Peru

Crabs. Thousands of crabs. The beach living, pincer having kind. That was our next campsite. We were staying in Punta Sal a town with only 20 residents but a beautiful beach. With nothing else to do but enjoy the bar, beach or sea this was relaxing time.

On the way we had already had the fun of breaking down – fan belt broke and then being stuck in a nowhere town for two hours. It even had a cock fighting ring with the chickens tied outside so you could pick which one you wanted to fight- eugh.

We arrived late at night so at first I didn’t see the pesky little critters running around but once I got my flashlight out I realised the whole beach was full of baby and adult red crabs all waiting to pinch my toes. Everyone was walking around on tip toes, now and again you’d hear a scream as someone discovered one in their tent, sleeping bag, trousers….

The next couple of days were spent wandering around the nearby town or sitting on the beach. Ollie went horse riding along the beach, I’ve realised I like being able to sit down and for this reason will never get on a horse again. A couple of the guys went deep sea fishing for the day at the bargain price of $650, we lit up a BBQ expecting a feast of fresh tuna or something similarly BIG that had been promised by the fisherman. We all went hungry when they brought home a 2lb nondescript white fish.

Hours passed with beach cricket, sunbathing, sangria and swimming and everyone was revitalized by the end. Theres not at lot to write about Punta Sal, but time was well spent.

A long driving day of 12 hours and we got to our hotel at Huanchaco, a stop off point for visiting the Chan Chan ruins and the Sun and Moon pyramids. We camped in the grounds of the hotel, even though it only cost £2 each to upgrade to a room - damn this budget! The hotel had a couple of cool pet tortoises wandering around the grounds, while I went on the internet to look for the cheapest Galapagos trips.

The next day we picked up our guide who took us to the pre-Inca ruins of Chan Chan city. The ruins are huge. Chan Chan is only one of the city complexes on this site and is famous for its large walls surrounding the city and it's labyrinthine layout. The site is undergoing a lot of restoration work because the walls were only made out of mud, rather than stone which the Incas used. There is only one entrance to the city and, once inside, we wandered around the thin passages looking at areas like the huge open marketplace, the graveyard and the small doorless houses. The walls within the city had degraded a lot, but it was still possible to see the patterns carved into the mud, which would have been painted in bright colours if the weather hadn't worn them down. This wasn't the case at the Sun and Moon pyramid which we visited next.

The Sun and Moon temple had only been discovered recently and is still like a huge archeological site, with people beavering away with their toothbrushes and little scrapers. We entered the temple from the back where there is a large holy rock which was used for human sacrifice. Loads of dead bodies were discovered around the stone where the offerings were left for the God of the mountain which overshadowed the temple.

Further into the temple we could see the mud bricks that were used for the walls. Each brick had a distinct mark on one side which was the identifier of its creator. This way, the foreman could count how many bricks each of the slaves had made.

For the first time at any ruins we have visited (which is a lot) we were shown paintings that have withstood the test of time. The inside of the temple had been decorated with intricately carved blocks depicting the Creator, 2 metres high and painted in red, blues and greens. The reason these paintings have lasted is because they had been deliberately buried by the Moche people. It is thought that each time a new ruler took over, they buried the old temple and built a new one on top of it, more splendid and impressive than the last. This gives the pyramid its shape, but makes it quite hard for the archeologists to excavate because the walls are not supported by any structural work. We also saw our first sight of a funny-looking, traditional Peruvian Hairless Dog.

That night we stayed at a hotel in a town full of massive locusts and the next morning visited the Sipan museum. The museum is supposed to be the best in Peru, if not, South America. The whole museum is dedicated to the burial site of the Lord of Sipan which was discovered in 1987 by archeologists. The burial site is unique in that only a small number of artifacts have been stolen by grave robbers. Much of the grave was intact, including the body of the king and the hundreds of personal possessions that were buried with him. Even his wife, dog, son and concubines were sacrificed and buried with him. The amount of gold these people wore was obscene. He had a gold hat, nose plate, earrings, chest plates, back plates, statues, necklaces - everything. It must have looked impressive. A lot of items were actually gold plated copper which was done from 100AD to 500AD, over a thousand years before gold plating was used in Europe. The museum exhibition finished by showing a really cheesy animatronic version of what life would have been like in Sipan times, it even had a musician puffing out his cheeks and dog with a wagging tail.

