast, along with a shot of our group standing on the terraces, with me wearing my latest silly Peru hat.
We emerged onto the terraces and gasped in awe. Looming right above us, perfectly framing the field below, was El Misti itself. I don't think there can be a football stadium anywhere in the world with a more fabulous situation. We were able to enjoy it all the more, since we were not jammed in like sardines as per the Peru-Bolivia match. The stadium was half empty in fact, which meant we could lounge about and spread out in comfort, under the pleasant afternoon sun.
The Brazil - Costa Rica game was rubbish, 4-1 to the world champions, who didn't really have to try, in a low key, pedestrian encounter. But better was to follow. Paraguay (who I have a soft spot for, after their gutsy 98 World Cup featuring former star man and psycho goalkeeper Chilavert) took on Chile, who, after a big war one hundred years ago with Peru, are certainly not local favourites! It was entertaining end to end stuff. Whenever the contingents of Chile fans belted out their chants, everybody else whistled them down. Chile took the lead in the 72nd minute and let off a flare to celebrate - now that's what I expected from South American football, incendiary devices a-plenty! Deservedly, Paraguay equalised minutes later, shutting the Chileños up with a scorcher from 30 yards in the goal immediately in front of our vantage point, capping off a perfect afternoon.
Time for dinner. I'm always one for local specialities, and in Arequipa, it was time to take the plunge and try Peru's most notorious dish. Cousins with small furry pets look away now. The celebrated plate of Arequipa is none other than cuy - that's guinea pig to you and me. The little fellow was served, fried and whole, on a plate accompanied by a bit of salad and a couple of boiled potatoes. As you teared at his limbs to find the juiciest morsels, you had to try not to think about the cutesy rodent teeth and pointy nose peering up at you. He really was very tasty, but there wasn't really too much meat on him. As with all unusual meats of the world, it had something of chicken about it.
We whiled away the night drinking Arequipeña, in a now chilly city, whose temperature plunges after dark, at 2300m above sea level. In the morning, we wandered around some more, and I popped in to the convent of Santa Catalina, a city within a city that has been in Arequipa for around 500 years. It was a shame we couldn't spend longer in beautiful Arequipa, but we had to get back to resume teaching the next morning. We arrived at the airport in good time ... only to find that our airline, Aero Continente, had been grounded indefinitely by the government only three hours before because its insurance had expired and no other company would supply it with a policy. This might have had something to do with the dubious reputation of its MD as an alleged narco-trafficker and money launderer, which has led to repeated hounding by the government. As I write now, flights have not resumed and they look to be going under ...
Well, there we were. We had to get back to Lima. All the other airlines' flights were fully booked. The only option was a fourteen hour bus ride which would get us to Lima about 30 minutes before lessons were due to start. Luckily, when we got to the bus station there were just enough seats left on the 'Royal Class' coach - which had only intermittent air-conditioning and the most abominable American high school romance-cum-karate movie I'd ever seen. I'd love to tell you the title, but the video cut out at the crucial moment, and sound wasn't restored until half an hour in. Que pena!
We made it to the Puericultorio, though because of the late arrival (Royal, Royal ...) of the bus we'd missed the first lesson. However, we were able to keep the timetable for the rest of the morning, teaching Time and using a worksheet I'd rustled up the the bus station using my deodorant can to draw clock faces. The Americans were teaching with us for the first time which was fantastic - though Laura and Greg themselves had to have a touch of coaching on the crazy British habit of saying "quarter to five" and "twenty five to seven", instead of sensible, logical 4.45, 6.35 ... We had a hectic, typically full day, hosting workshops for 5A, 5B and 5C all afternoon, in which we introduced them to the great work of English Cat-erature that is "Have You Seen Elvis?", guest-starring Buddy the Dog. Telling stories was a wonderful way to pass the afternoon, though it was hard work getting the finer points of Elvis and Buddy's relationship across to all, especially the ones who were far more interested in running around and trying to use the English lab cushions as projectiles.
***
I went to see Piano Man today and, fingers crossed, a fan will deposit a shiny newly refurbished instrument off at the Puericultorio in the morning. Can't wait to see the kids' faces! It's my last day there tomorrow and I'm going to miss the little blighters, and even the Power-Nuns, including Sister Edilma, the Colombian principal, who turned up to my English class on Wednesday in an attempt to catch up linguistically with her charges. End of term report to follow!
