When my mum, aunt and uncle told me that they might come to visit us in South America, I was, naturally, very excited. As time went by everything fell into place and the trip began to become a reality. I also began to realise that organising a three week trip for the older generation of my family was not going to be the simplest thing in the world. Erika and I organised to have the time off work by basically finishing the website (www.artesaniasorata.com) before they arrived. Things began to get a little more complicated when about a month before the deadline Erika finally got so pissed off with the behaviour of our boss that she walked off the project and totally refused to have anything else to do with it. Unsurprisingly the pressure had already been building as we approached the deadline we had set ourselves, but this sent it through the roof. I realised that I would have to finish building the website by myself, still having to contend with the ideosyncrasies of the Bolivian work ethic; one of my favourites being that whenever I requested a meeting to work on a particular aspect of the project our boss would give me a day but when I tried to narrow it down further I would be told that she didn´t like times and could we just say that it would be in the morning. She would roll in at 3 in the afternoon, not having rung to say she would be late, and find me sitting on my hands and swearing alot and then wonder what on earth had wound me up so much.

Erika went off to the far east of Bolivia with a friend to travel around the wonderful missionary circuit, visiting little  remote villages in the jungle and pampas, barely visited by tourists, where the Jesuits had had a profound impact on the culture. I slowly sank up to my eyeballs in work and every now and again tried to think about the best way to go about the upcoming visit. I spoke to one of my climbing friends about the tours for older german tourists that he works on. Mike is a little dreadlocked and goateed austrian who has been living in La Paz for about five years, guiding trips such as three weeks overland from Lima to Sao Paulo. He told me that the most impotant thing is just to try to relax, he often finds himself waking up in the middle of the night screaming for someone to get on the train, only to realise that he is in his own bed and the tour finished three days before. It did not bode well and made me realise just how stressful tours can be.

As the website slowly began to be filled with content and the stress eased, a plan took shape in my head. When my Mum arrived we would relax in La Paz for a day or two and then head down to the tropical village of Coroico and do very little in the cloud forest and coffee plantations until my uncle and aunt arrived from Peru and we went to meet them in Copacabana (the town cathedral can be seen in the photo above). From there we would dash down south to the Argentinian border and then make our way back via the salt flats. This meant covering alot of ground in not alot of time but would allow them to see alot of the highlights of Bolivia, or at the very least the diversity that the country contains.

The day came for Mum to arrive in the middle of the night. I checked my email during the day and found a message telling us that her plane had been delayed in Madrid and that she would write further once she knew more.  As the day went on we didn´t recieve anymore emails and quickly realised that we didn´t have her flight number. Her connecting flight from Lima to La Paz was due to arrive at three in the morning but we knew that if she was delayed at all she would be unlikely to make it. As it got to six o´clock in the evening and still no further emails we had to do something, as we had no phone to be contacted on. The only thing we could do was to go around the various airline offices asking if anyone had any information on where she was. Iberia, who had got her stuck in Madrid, of course had no office in La Paz and with the five hour time difference their european offices were now closed. So we started checking on all the flights that that would be coming in for Lima asking if anyone called Mo Gurney was booked onto any of their flights in the coming days. After an hour and a half of frantic pleading to get the airline staff to give us information that they are not meant to, in a number of offices, we finally came up trumps and found out that we should go to collect her from the airport the next night. The whole following day there were no further emails, so when we went up to the airport and saw her coming into the arrivals lounge we were more than relieved.

 Watching her reactions as we wandered around the street markets that seem to occupy half of La Paz was amazing. Living somewhere you become used to the things that are there, but I felt as if I could see the city through her eyes and experience her excitement at coming to the other side of the world direct from Europe. As we walked around the city her camera rattled through film after film and she seemed enchanted by life in the streets. From there we went down to the lower altitudes and country life of Coroico. Staying in a group of cabins in the midst of beautiful tropical gardens perched on the side of a mountain above the town we really began to relax.