La Paz was a pretty busy city, but Lima is almost 3 times as big and the drive into the city showed that this was definitely true. We got lost on the way to the hotel and we were taken down roads which hardly had an inch between any of the traffic, and past markets which had people flock to sell us stuff through the windows of the truck. It was the last day of this leg so we had planned to go out with the people who were leaving, but because of some misunderstanding we ended up going out in 2 groups. We travelled 20 mins in a cab to get to Miraflores, a kind of Ayia Napa type place where bars try to entice you in with free pisco sours (it worked). Somehow we ended up at a tequila bar off a side street that required us to hand in our cameras at the entrance. I had forgotten to bring my camera, but there was only one type of bar that cameras aren't allowed and that's a strip bar. I was surprised to see that there wasn't any stripping going on, and there wasn't even a stage or pole to be found anywhere, but there did seem to be a lot of single women about. This wasn't a strip bar, it was a brothel. A couple of the guys had already got drinks without realising (yeah whatever...) so we decided to stay for one round. Within minutes a couple of our friends had girls on their laps and even had prices agreed; £50 each for the night. They left to go back to the hotel with the girls and we tried to meet up with the other group we left behind. 2 hours and 2 long taxi rides later we were still searching for the club, so we gave up and headed back home.

The next day we tried to sort out our Galapagos trip but we were unsuccessful because it was Sunday. Everyone was meeting later that night to go bowling and we had read that there was a cinema in the same complex. LarcoMar Shopping Complex was a tourist hotspot, full of American chain restaurants and prices 50% higher than anywhere else in the city. We ended up ordering a disgusting, overpriced, undercooked chicken burger from a fast food restaurant which we had to take back. The cinema was showing the new Owen Wilson film, Drillbit Taylor, which was very funny. When the film finished I had completely forgotten where I was and had to think "Oh yeah, I'm in Peru, not the Printworks in Manchester".

We met up with the rest of the group and went bowling, but me and Dee didn't have enough money to go out after, so we played a couple of games of pool (I won) and went back to the hotel to watch TV.

The scenery was amazing at Huacachina, driving up the coast with bright blue sea to one side and huge sand dunes to the other. We were off to an overnight desert stay.

Sleeping bags packed we jumped on a V8 engine dune buggy ready to explore the dunes. It seated 8, plus driver, and once strapped in, we sped off vertically, straight up into the dunes. Crazy fun, the driver was mad and loving it as much as us, the more I screamed and giggled, the faster and crazier he got. We never overturned the buggy but on various occasions we were on two wheels, or flying in the air after hitting the top of a dune too fast.

We stopped at the top of one dune to grab the Sand boards. This was the biggest dune I’d ever seen and perched at the top on your board you realised how high you actually were. Ok I thought, sands soft, it’ll be fine, off I went. I couldn’t stop screaming, but each time I opened my mouth my teeth and tongue got covered in sand, I never learnt my lesson, mouth open all the way down. I lost my balance towards the end of the dune and ended up rolling, I had sand in places I wish not to mention, my shorts were 4kg heavier with all the sand in the pockets and my nose, ears and mouth were miniature sand pits. Oh, it was good fun at the time, but I regretted my decision when I found out there were no showers.

We drove deeper into the desert to set up camp. This meant getting out the sleeping bag and lying it onto the sand, no tents; we were sleeping under the stars tonight. We lit the fire as the sun set and the desert chill set in. The guides got the BBQ going and we opened wine to warm our cockles.

One of the guides was going back into town to collect fire wood so a couple of begged to tag along for the ride. Dune buggies in the pitch black is the best fun ever. Although they have lights they don’t have a great beam, so you can only see approx 10m in front so you never quite know where you are or what’s next. To us it felt like we were zooming across the surface of the moon. At one point he turned off the lights as we hit the top of a dune, sheer brilliance, it got a rip roaring reaction from the passengers.

We headed back into the dunes for the BBQ and wine and all fell asleep where we sat, around the crackling fire and watching the stars. Sounds nice and peaceful, which it would have been if the male population didn´t snore their heads off after alcohol. No I don’t snore – Ollie hears things in his sleep.

I´m still finding sand now.

While we were failing to sort out our Galapagos tour in less than 2 weeks time, we stopped at the next best thing on the drive to Lima - the Ballestas Islands. They are commonly referred to as 'the poor man's Galapagos' because of the volume of wildlife in such a small area. A lot of the animals are similar to those seen at the Galapagos, such as sea lions, penguins and cormorants. There aren't many penguins, but there are a lot of sea lions and about 40,000 birds. The skies are slashed by long lines of flying cormorants and a couple of people on our boat were hit by bird poo.

