Category "Traveling"
We arrived in Cusco, the former Inca capital, one month after the rains that made the Urumbamba river destroy everything, causing many people to be homeless, hurt, sometimes killed. It also locked Machu Picchu. As cynical as it may sound, it allowed us to visit the town for much cheaper, since the tourists went elsewhere and competition roars. This is how we payed S/.10 for a hostal instead of 25.
We took cheap touristic tours to see the different sites of the region very quickly. The problem was we didn't have time to do anything properly. We visited the Sacred Valley, but we couldn't see, for example, the whole extent of Ollantaytambo.
Same thing when we did the "city tour": after a guided visit, we only had 10 minutes to walk around Qorikancha, which used to be the religious center of the inca empire. Still, I happened to find a painting representing the inca constellations.
We also did Chinchero, a village used as a reserve for the inca descendants...
I also visited the museums and stuff. The Contemporary Art Museum was very interesting because it showed the obession of the Peruvians with the Inca empire. I will not comment more on this in this post because it's a complex topic.
I also had my tatoo.
When we decided to go, I met a German who told me he managed to get into Machu Picchu. He gave me infos and Ada, Peter and I decided to try our luck. After going through a cable-car above the river and witnessing tiny landslides, we arrived behind the mountain of the Machu Picchu. Unfortunately, my info was not complete and given the weather and Peter's knee, we decided to go back.
But we discovered something else. Officially, the site is closed for security reasons. But after talking with a few people, we learnt that there is a monopoly story behind it and it's quite fucked up. This is terrible for the region as tourism is the main resource.
I made a little donation for people who are suffering from the rains and the landslides.
I had the idea of getting tattooed in Peru, more precisely in Cusco, because they seemed to have good tattoo artists here. I went to Mistical Tattoo, and I met Christian, a peruvian tattoo artist, married to a Canadian lady. Children of the Globalisation...
I asked him for a design, inspired from Chavin culture (yeah, those who do San Pedro!!), because this is what I preferred in all I've seen. He did a drawing very quickly and a few days later, he tattooed me.
I tried to stay cool for the 3 hours of work...
In two hours, the lines were done.
The Chavin adored, among others, the snake, the jaguar and the hawk. This drawing represents a chimera made out of these different animals.
Then, Christian added shadows. It doesn't look great on the picture but in reality, it looks good!
And in the context of the Andes, it looks like this!
I'm gonna keep doing tattoos on my back, I think I'm gonna do one for each inhabited continent I will have explored.
Do you remember Alizée? If you are from the UK, you should have heard this, about 10 years ago...
Since I've been in Peru, I've seen pictures of Alizée everywhere. Not that she's famous here... Actually her face is used in every poster for... orthodontists.
Here, in Trujillo:
In Huaraz:
In Cusco:
And I've seen more of them... So, has Alizée got a contract with the dentists organization in Peru? Has she been elected Miss World Teeth? Or is it just randomness? The mystery remains...
Arequipa is nicknamed the White City because it's been built with a volcanic rock that is specific to this region.
It's also an access point to the Colca Canyon, one of the deepest canyons in the world. Ada, Peter and I went for a trek there. We wanted to do 3 or 4 day but the path was very hard and Peter's knee was damaged. It's nevertheless one of the most magnificent places and one of the best experiences I have ever had. Between the enchanting landscapes,
the geysers,
the lost villages,
the antisocial sheep,
the uncertain bridges
and the hotels with hot baths!!
On the second day, Ada and I went solo to check out the waterfall in Fure village but on the way back, we got lost. We had to slide,
go through cactus fields (aooow!!), then we decided to take a shortcut through the irrigation system (it wasn't very safe actually!).
But the final blow was the day after, when we returned to Cabanaconde, not by walking, but by going to the "terminal bus". When we arrived there...
...we realised it was actually a kettle truck, used by the villagers of the canyon to go and sell their products in town. We were 45 inside.
Peter travelled all the way on the edge of the truck, Ada was among the grannies sleeping on the floor
and I was standing as well.
For 3 hours, we drove along nothingness, in a truck that was pitching and whose driver forgot once or twice to put on the brakes when the truck was moving back on slopes...
A real nightmare! It was nevertheless a proper experience... And from the truck, we could finally see a condor!!
I had massive blisters on both feet!
We visited Cabanaconde, where a carnival was going on.
I also ate alpaca, and it's really good.
Back in Arequipa, we could visit a few museums, including the Santuarios museum dedicated to Inca rituals (especially the human sacrifices), the Viceroy Art museum, and so on. Unfortunately, pictures were not allowed.
I also did the museum of Modern Art, and it was really interesting to see how an art museum works here.
And after that, Cusco!
We went to Nasca to discover the civilisation of the same name.