From there we headed to the shores of lake Titicaca. It was on the shores of the crystal clear lake you can see above that we met my aunt and uncle and prepared for the next leg of our trip. We spent a day walking the length of the Isla del Sol, legend has it the birthplace of the Inca nation. As Erika and I tried to size up how strong everybody was we soon realised that Steve was suffering from a lingering stomach complaint and each further hours walking seemed to drain further colour from his face. As he approached the colour of the zombies in 70´s horror films, we began to realise that we would have to take it easy physically. That night Juliet, my aunt, was caught out by a violent fever and we realised that we were not going to be able to go anywhere for a while. We wandered around the cathedral and lake shore you can see above, and a couple of days later were able to carefully make our way into La Paz. Once Juliet was back up to full strength we caught a bus to Oruro, where we found a fiesta in full swing and crowding the streets of the city. We went and bought our tickets, we had tried to book them in advance but had come up against classic South American logic; you can buy tickets in advance but only if you can present payment in the station, someone else can bring the money in for you but without the money being in the possesion of the station controller you cannot reserve a seat. We found that, after queueing for more than an hour, at 11 in the morning for a train not leaving until eight in the evening there were only two seats left in the second class carriages so the rest of us would have to travel third class. We went into town and watched the procession go by and were interviewed by a very excited TV crew who could not understand why we wouldn´t be back in Oruro for the carnival if we were enjoying this little fiesta so much.

That evening we climbed on board the train and found our seats. I immediately headed back into town to get some alcohol for those of us in third class. The four of us travelling in that class found that the seats that had been allocated for us were basically only big enough to fit two of us. The seats were bench seats facing one another, each was so narrow that even where two tiny Bolivians were trying to fit onto one bench the one on the isle side would still have one bumcheek suspended in the air, unable to squeeze it onto the tiny bench seat. European sized people simply had no hope.

We drank our beer and spread ourselves over as many seats as we could in the hope that no one would try to move us. As we pulled out of the station we congratulated one another on the fact that the four of us had managed to occupy ten peoples’ seats and were getting comfortably drunk. After an hour we pulled into the first station, people poured onto the train returning home after the end of a week long conference and we quickly realised that our short lived comfort had come to an end. We perched on our benches and realised that somehow we needed to find a position comfortable enough to spend the night, maybe even sleep, and there was no chance of these benches reclining. As soon as I started to feel sleepy I realised that my best chance was simply to get everyone to lift their feet and to lie on the floor between the seats, across the aisle with my feet under the feet of the people sitting opposite. Erika sat in the aisle itself, using the base of a bench as a back rest. While Steve and Hannah, an English traveller we had picked up on the way, tried to get to sleep sitting on our seats. Surprisingly enough I would be hard pushed to describe it as anything other than a hellish night of sleep. But somehow or other we all woke up smiling and still laughing at our misfortune as we gazed out at the sunrise over the brightly coloured deserts of Southern Bolivia and ate our fill of the incredible hot tamales (a ball of maize dough filled with spiced llama meat) that women would climb onto the train to sell at each station.

 We arrived at the oasis town of Tupiza feeling that the train had brought us a world away from the high mountains and cold of the altiplano and La Paz. The landscape you can see above is typical of the desert area surrounding Tupiza. A land of dry riverbeds, sand and strange jagged rock formations jutting up from the plains. As was our habit in Bolivian towns the first thing we did was to head to the central market, the focus of life in any town or village, and there we found the most wonderful fresh papaya and banana licuados and realised this was going to be a place to enjoy. 

On our second day there we decided to walk into an area of gorges away from the lush oasis of the town and into the middle of the desert. We set out early carrying plenty of water, some lunch and one of the worst maps it has ever been my misfortune to use.  We realised how bad it was as soon as we tried to get away from town following the road clearly marked on the map. The road took us to the edge of town and then disappeared into the middle of an enormous military base, which we could neither enter nor cross. We asked the soldiers where we should go and the basic answer seemed to be that we should head back into town. We started to walk around the military base and ask anyone we saw which direction we should head in to reach the gorge. We finally found someone who seemed to know that we needed to follow the valley we were in, but in the other direction. We turned around and started skirting the other side of the military base, carefully avoiding the watchful eyes of the soldiers on guard duty. The suggestion of a path that we were following then set off along the floor of the valley, we soon realised that it was taking us straight across the military firing range, we just had to hope that it was more than just an impression that it was not in use right at that second.

In a couple of hours we had reached the amazing rock fin that marked the beginning of the gorges. A hundred meters long, 20 high and never more than a couple of meters thick at the base, this piece of red sandstone stuck up from the desert floor like the fossilised remains of some enormous prehistoric creature´s dorsal fin. The floor of the gorge began to be covered in enormous flowering cacti and thornbushes, in the midst of one of these bushes we spotted a hummingbird that, unfeasibly, seemed to be almost the size of a pigeon. The rock formations continued to get stranger as we entered el valle de los machos; here some strange erosion had caused boulders to be sat on the top of pillars ten meters high, as if they had been lifted onto a natural pedestal far above the surface of the ground.

