Peru: The Land of the Incas

Upon leaving La Paz, we had a 12 hour bus trip over the Bolivia-Peru Border and onwards to Cusco. Recently voted in as a World Heritage Listed city, Cusco is the main place you will base yourself to do the Incan Circuit.

The Bolivia-Peru Border Crossing, up until about 18 hours ago I would have voted this one of the most bizarre borders I have gone through (The Costa Rica-Panama Border now takes the cake). Not too much of an issue, just a really big line and a lot of people going everywhere at once....... as the photos show.

Morning view from our window over Cusco.

 After a few days in Cusco, we jumped on a plane and headed to Puerto Maldonado, the Gateway to the Amazon. We soon found ourselves on a longboat travelling 20 miles downstream to a small jungle camp. Here, over the next few days, we did some jungle hikes looked for wildlife (hoping to see puma's but only seeing frogs and cayman's). The main attraction for us however was the monkeys, and a group of three of them lived virtually outside our doorstep. These little guys would play with you all day if you gave them the time - which we did our best to!

Hannah and a friend.

 Just before our first walk through the jungle, we went to get our gum boots on (the lodge supplied them, as the tracks look more like a mud bath than a track most of the time). Just as I had finished tapping my boots out (a habit I picked up from my granddad when I had a pair as a 3-year old). Hannah asked me to look at a shadow in her boot. Sure enough after a few more taps, out came a fist-sized tarantula.

Tarantula

 Our guide was this local kid who just loved his job, he would get so excited about seeing anything, and he was really good at it too. Often when walking or in the canoe, he would say "look there is a green and blue tailed amazon parrot" (or something like that), this would lead to everyone looking around for 20 seconds trying to find it - finally when we found it, it would look more like a silhouette of a cockatoo.

Our guide went skits over this frog. We were paddling past in a canoe when he told everyone he had seen it, "where?" we said, "on the green leaf!" he replied.

Sunset at Cayman Lagoon

Not a toad, but some sort of frog - probably an Amazonian Frog.

Our guide

I have done a fair bit of travel in my time, and I hate to admit it but I do get pretty jaded with people sometimes. Maybe I am getting grumpy in my old age, or maybe people are just getting more stupid? I think the Amazon was one of the hardest times for me with fellow tourists, the reason being on these walks and paddles we would do, we would need to have a guide with us. So as a result you would get put into a group, unfortunately for the 5 of us, that group included about 6 people from the good ol' US of A. Now we have all seen the "American's are Stupid" videos, the ones where someone asks a Yank to point to North Korea on a map and they point to New Zealand.

This was basically the same, the guide would say "ok we will be walking here and hopefully if we are quiet we may see Puma"....... 25 seconds after we start walking the american voice machine would start up, talking about the time they wrestled an alligator in Florida, then another would come in over the top talking about how the coffee isn't as good as starbucks (yes we are in the Amazon Jungle), this would then get louder and louder until the guide - or me on one occasion would crack the shits with it. Of which 10 seconds later they would talk about why someone was talking like that to them and how we haven't seen any puma's yet.

But it's ok - they had jungle survival equipment on so you know they were legit (one we nicknamed the beekeeper due to the mosquito net she had around her head).

Lorraine, from Brisbane, along with a bunch of Americans. Can you tell who is who?

After the jungle it was back to Cusco to get ready for some Inca-ing.

Plaza d'Armas, Cusco

Cusco

It costs money to get photo's of these people....... not.

The Incan's were a strange lot, they worshipped the sun and often showed it by making big things out of stone - like these faces carved into the side of a mountain.

The interesting thing about this face is that on the Summer Solstice, the sun lines up perfectly with the face and the temple from which I took this photo.

Hannah in the Sacred Valley

I would like to say we did the 3 day hike to Machu Picchu, but we didn't. Instead we took a really nice and comfortable train ride to the base of the mountain and then took a 20 minute bus ride up the mountain and basically stepped out onto this view.

Machu Picchu

Once we were done with the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu, it was back to Cusco for the night before heading down to Lima. I don't think any of us have ever been so glad to see the ocean, but after almost a month at over 2400m altitude - it was like that scene in Willy Wonka when Charlie first see's the inside of the factory.

This fountain proved to be a bad decision for me - it is one of those water maze things that squirts water at different heights at different times. After being stuck in the middle for 5 minutes and in a small lull of water, I thought I was clear to escape. I wasn't.

 Next Stop - The Galapagos Islands.