We met up with Tom 2 after breakfast who was the man with the tickets to the games in the afternoon. The atmosphere was building in the main square. Of course, the traditional pursuit of the English in such a situation is to pour unheard of quantities of lager down our throats, swear unashamedly, sing xenophobic songs and throw chairs and bottles and attempt to throw the riot police. The Costa Rican fans that we met were a little more sedate, appearing more like a Saga holiday party than a bunch of lary likely lads. There was also a bloke dressed as a huge football boot, who shuffled around periodically, adding the usual ingredient of football tournament surrealism.
And so to the stadium. Johnny and Tom 2 were both wearing Brazil shirts - if you can't beat 'em, join 'em I suppose - and on the way round to our entrance, we were assailed by a TV camera and excitable broadcaster wanting a quick 'chat to the fans' before the big game. The wind was taken out of his sails a little when he realised that we weren't Brazilian and our grasp of Spanish wasn't fantastic ... But all was rescued with the following priceless exchange between our journalist and Johnny, who he had somehow decided looked like Luis Figo.
Broadcaster (in Spanish): "How many Peruvian girls have you been with?!"
Johnny Figo (jauntily): "Ronaldo!"
A staple of outtake shows for years to come, methinks. It did apparently make it to broadcast, along with a shot of our group standing on the terraces, with me wearing my latest silly Peru hat.
We emerged onto the terraces and gasped in awe. Looming right above us, perfectly framing the field below, was El Misti itself. I don't think there can be a football stadium anywhere in the world with a more fabulous situation. We were able to enjoy it all the more, since we were not jammed in like sardines as per the Peru-Bolivia match. The stadium was half empty in fact, which meant we could lounge about and spread out in comfort, under the pleasant afternoon sun.
The Brazil - Costa Rica game was rubbish, 4-1 to the world champions, who didn't really have to try, in a low key, pedestrian encounter. But better was to follow. Paraguay (who I have a soft spot for, after their gutsy 98 World Cup featuring former star man and psycho goalkeeper Chilavert) took on Chile, who, after a big war one hundred years ago with Peru, are certainly not local favourites! It was entertaining end to end stuff. Whenever the contingents of Chile fans belted out their chants, everybody else whistled them down. Chile took the lead in the 72nd minute and let off a flare to celebrate - now that's what I expected from South American football, incendiary devices a-plenty! Deservedly, Paraguay equalised minutes later, shutting the Chileños up with a scorcher from 30 yards in the goal immediately in front of our vantage point, capping off a perfect afternoon.
Time for dinner. I'm always one for local specialities, and in Arequipa, it was time to take the plunge and try Peru's most notorious dish. Cousins with small furry pets look away now. The celebrated plate of Arequipa is none other than cuy - that's guinea pig to you and me. The little fellow was served, fried and whole, on a plate accompanied by a bit of salad and a couple of boiled potatoes. As you teared at his limbs to find the juiciest morsels, you had to try not to think about the cutesy rodent teeth and pointy nose peering up at you. He really was very tasty, but there wasn't really too much meat on him. As with all unusual meats of the world, it had something of chicken about it.
We whiled away the night drinking Arequipeña, in a now chilly city, whose temperature plunges after dark, at 2300m above sea level. In the morning, we wandered around some more, and I popped in to the convent of Santa Catalina, a city within a city that has been in Arequipa for around 500 years. It was a shame we couldn't spend longer in beautiful Arequipa, but we had to get back to resume teaching the next morning. We arrived at the airport in good time ... only to find that our airline, Aero Continente, had been grounded indefinitely by the government only three hours before because its insurance had expired and no other company would supply it with a policy. This might have had something to do with the dubious reputation of its MD as an alleged narco-trafficker and money launderer, which has led to repeated hounding by the government. As I write now, flights have not resumed and they look to be going under ...
Well, there we were. We had to get back to Lima. All the other airlines' flights were fully booked. The only option was a fourteen hour bus ride which would get us to Lima about 30 minutes before lessons were due to start. Luckily, when we got to the bus station there were just enough seats left on the 'Royal Class' coach - which had only intermittent air-conditioning and the most abominable American high school romance-cum-karate movie I'd ever seen. I'd love to tell you the title, but the video cut out at the crucial moment, and sound wasn't restored until half an hour in. Que pena!