The stench of the guano was overpowering as we got close to the islands. The guano is farmed once every 7 years to be used as fertiliser, and that is the only time humans go on the islands. Dee complained that the smell made her feel sick and had her hand over her face for most of the journey.

There was a part of one of the islands that had a beach which was packed full of sea lions making loads of noise. All around the boat, sea lions poked their heads out of the water just a few metres away to look at us. If this is supposed to be the poor man's Galapagos, I can't wait to see what the real one is like.

We camped briefly on the beach at Puerto Inca which was the original Inca port. There is still an Inca trail which starts here and ends up at Cusco, 100 days walk away. There isn't much left of the port except a few ruined storage houses on the hills, which we walked up before heading to the town of Nazca to see the famous Nazca Lines.

On the way to Nazca we stopped off at an ancient Nazca cemetery site which had been looted by grave robbers hundreds of years ago. The Nazca people lived from about 200 BC to 700 AD, when the area was a lot lusher than the desert it is now. They were very religious and practiced mummification of their dead tribesmen. When the tombs were looted, the robbers pulled the mummies out of their graves and left them lying around in the open, taking the gold valuables that were buried with their owners. These mummies were eventually found and some of the tombs restored by archeologists. Out on the surface, the mummies were unfortunately damaged by the elements, making them half mummy, half skeleton. There is still some interesting facts which can be found from these remains, like the skull of a priest which has been forcefully deformed by strapping blocks of wood his head when he was a child. The priest must have looked strange with a long, flat forehead. Some of the mummies had hair over 2 metres in length which was still dark and dreadlocked, showing that they were only young when they died. The mummies had quite a comical appearance, like skeletons with clothes on. There were even mummmified babies in the tombs; one still had skin and toenails poking from under its clothing.

The most famous legacy the Nazca people left were huge pictures in the sand around the town and on mountains, that can only be seen by air. The campsite at Nazca was right opposite the airport, so as soon as we set up camp we arranged ourselves into groups of 5 to go up in the small propeller planes. No one knows how or why the Nazcas made these pictures, but it is thought that the land was drying up, and these were efforts made by the priests to appease the Gods. The flights cost about £40 and lasted for 25mins. We saw 14 pictures including a dog, snake, hummingbird, parrot and (my favourite) a monkey.

Arequipa is the largest city in south Peru and it is bustling and metropolitan. The most famous local landmark is the huge active volcano, El Misti, that dominates the skyline. We had the option of climbing the volcano, but after climbing one at Pucon, I had sworn never to do one again. Instead we decided to spend some time assessing our finances, something we had put off for a long time. Unfortunately the outlook was bleak and as we added up the sums it was obvious that we couldn't go on spending like we had been. From now on we had to stick to our budget and save up to do the optional extras, like the flight over the Nazca lines in 2 days time. We went out for a meal that night and found a restaurant that had 3 courses and a glass of wine for £3.

The next day we went to see the famous Inca mummy that was found sacrificed on the summit of the local volcano (£3). The story was interesting and the items displayed with the bodies were in pristine condition. There were a few child sacrifices found on the mountains in this area. The most famous mummy, Juanita, had become dislodged from her sacrificial cave by a nearby eruption and fell into the surrounding ice, which preserved her body better than the other children. She was found to be 12 years old and of noble blood. She was taken up to the peak (which is a very hard climb, even for today's professional mountaineers) and eventually killed ceremoniously by being whacked on the head. She was buried with gold statues of herself and fine cloths and pottery as a gift to the mountain, which the Incas worshipped. Unfortunately Juanita was off being preserved for a few weeks so we only saw one of the other mummies, which was a girl sitting crossed legged, wrapped in her Inca clothes and you could still see her fine, long black hair. Spooky.

We didn't do anything for the rest of the day to save money for the Nazca flights in a couple of days.

We got up at 5:15am to get a good position to see the condors at Colca Canyon, which fly from 7-10am. As we arrived at 7:45 we saw some huge condors flying over the viewing platform. We hurried off the truck to get some photos but by the time we had got there they had descended into the canyon. Colca canyon is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon and the condors soar on the thermals to look for carcasses. We watched the condors in the distance fearing we had missed our chance to see the largest flying meat eater up close. We got a seat and soon enough the masses of tourists arrived and filled up the platform.