Soon the floor of the main gorge began to narrow, until it was little more than a few meters across but more than fifty deep. We found ourselves climbing up little dry waterfalls and I coached my mother into doing things she would never have normally considered. The beauty of the place was so strong and other worldly that the idea of leaving it didn´t make sense to any of us. Before long we were searching for ways to clamber through  huge piles of boulders that had fallen from the sides of the gorge above and blocked our path. The photo below is my aunt, Juliet, making her way through one of these piles of boulders. 

 As we continued walking up the ever narrowing gorge, scrambling and climbing across or through any obstacles that got in our way, my Mum was gradually getting more and more elated. She has had problems with her knees for many years so the idea of such an adventurous days hiking had not been a possibility for a long time. She was managing to not only make her way, but to do it without any problems or pain, much to her own surprise. The photo below is her celebrating with her sister and my uncle.

After spending another couple of days in Tupiza the six of us piled into a thirty year old nissan 4×4 and set off on a four day tour that would take us around the south west of Bolivia. Travelling on nothing but dirt tracks we would follow first the border with Argentina and then head north along the border with Chile finally moving back into the center of Bolivia across the salt flats to finish in Uyuni. The journey would take four days and we had been forewarned not to expect any comfort, as we watched groups returning to town after four days in the desert and literally falling out of the 4×4s surrounded by clouds of dust we were assured the warnings were valid. The six of us were accompanied by a wonderful little pair of Bolivians, neither more than five feet tall, who worked like trojans and spent all their time playing with one another or us. Their enjoyment of life was infectious and as we made our way across the desert we all felt our spirits lifting despite the dust and potholes.

The landscape we were crossing was arid and wind swept but full of the most amazing natural forms I have ever seen. The shapes and colours of the rocks, mountains and lakes were so strong and so strange that you often found yourself questioning your eyes. Lifting your sunglasses up and squinting at things to make sure that the landscape really did look like that and it wasn´t an optical illusion. Many of the views were pure camera candy and we often felt that if you put the camera down for a second you may regret it for the rest of your life. The lake below, Laguna Colorada, is red from the mineral in the soil that have dissolved into the water and the water is very warm, the lake is surrounded by thermal springs from which steaming hot water flows along black channels until it reaches the main body of water.

Many of these lakes are very rich in certain mineral salts that allow krill to flourish and attract huge flocks of flamingoes. These bright pink birds are perfectly suited to the peculiar landscapes. Watching them dipping their beaks into the strangely coloured waters and sifting the water was an absolute pleasure. The photo below shows an alpaca grazing the yellowed grass around the edge of one of the lakes with a few flamingoes close by and the fringes of a huge flock dotting the distant shore behind them amoungst white salt deposits.

The lakes, like every aspect of the landscape in this area, seemed to come in all the colours you could imagine. The lake below is Laguna Verde, although in truth it appeared to be more a strong turquoise than a green.

The mountains made sure that they were not to be outdone by the lakes lying at their feet. Everywhere you looked you could see streaks of bright colours striping the sides of the mountains as they cascaded down to the floor of the plains that the volcanoes sprang up from.

The huge distances we were covering each day, on one day driving for more than twelve hours, and seeing at most one or two tiny villages of perhaps 5 or 10 houses, generally next to some sort of mine, demonstrated just how desolate these inhospitable areas are. Often when we saw animals such as the vicuña, a wild cousin of the llama, we would not be able to see a plant anywhere in our field of vision. Our guide and driver soon demonstrated that even in this moonscape animals can find things to eat as he pointed out minute purple flowers, barely a milimeter or two across, growing on the level of the ground that the vicuñas could live on. Dotting this landscape at regular intervals appeared to be the lands failed attempts to create life. Rock formations that defied explanation and looked as if they had come into being straight from Dali´s canvas. To the right of the one below you can see Hannah running across the plain and if you look carefully on the lefthand side of the rock formation, you can just make out me climbing to the top.