We made it to the Puericultorio, though because of the late arrival (Royal, Royal ...) of the bus we'd missed the first lesson. However, we were able to keep the timetable for the rest of the morning, teaching Time and using a worksheet I'd rustled up the the bus station using my deodorant can to draw clock faces. The Americans were teaching with us for the first time which was fantastic - though Laura and Greg themselves had to have a touch of coaching on the crazy British habit of saying "quarter to five" and "twenty five to seven", instead of sensible, logical 4.45, 6.35 ... We had a hectic, typically full day, hosting workshops for 5A, 5B and 5C all afternoon, in which we introduced them to the great work of English Cat-erature that is "Have You Seen Elvis?", guest-starring Buddy the Dog. Telling stories was a wonderful way to pass the afternoon, though it was hard work getting the finer points of Elvis and Buddy's relationship across to all, especially the ones who were far more interested in running around and trying to use the English lab cushions as projectiles.
***
I went to see Piano Man today and, fingers crossed, a fan will deposit a shiny newly refurbished instrument off at the Puericultorio in the morning. Can't wait to see the kids' faces! It's my last day there tomorrow and I'm going to miss the little blighters, and even the Power-Nuns, including Sister Edilma, the Colombian principal, who turned up to my English class on Wednesday in an attempt to catch up linguistically with her charges. End of term report to follow!
Wednesday, July 14, 2004
Miraflores, LIMA - My word. A hectic weekend. It all started with a Friday off, some kind of national holiday for teachers ... We still went along to the Puericultorio though, just not for the 8am start to which we are now accustomed! Lloyd went off to play football with some of the children, while I went on another trip with Julia the seamstress to buy material for the children's shirts. For the third time, we went deep into La Victoria and its bazaars - shambling, choatic, dirty streets lined with clothing shops and blokes with trolleys available to hire if you've bought a little too much! - and we found just the stuff for the polo shirts. We hope! The acid test is this coming Thursday morning when we're off to pick it all up and pay the balance.
On Saturday, Kike - one of our dentist friends - drove us down to his summer house near a beach, an hour or so to the south of Lima. It is winter at the moment, of course, so the place was almost completely deserted, save a solitary house full of partying eight-year-olds and a lone fisherman, clad all in pink, casting from knee-deep on the verging-on-the-chilly beach. We had a wander, taunted some crabs and I bounded up the lifeguard's chair, doing the world's most unlikely David Hasslehoff impression. Visiting those deserted beaches, complete with their empty complexes of summer houses, was a little eerie, as if everybody had run away because of some terrible disease. But, it was lovely to be down there and the weather, though Peruvian winter, was above average for a typical British summer, so no complaints there. Unlike your horrific timeshare complex on the Costa Fortune, these Peruvian beach houses all seem to be uniquely designed, possibly by their original owners and, while not all of them are things of beauty, they certainly make the place interesting. Apparently, it is rammed down there in the summer months, which is hardly surprising.
* * *
Such an early start on Sunday morning - 3.30am to be precise! - to hop in a cab to catch a flight down to Arequipa. This southern Peruvian city was playing host to the next round of games in the Copa America and the chance to see Brazil in action, even shorn of stars of the ilk of Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Carlos, was too good to miss. (Leeds fans will be pleased to hear that Roque Junior still made the squad! Which says a lot.) And we'd also be able to have a look round the city as well, which we'd heard was rather lovely.
Never before have I touched down at an airport in a more spectacular situation! We could peer down at snow-capped Andes beneath us during the second half of our hour or so in the air, and as we stepped out onto the tarmac after landing, we were presented with the magnificent cone of El Misti, Arequipa's 6000m volcano, rearing up right in front of us under a crystal clear morning sky. Yet again, we felt our lungs relax as they realised they had been temporarily withdrawn from the fiercely fought battle against the smog that is day-to-day reality in Lima.