Dee had started to feel sick with a bug that's going around, so she went to lie down on the truck, just as we could see some condors in the distance climbing higher and higher. Suddenly there was a communal gasp from behind us and as we looked up, a huge condor with a wingspan of 2 metres glided a few feet from our heads. A few other condors soon joined and they flew around us for about an hour. The birds are quite ugly but they soar beautifully and effortlessly. One even landed right in front of us and showed off by ruffling its feathers and strutting its chest. The guide that was with us said that he had never seen a display like that before. I must have taken over 100 photos, mostly of the empty sky as they appear so suddenly and disappear down the sides of the canyon.

That evening Dee stayed in bed while I went out to the local hot springs at Chivay, which is just like a heated outdoor pool, but it was good to relax for a while.

So after the hectic fun that was Cusco we headed off for some culture. Raqchi was our next stop, a small traditional town famous for its ruins. Sat at the base of a volcano, the Inca ruins were built as a temple to worship the gods in the volcano. Pilgrims came from miles around to bring gifts for the gods, so many that they had to build huge storage houses for the gifts. The temple itself is the tallest Incan building to exist, and even though some of it has turned to rubble, its pretty impressive. Here they built up to 3m in stone, then completed the rest in mud, some of which still stands today. I'm feeling a little 'Inca ruined out' having done nothing else for days, but this was worth the visit.

We gathered in the market ready to settle in Raqchi for the night, when it was announced that we were not camping or staying in a hotel, we were getting a 'Mum' for the night. So bags loaded on backs, we stood in pairs waiting to be allocated a mum (a little like being picked for games at school, doing our best impression of 'we're normal’, and hoping you don't end up with an evil dragon).

Julia stepped forward for us, a 39 year old lady who spoke Quechuan, a little Spanish, no English, but had friendly open arms welcoming us into her casa (home). Fifteen minutes walk from the square and with my 'Spanglish', international sign language and silly mimes, I learned she had 3 children, a husband who was out at work 'cleaning the fields???' and she worked selling her pottery and tending the family animals and crops. The house was just for her family, had two floors made from wood and stone, an outdoor bathroom, outdoor dining room and kitchen with open fire. They had basic electric and an outdoor tap for water.

After spending around 3 hours trying to explain;
Yes- I was 28
No- we weren't married
No- not just my friend
Yes- we did share a bedroom
No- I didn't have any children
No- not because I’m unwell
No- I don't look after the house, I work fulltime
No- we don't have a fire to cook on we have gas/electric
No- we don't grow anything, we don't have a garden
No- I have never owned a cow, unless I’ve bought bits of one from a supermarket........
We seemed to have bonded, she laughed and said ' ah, he is your spouse', I gave up and agreed we were married and we went to visit her animals.

At the end of her street (well, mud road) the village is greeted by the main highway then, just after that, lies open fields and a river. We were first instructed to cut down the wheat she was growing. It was under ripe but grown purely to feed the cows. It was hacked off at the root by a (huge scary looking) knife then layered on a rug that is tied round your back for carrying. Over in the next field were two cows both with 4 month old calves, tied together with rope and fixed to the ground by a tent peg. They loved the goods we offered, I cooed over the calves and vowed never to eat beef, ´Mum´ found two gringos amazed by cows hilarious and told us we would be drinking their milk for breakfast, mmmm?!

At the other side of the village I started laughing when all these loose hens started running and clucking after our ´mum´. Only then did I realize they were her hens, the villagers just have them loose and seem to know which ones are which. We gave them some of the wheat and collected eggs - for breakfast she informed us. Then there were the guinea pigs to feed which she keeps in a small shed, ready for those special occasions…

Pottery lesson next, round at her friend’s house. They clay they just dig up locally and then painted with natural dye paints. The wheel is hand driven and one lady showed us how to make a bowl. My turn next, whole group watching, waiting for it all to turn to mush on the wheel. I feel quite proud of my attempt, it looks like a bowl, yeah; its cracked but I did that on purpose to add character. I don’t think the lady was impressed and she never offered to put it in the oven and dry it for me – waste of fire I presume.