On the fourth day of the tour we reached the salt flats. They cover an area of 12,000 square kilometers, larger than Holland, and the difference between the highest and lowest point is less than 40cm. They are a crust of salt as hard as concrete that has crystalised on the top of a very large and extremely saline lake. We were able to drive across the surface of the salt as if it were a perfectly finished strip of asphalt, so wide that it disappeared into the distance ahead of us. At one point we stopped next to some holes that had been made in the surface of the salar and found to our surprise that the crust was less than a meter thick and just below the surface of the salt were crystals in the shape of perfect cubes each more than a centimeter across. We got up early enough to watch the sun rise over the salt flats. The photo below is of the shadow cast by people standing with their legs spread as the sun climbs above the surface of the salar behind them.

Such a flat, blindingly white and endless surface destroys our sense of perspective and makes it almost impossible to judge the distance between objects. Using this loss of perspective Erika got to do something she has been dreaming about for longer than I care to imagine.

Finally we got to the other side of the salt flats and reached Uyuni, a sad town that was once a center of the South American rail industry. Just outside the town is the train graveyard, where the old steam trains were brought as the railways declined. They were abandoned in the middle of the desert, but the lack of rain there has meant that they have not rusted and simply sit there like old soldiers left behind by an ancient civilization. To climb over these hulking reminders of a bygone age is and unforgettable experience and  a fitting end to a wonderful tour of Bolivia with my family. (the grafitti on the battered train below reads “asi es la vida” which translates roughly as “such is life”)

La Paz, La Paz. Where to start? Having spent almost 6 months here I am head over heels in love with the city and the country it is part of. Bolivia is an amazing country. Trying to sum it up on one page of a blog will never do it justice. However I have to start with the Fiestas that seem to be going on around the clock in some part of the city. In essence they consist of alot of drinking and dancing, always with live music and often to the point where on a saturday night the city streets resemble an old testament description of Sodom and Gomorrah or some horrifically detailed medival depiction of hell. Men fighting, women fighting, dogs fighting, the streets smell like an an almighty urinal, drunken singing echoing around buildings, people puking and kids trying to lead parents no longer able to walk back home. But then if fun doesn´t result in a few casualties is it really fun? And do the Bolivians ever know how to enjoy themselves, despite the crushing poverty their country suffers from.

The photo above is of women dancing in the traditional chola costume. This outfit has been a fashion with young and old Bolivian women for more than 100 years. It consists of a small bowler hat (preferably with jewelery attached), a tasselled shawl, a voluminous skirt with what appear to be at least ten petticoats underneath it and finally a pair of see through plastic shoes. In La Paz you soon learn to keep out of the way of these little women as they storm along the street flashing grins at their friends and revealing mouths full of metal. You imagine them to look so square due to the incredible number of layers they are wearing and the fact that they often appear to be carrying all their possessions tied up in a brightly coloured cloth on their backs. Get in their way as they power along the pavement trailing kids and a sharp and powerful shoulder in the ribs will let you know that they are built like tanks and demand to be respected. When they are taking part in a Fiesta a whole different aspect becomes dominant. Dancing from dawn ´til dusk and drinking everyone else under the table, becomes every self respecting chola´s speciality.

Bolivians will use any excuse for a Fiesta. The photo above is one of my favourites. It is a dance competition between the faculties of all of the universities in La Paz. Many universities here are tiny private organisations that often have to enter the professors and the parents of their students to try to make up numbers. There a procession around a 5 mile course through the center of the city that lasts from 6 o´clock in the morning until 2 o´clock the next morning. That is 20 hours of dancing groups with their live bands passing continually, the entire center of the city shut down for a day, just to discover which university faculty contains the best dancers! The vast majority of the people taking part are about 20 years old, yet you will not see modern dance from around the world, only the vast variety of traditional Bolivian dances presented in amazing carnival costumes like those above.

More modern costumes are also present. More modern here means more extreme: for the women shorter and for the men larger. Traditional music is set on a pedestal here that it lost long ago in Europe. Even the grimiest skate kid will not only know the names of their favourite traditional songs but probably all of the words as well.

Young people here are very dedicated to dance and two or three evenings a week the road where we live comes alive as a large soundsystem is rolled out. Up to two or three hundred young Bolivians then begin to practice the Chaquerera; A very beautiful dance from the south of Bolivia demonstrating a strong argentinian influence. The music is dominated by the fiddle and echoes up and down the street as huge lines of people try to keep in time.
The dance is very complex and we have been watching people develop as they rehearse week after week jumping out of the way of any passing traffic.

La Paz is a city of huge contrasts. It is a city dotted with beautiful Plazas and amazing colonial buildings but also against this backdrop is crushing poverty. The people who live here represent every economic strata, but particularly the poorest. Schools here usually contain two separate schools: one in the morning and one in the afternoon. this allows the students to both go to school and work for half a day. The problems of living here are probably represented most clearly by the shoeshine boys. All over the city there are throngs of kids of all ages who will shine your shoes for about 7 pence. This enables them to fund their education.