We checked into a hotel and set off to find the Plaza de Armas, the central square and a perfect place to find breakfast. We were expecting a lazy Sunday morning, with not much going on, the odd dog-walker here and there ... But, on this particular Sunday, the square had been taken over by a huge parade, something to do with the Colegio Independenzia Americana, a local military school. A sequence of groups marched past, including a number of blaring bands, current students dressed in fine uniforms, olive-green clad ladies sporting nasty looking guns, and the most hilarious contingent of goose-stepping old men, their dubious quiffs and flaccid gouty jowls quivering to each rap of the drum. It seemed as if all of Arequipa had turned up to watch, with everybody joining in with the National Anthem and what seemed to be a local song, judging by the shouts of "¡Viva Arequipa!" as it came to an end.
Stirring stuff. Now I needed to stir something of my own, and we found a suitable establishment with a view across the beautiful square. On three sides were colonial colonnaded buildings, with continuous balconies, on one of which our cafe was open for business. On the fourth side of the Plaza is the huge cathedral, famous for its two towers. One of these towers has only just been replaced following its demolition by the 2001 earthquake. The city is subject to tremors on quite a frequent basis, but luckily there were no subterrean shakes during our stay. (Though after a few bottles of the local brew Arequipeña, the earth did seem to move.)
(I have to rush off to teach some nuns and assorted administrators now ... to be continued!)
On Saturday, Kike - one of our dentist friends - drove us down to his summer house near a beach, an hour or so to the south of Lima. It is winter at the moment, of course, so the place was almost completely deserted, save a solitary house full of partying eight-year-olds and a lone fisherman, clad all in pink, casting from knee-deep on the verging-on-the-chilly beach. We had a wander, taunted some crabs and I bounded up the lifeguard's chair, doing the world's most unlikely David Hasslehoff impression. Visiting those deserted beaches, complete with their empty complexes of summer houses, was a little eerie, as if everybody had run away because of some terrible disease. But, it was lovely to be down there and the weather, though Peruvian winter, was above average for a typical British summer, so no complaints there. Unlike your horrific timeshare complex on the Costa Fortune, these Peruvian beach houses all seem to be uniquely designed, possibly by their original owners and, while not all of them are things of beauty, they certainly make the place interesting. Apparently, it is rammed down there in the summer months, which is hardly surprising.
* * *
Such an early start on Sunday morning - 3.30am to be precise! - to hop in a cab to catch a flight down to Arequipa. This southern Peruvian city was playing host to the next round of games in the Copa America and the chance to see Brazil in action, even shorn of stars of the ilk of Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Carlos, was too good to miss. (Leeds fans will be pleased to hear that Roque Junior still made the squad! Which says a lot.) And we'd also be able to have a look round the city as well, which we'd heard was rather lovely.
Never before have I touched down at an airport in a more spectacular situation! We could peer down at snow-capped Andes beneath us during the second half of our hour or so in the air, and as we stepped out onto the tarmac after landing, we were presented with the magnificent cone of El Misti, Arequipa's 6000m volcano, rearing up right in front of us under a crystal clear morning sky. Yet again, we felt our lungs relax as they realised they had been temporarily withdrawn from the fiercely fought battle against the smog that is day-to-day reality in Lima.
We checked into a hotel and set off to find the Plaza de Armas, the central square and a perfect place to find breakfast. We were expecting a lazy Sunday morning, with not much going on, the odd dog-walker here and there ... But, on this particular Sunday, the square had been taken over by a huge parade, something to do with the Colegio Independenzia Americana, a local military school. A sequence of groups marched past, including a number of blaring bands, current students dressed in fine uniforms, olive-green clad ladies sporting nasty looking guns, and the most hilarious contingent of goose-stepping old men, their dubious quiffs and flaccid gouty jowls quivering to each rap of the drum. It seemed as if all of Arequipa had turned up to watch, with everybody joining in with the National Anthem and what seemed to be a local song, judging by the shouts of "¡Viva Arequipa!" as it came to an end.
Stirring stuff. Now I needed to stir something of my own, and we found a suitable establishment with a view across the beautiful square. On three sides were colonial colonnaded buildings, with continuous balconies, on one of which our cafe was open for business. On the fourth side of the Plaza is the huge cathedral, famous for its two towers. One of these towers has only just been replaced following its demolition by the 2001 earthquake. The city is subject to tremors on quite a frequent basis, but luckily there were no subterrean shakes during our stay. (Though after a few bottles of the local brew Arequipeña, the earth did seem to move.)
(I have to rush off to teach some nuns and assorted administrators now ... to be continued!)