No our chores were not over, we had to go and collect tea next. Another field and failing light we were given the big knife again to cut down maize. The ones that look dirty and have wrinkly leaves are ripe and Ollie had the wonderful job of carrying them all back. What did taste really good was the bottom of the maize stalk, if you peel it you can eat it raw. Imagine the texture of celery dipped in sugar, well, I liked it. At the house we peeled the husks, then boiled and served them up with her homemade curd cheese. Tasted really, really good.

Off into the plaza to meet the rest of our group and also meet the other mums. We were dressed in traditional clothes by our mum. I think the blokes got off lightly, I had a massive skirt on that weighted a tonne, stupid hat that wouldn’t sit on your head and ´mum´ tied the carrying blanket round me so tight I couldn’t move my arms. A guitarist appeared and all the mums started singing and dancing and we joined in. They then asked for us to show them a traditional song and dance from England, what did they get? A good old fashioned ´Hokey Cokey´ done some what haphazardly without the use of arms.

6am start to the take the maize husks from last nights dinner to the cows, then a comical game of ´frogger´as we tried to walk to cows to the field across the busy highway. Have you ever tried to stop a cow when it wanted to walk? I just got pulled along the ground to the amusement of mum.

We said goodbyes over a breakfast of boiled maize, fresh cheese, potatoes, beetroot and eggs with hot milk and cinnamon all provided from her garden and animals.

We had a great time at the home stay and I recommend it to all, as long as you like corn on the cob.

We were woken up at 4:30am to get the 6am train from Ollantaytambo station up to Machu Picchu. A bus took us up the last bit - a steep winding road to the entrance. I got my passport stamped with a crap Machu Picchustamp at the tourist office and we entered the site.

The ruins were set in a stunning location on the top of a mountain and when we arrived the clouds surrounded us like a blanket, which gave the whole place a mystical (or MIST-ical) ambiance. The cloud soon cleared up in the sunshine and we could see the Inca city in its full glory. Not much information is known about Machu Picchu, as it was never found by the Spanish. Because it was so well hidden, the Spanish invaders didn't have a chance to destroy it like they did all the other Inca sites. Apart from the roofs and plaster of the buildings decaying, and the occasional looters, the city is almost intact. It's not known why the city was abandoned but it is thought that the city was home to the upper classes, maybe even the royal family, and they fled the city (which was still under construction) to go to somewhere with more protection from the Spanish. The city was eventually rediscovered in 1911, over 300 years after it was abandoned.

We were taken on a tour of the city by a very boring woman and half way through the tour we had the opportunity to leave the group and climb Huayna Picchu mountain to the north. We decided to escape the soul-destroying guide and climb the steep incline to get an aerial view of the ruins. The climb was a hard 40 mins up wonky steps and by the time we got to the top we were tired and sweaty but the view was amazing. The city had been built in the shape of a condor from this location, although it looked more like a fish, but there is still 30% of the city that is still hidden in the undergrowth, yet to be restored.

There was rain coming in from the east which created a rainbow. We took some photos and decided to head back to the tourist town to get something to eat and a few drinks. After some beers and wine with Simon (who had started his birthday celebrations already) we got the Peru Rail train back to Ollantaytambo. We had started to drift off to sleep when a strange thing occurred. Jungle noises (birds and monkeys, not drum 'n' bass) started over the speakers and a man dressed in weird traditional costume started running around the carriage. No one was sure if they had fallen asleep and started dreaming as we all looked at each other with puzzled expressions. As a stroke of luck, Simon had his face mask on him for the fancy dress night that evening and he put it on and started dancing with the strange man. As if this wasn't bizarre enough, the stewards then performed a fashion show down the aisles. It took some balls to do this in front of a train full of drunk travellers, who heckled them pretty badly. You wouldn't get this on the London Underground.

By the time we got back to Cusco it was 10:30pm and we had sobered up quite a lot. A lot of people went straight to bed but the hardcore among us got dressed up in our fancy dress and went out into town. I was 'Monkey Boy' with my monkey hat, tail, banana belt and pet monkey. Dee was 'D-Bitch', a tattooed Tank Girl type character that actually looked a lot like Christina Aguilera. The guides from the past few days came out as well and we had a really good night, which may have involved some bad breakdancing by some of the group. We got back to the hotel in time for breakfast at 7am. The next day Vernon asked who signed the breakfast register 'twat face book.com'. We couldn't remember, but I think it was Simon. Carl came back later that morning, pissing himself laughing, having walked back from a local girls house dressed as The Hulk and attracting some strange looks by the locals.