A huge area of the city is taken over by street markets. These markets sell anything and everything. The food they sell is so fresh that it comes in from the country on the back of a truck, it is unloaded onto the tarmac in the street and someone sells it right there. The fruit and vegetables here are of a standard unlike anywhere else I have been. Cooking here is an absolute joy; with ingredients like this you cannot fail to make something delicious. The variety of the markets, just like the fruit and vegetables, is astounding.
There is even a witches market here, where they sell mainly charms for the animistic gods that have been incorporated into christianity here. Fake money to offer to the god of plenty and dried llama foetuses to put in the foundations of your new house. My favourite market here has to be the largest flea market I have ever seen in my life. Twice a week it stretches around the lip of the canyon above the city center for about ten kilometers.
I doubt there is anything you cannot buy there, from trucks and mechanical parts, to tattoos,pins, flowers and every imaginable food stuff.

The city is located in a canyon that drops down from the altiplano (the high plateau that the andes rise up from). It is surrounded by some of the highest mountains in the world. The city itself sits at almost 4000m, three times higher than Ben Nevis. Most of these mountains are obscured by the walls of the canyon towering above the city, covered with streets and houses that look as if they could be about to roll down into the city centre at any moment. Mount Illimani can still be seen clearly from many points of the city. As the sun sets each evening it is a sight to behold.

As the canyon descends to the south of the city you enter a very dry, rocky, cactus covered area that is a positive wonderland for climbers. I have felt like a pig in mud here; able to jump on a bus and be in a vast area of high quality rock in thirty minutes. When I first got here I met someone with a climbing rope they were happy to lend to me. I soon met up with a great group of local climbers who have been giving my spanish a workout twice a week ever since. Whilst climbing spectacular routes in high altitude sunshine.

The surroundings of the city are a part of what make it so wonderful. You are in the midst of some of the highest mountains in the world. But in a few hours you can descend to the tropical valleys that mark the beginning of the Amazon jungle or head in the opposite direction and you will be on the shores of Lake Titicaca. The wildlife to be seen in these tropical valleys takes your breath away everytime you visit them. Some of my most magical moments here have been spent following groups of monkeys as they travel through the forest. They glide through the treetops searching for the next tree that is carrying ripe fruit. Once they find it they stop and eat calmly, peering down at those strange humans making their ungainly way across the forest floor as they try to catch up.
The Plants are more surprising however, flowers that you never thought were possible, enormous fern trees and european house plants that have somehow grown to 50 feet around every corner.

The valleys surrounding La Paz are scattered with villages where a traditional pastoral lifestyle is preserved. This is a life practically unchanged for thousands of years. Indeed ancient cultures such as the Tiahuanaco suggest that there used to be a larger population on the altiplano than there is now. This peaceful life of tending animals amongst some of the worlds most majestic mountains and attempting to farm what must be the steepest fields on the planet is a harsh reality. In difficult years huge numbers of people migrate into the city in the hope of finding work that will enable them to feed their families.

Above these valleys lie the mountains that are, in part, what drew me to Bolivia. The beauty of them is just breathtaking. Watching the sun rise above them in the early morning perched in amongst the ice and snow above 6000m, makes whatever effort you made to get there worth it.

From the mountains you can descend into the tropics by bike. The route Erika and I took was called the road of death, for obvious reasons, it is a single track dirt road full of pot holes twisting its way down through some enourmous and very steep mountains. A new road has now been built however and old road is practically deserted. You descend over 3,500m in vertical height in the course of about 70 kilometers. The road clinging impossibly to the sides of enormous cliffs. As you descend the ecosystem seems to change radically every 20 minutes. Ducking as the route passed under waterfalls we were delighted to be back on bikes after six months without so much as touching one.

Having to leave La Paz was a hard thing to do. Putting so many things I love into the past of my life was not easy, I am writing this from Argentina, and I do not know if another city will ever imapact me in that way again. Saying goodbye to the climbers there was one of the hardest things to do, but I can be absolutely sure that we will keep in touch, and will see each other again at some rocks somewhere. When we rushed back into La Paz for two days to pack everything up and loosen any remaining ties we had a meal after a days climbing. We gave some old bits and pieces to Rolando, the only Campesino from amoungst the group (meaning he was a poor country boy), as he left. It was a filthy night, with rain coming down in sheets. The rest of us carried on drinking and an hour later he came back, drenched, having found somewhere at two clock in the morning to get us a bunch of flowers to say thankyou.