We started with Chauchilla cenetery where many very well-preserved mummies are resting. Their hair is generally perfectly preserved. (They had hyge dreadlocks.)
We could also see reproductions of sculptures of that time. I really liked the shaman and his San Pedro cactuses on the shoulders.
But the most important is the geoglyphs drawn by this civilisation in the area and that have been discovered only in 1920, because they are only visible from high. Nobody really knows what they were for. So we took a small plane (I hate it so I had to take a sedative before taking off) and we went around the "Nasca lines" for half-an-hour. At the end we turned around so much, we wanted to puke but we were alright and it was quite impressive. Oh, a condor!
Also, I had a trenza done.
Ah, the Huacachina oasis... It's so beautiful... But so expensive!
We found peruvian hippies (oh!) with whom we did some San Pedro in the middle of the dunes for my birthday. VIDEO!
The morning after, going back was difficult, but the view on the oasis, on Ica city, on the desert, from the top of the sandhill, was amazing. Unfortunately some sand got into my camera and fucked it up. It was very frustrating.
We left very quickly, going through Ocucaje, a village lost in the middle of the desert, where Ada and Peter could buy good stuff to make artesañas.
After a great bud ride from Huaraz (it was either that or waiting for the end of the strike...), we passed quickly in Lima: Inquisition museum, cathedral (10 soles to visit it!), the artesañas market...
I saw a Tarot reader because I'd like to learn how to read the Marseilles Tarot. It was nice, he predicted good things for me and said I should do... Reiki.
The day after, we saw the Nation museum, impressive by its diversity. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to finish it because we had to check out from the hotel and leave for Huacachina.
I also tried to check out a gay bar but I had few addresses and the one I decided to see was "not gay tonight". Harsh.
We stayed more than 2 weeks in Huaraz. We were in a very nice and cheap hostel (El Tambo, highly recommanded), beside the market where you can easily bargain for prices!
We started with a Pisco Sour night, helped by Mariela, the hostal landlady. Then, we visited the Chavin ruins (ouah!!), ate guinea pig and did our San Pedro ceremony with Manue, that I had met by chance in the streets.
Manue left, then so did Luca, with Christophe and Baba (a French couple met in Huaraz), while Ada, Peter and I saw Llanganuco lake,
tried the Santa Cruz trek (3 or 4 days by I got sick the first night so we had to abort),
and did Laguna 69.
Then Ada got sick and we stayed in Huaraz until she got better. We dedicated ourselves to other experiences that are possible in Peru, squatted the DVD room...
I'll keep a very good memory of Huaraz and highly recommend it!
Before I tell all my stories in Huaraz, I have to talk about San Pedro.
In Huanchaco and in Huaraz, we could visit Huaca de la Luna, from the Moche civilisation, and the Chavin ruins. These two civilisations, like most pre-columbian civilisations, used San Pedro, a cactus able to produce mescaline, a powerful hallucinogenic substance, on divinatory purposes.
Everywhere around, San Pedro can be found. It just grows like this, in nature and it's completely legal here. By the way, guides refer to it as a medicina, supposed to cleanse the mind.
We decided we should get some, curious about the effects of this substance venerated by so many peoples. We had already bought some in Trujillo market and we took the rest in the neighbour's garden.
I won't tell how we cooked the cactus as I don't know if it's legal. I can tell you that you can find online recipes to prepare the potion in 4 hours instead of 24. The magic word is: blender!
The thing was that we had to prepare many doses, and we were not only 5, we also had the french couple we met in the hostel. We asked Mariella if we could use the TV room for our ceremony and she agreed. I arranged the room, put candles, then we put mattresses, everything to feel comfortable. The french couple lent us speakers and we could put on music.
We started the ceremony by giving each one their dose, by cheering and drinking. We had to go slowly as it can be dangerous. The San Pedro smell is close to artichoke but the taste is absolutely disgusting. I nearly puked several times and it made us feel ill-at-ease. The start was rather harsh. But then Manue started laughing...
And then, I mixed the thing with apple juice, chocolate milk, honey, coca cola, inca kola... And then...
We spent new year's eve in Huanchaco. We were on the beach, among the fires and the fireworks, by the Pacific, walking around.
We met some people, it's a beach that surfers like a lot, it's hot, sunny, etc.
We visited the Chimu ruins of Chan Chan, Huaca Arco Iris and Huaca Esmeraldas. Chan Chan was the most impressive, only by the size of the thing. The two others were not that impressive.
We also visited the Moche ruins with the superb Huaca de la Luna, the Temple where the Moches were sacrificing humans, which has been discovered only about twenty years ago.
Peter, Tadzjo and I also went up the hill behind the ruins, just for the fun.
We spent some time in Trujillo, between two billion churches, maze-like shopping centres, casinos, and so on.
Still, we were happy to leave, because there is some much left to see in Peru.
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