 Leaving La Paz for the last time was an emotional moment. As the bus climbed up the steep side of the canyon the city lives in, we looked out of the battered windows of our bus. Below is the view that greeted us as we left the city that had been our home for six months. As the engine ground and juddered upwards we sat silently looking down at the city and contemplating what we were about to leave behind us. We both left such large parts of our hearts there that I think we may well be back far sooner than we imagine.

As the sun sets over Huacachina each night even the peruvian drivers stop blaring their horns. The incredible views of some of the largest sand dunes in the world demand that the world falls silent around them. The world seemed, bizarrely, to have come to some agreement with the dunes; as we sat on top of one of the ridges and watched the colours morphing into one another we felt as if the world was silent, indeed as if it was standing still.

Climbing up the dunes from the oasis on the desert floor was a rather less peaceful experience. Not only was it very steep but it was also, obviously, made of very fine sand: not a stable surface to climb, but one that makes you feel as if you are walking on a treadmill, in danger of sliding to the bottom of the slope at any moment. Combined with the heat of the desert we made our way slowly and still had to stop and sit in the sand every now and again to get our breath back, it was only when you stopped that you realised how quiet the desert is. There is no life there and nothing to absorb sounds so the noise of the oasis town of Huacachina seems to carry very clearly over a vast distance. It sounds as if the kids playing football in the town are right next to you not kilometers away.

As the sun began to set the shadows on the dunes became clearer and clearer. The desert is thrown into the amazing relief that you see above. As you climb toward the top of a dune, ridge after perfectly formed ridge is revealed disappearing into the distance in front of you. The barren beauty of such a landscape is something that has to be experienced. 

Huacachina is a bizarre resort town, developed as such in the 1920s and largely untouched since. But there is something beautiful and very relaxing about the colonial style buildings clustered around a small oasis. With the dunes towering above the buildings it feels very isolated and far away from the bustling reality of most Peruvian towns. The hotel we stayed in was full of beautiful corners, like the one above, looking out into the desert on three sides. We were reluctant to leave but very excited about the prospect of what we were to see next: The Nazca Lines. A few hours south of Huacachina the desert becomes very flat and the center of one of the most ancient cultures in Peru. A vast area of the desert here is covered with lines and patterns that were created by this culture thousands of years ago and have been preserved in the surface of the land by an almost complete lack of rainfall.

We flew across the designs in a five person plane. Above is one of the photos that we took as we flew around. This design is of a hummingbird; a species that cannot be found unless you travel thousands of miles, cross the Andes and begin descending into the Amazon Jungle. The hummingbird above is several hundred meters across and quite impossible to see from ground level. You can see the beak of the hummingbird connecting into a series of straight lines. Some of the straight lines, and they are all perfectly straight, extend across the plain for more than ten kilometers. As the Nazcar culture had no written language no one knows the purpose of the lines, theories abound, but all of them are formed in the human imagination. The secrets of the lines appear to have escaped even those who have spent their entire lives studying and documenting them.  

Ultima tappa in Peru’: la tanto temuta Cusco. Temuta perche’ tutto il turismo sud americano sembra concentrarsi in questa citta’ data la vicinanza a Macchupicchu.
Ebbene con tutte le riserve di questo mondo siamo arrivati in questa citta’ che ci ha benvenuto con la sua architettura coloniale, i suoi vicoletti, i suoi innumerevoli centri artigianali ed artistici, e la sua internazionalita’.

In faccia a cio’ i nostri pregiudizi si sono volatilizzati e ci siamo buttati in pieno nel gustare tutto cio’ che Cusco ha da offrire………a parte Macchupicchu naturalmente, una vera Walt Disney turistica che preferiamo immaginarla come un luogo mistico e spirituale….impresso nelle nostre menti come nelle foto migliori di esso….

Abbiamo invece optato per del trekking nella valle Urubamba ed al ritorno da questa abbiamo subito preso parte ad una visita nei canyon del fiume Apurimac di tre giorni. Tre giorni di rafting e due notti campeggiati sulla riva del fiume.

Il trekking era da Lares a Ollantaytambo una distanza fattibile in 3 giorni quindi equipaggiati di tenda, sacco a pelo e cibo siamo partiti indipendentemente ed essendo questa una valle popolata di pastori di lama ed alpaca le mulattiere erano molto visibili.

Si sa che i campesino parlano quechua ma cio’ che non mi aspettavo e’ che nei villaggi si parla SOLO quechua. La prima notte abbiamo campeggiato nel villaggio di Huacahuasi dove siamo stati benvenuti da bambini timidi indenni al freddo ed adulti molto ospitali ma anche dignitosi. Non ci e’ stato possibile comunicare con loro tutti anche se a me sarebbe piaciuto far sapere ad alcune ragazze di quanto il loro lavoro tessile fosse bello e scambiare qualche chiacchera ma ho scoperto che sorridere e gesticolare talvolte e abbastanza per farsi capire.

Al tramonto aravamo solo noi nella nostra tenda circondati da maialini chiassosi e cani curiosi.

Il giorno dopo appena messo lo zaino in spalla potevo subito sentire il peso portato il giorno prima che sembro’ lasciare segni non sulla mia pelle ma nelle mie ossa……….. perche’, perche’ non ci siamo affittati un bell asino? Perche’ Ben??? Continuavo a chiedermi cio’ sopratutto perche’ andavamo sopra il primo passo di 4.500 Mt, Ipsayccasa, un’ arrampicata sofferta ma spettacolare.

Questo punto offre le viste spettacolari del ghiacciaio Veronica (5,750m) che ci circonda . Iniziamo la discesa a Ipsaycocha o “alla laguna„ Ipsay mentre ci siamo addentrati nel cuore del mondo “l quechua„, conosciuto come anche come “i huayruros„ in queste località.

La discesa era gentile e ed ha fatto si che arrivammo alla nostra meta, Patacancha, nel primo pomeriggio. Devo aggiungere che era di Domenica e nel raggiungere il villaggio bambini eccitati si dirigevano verso il mercato settimanale con le loro famiglie e nel dirigersi verso quest’evento settimanale ci informavano e ci incitavano nell’andare al medesimo mercato……ma cosa ci sara’ di cosi’ speciale in un mercato, ci siamo chiesti?!

Abbiamo capito di essere quasi arrivati al famoso mercato quando siamo stati investiti dai colori forti e vivavai dei costumi del luogo che tutti, ma proprio tutti, naturalmente indossano in occasione del mercato domenicale. La comunita’ di Patacancha e’ conosciuta per i suoi tessuti e filati.

Una volta messi giu’ gli zaiini anche noi abbiamo preso parte a questa ” festa” mangiando e bevendo anche se la maggiorparte delle persone era solo impiegata col bere! Da nonne a giovani uomini, tutti a bere la birra degli Inca, prodotta dal mais, la Chicha. Abbastanza piacevole soprattutto con l’aggiunta di un po’ di succo fresco di “sauco”, sambuco.

Dopo un paio d’ore la massa era per la maggioranza piacevolmente ubriaca mentre noi parlavamo con l’unico commerciante che poteva comunicare in spagnolo e contrattammo un passaggio nella sua cammionetta per arrivare ad Ollantaytambo, evitando cosi’ una notte in tenda ed un’ altra giornata portando lo zaino in spalla (mai piu!).

Quando il commerciante era soddifatto con le vendite siamo saliti a bordo e lungo la strada la camionetta si fermava regolarmente per far salire altre persone fino a quando straripava di gente!

Siamo arrivati ad Ollantaytambo e subito abbiamo capito in che posto arrivammo avendo incrociato diversi Bus turistici pieni di giapponesi ed americani.

Ollantaytambo non solo e’ una delle cittadine meglio preservate ed ancora tutta costruita sulle fondamenta originale Inca ma e’ un villaggio incluso nell’” inca Trail” quindi tutti quelli diretti a Macchu Picchu passano da Ollantaytambo.

Al mattino dopo una dovuta visita al tempio del sole e alle terrazze inca salimmo sul primo combi per tornare a Cusco. Una passegiata per una valle cosi’ remota e tranquilla in 2 giorni si puo’ trasformare in un circo per anziani tedeschi………….

Above is a photo of a painting by the wonderful peruvian artist Andrés Zevallos. I took the picture in a little museum in Cajamarca, his home town, where in classic peruvian style you could take as many photos as you wanted. We visited Cajamarca just before we arrived in Huaraz. Huaraz is a place that despite the volume of tourism it sees, has failed to loose its charm and the inhabitants remain very friendly and open. It is a mountain town in the center of the Cordillera Blanca, wherever you look, from any street, you will see a backdrop of some of the most beautiful mountains in the world.

Whilst we were in Huaraz there was a week long festival happening: “Señor de la Soledad”. This was celebrated throughout the week by processions of all the area´s young people in costume, dancing and playing drums and pipes. The processions of hundreds of young dancers would move along the roads of the town all day long as the cars revved their engines, hooted and shouted trying to force their way past the dancers. The climax of the celebrations was a fantastic example of pagan celebrations being absorbed by the Christian Church. Outside the main church a huge area was taken over as all the bands and dancers came together in one spot. In the midst of a vast swirling crowd a hundred and one performances were all happening at the same time. The church was clearly the focus of the event, however, and Erika and I forced our way through one of the side entrances. We were met by an unusual spectacle: the pews were rammed with church goers and in the central aisle a group of dancers and musicians were giving the raucous performance of their lives. Banging away at the drums as if their lives depended on it and leaping high into the air. After ten minutes these dancers finished and filed out of the church as the next group were led in.

We wanted to use the town as a base for climbing and hiking in the surrounding area. We decided to begin with some day hikes from the city and as an introduction we chose the climb directly above the city to Laguna Churup. We felt fit and so a hike including a vertical climb of over 2000 metres did not seem impossible. On our second day in the town armed with little more than a photocopied biro sketch of the route we set out up the slope behind the city. We knew it was going to be a long climb but had failed to consider just how strenuous getting up to 4450 metres above sea level would be. After a couple of hours we had slowed to a virtual snail´s pace and were spluttering our way up the ever steeper mountainside when we came across a truly bizarre character.

As we spotted a figure on the ridge ahead of us we were surprised to see someone in a top hat, wearing a cape and a pair of enormous flares. He looked like the worst kind of hippy throwback, stuck somewhere between the seventies and the eighteenth century. As we got closer our expectations dropped further as we noticed heavy leather jewellry, a corduroy waistcoat with shell buttons, sandals and socks and finally one gold hoop and feather earing. As we drew level to where he was sitting we had to at least ask where he was from.

When Erika found out he was German she was even further intrigued. We began to ask him jokingly about his clothes and were quickly rebuffed as he began to tell us that he a traditional German Journeyman. Erika and I had heard a little about this tradition before, skilled workers travelling around Germany in traditional dress, but had never expected to come across it in the middle of the Andes. As Fredo introduced himself he also explained the traditions he was following. Apparently it used to be the case all across europe that when a worker finished his apprenticeship and joined a guild he would spend a period of time as a journeyman, seeing the world and practicing his trade as he travelled. Over the last few hundred years the tradition had gradually died away until now there are only about 600 people currently on such travels, all from Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Fredo is a metal worker who has been on the road for three years trying to follow an ancient set of rules as closely as he can. He began his travels in Europe where he never paid for either a place to stay or transport but relied largely on people´s charity. Even the buttons on his waistcoat have rules to govern what they should be made from and his battered top hat had to be given to him by another traveller; it looked as if it had been passed between many travellers and this was not the first time it had circumnavigated the globe.

As we contiued steadily up into the mountains we chatted to Fredo about these traditions and his family back in Saxony: Ludwig, Gottfried, Willfried and Siegfried (which translate as peace in God, peace in God´s will and peace in victory). His brothers had all been journeymen as well and he really had some stories to tell. The mountain eventually became so steep that the path disappeared and we found ourselves scrambling up rock faces. We spotted ladders in the distance and headed for them. The ricketty little branches nailed together eventually carried us over the lip of the basin where Laguna Churup sat and we were greeted by the fantastic view below.

Fredo and I walked around the lake and then looked back to where we had come from. We could see Erika surrounded by the lagoon´s crystal clear water. We then had to return the way we had come but were spurred on by the thought of the amazing ice cream we had found Huaraz specialised in. It seemed like every other shop in the town had a freezer and someone scooping beautiful ice cream into a cone for you.

I managed to get in touch with a great group of climbers whilst in Huaraz and we made a couple of day trips to nearby rock faces. I was just delighted to be climbing again. Rock Climbing is something I have really been missing since leaving the UK, I can´t wait to settle in one place for a while and meet up with a group of local climbers. Huaraz was my quick fix and I cannot tell you how good it felt.

Our second trip was to Hatun Macay an enormous boulder field and group of cliffs sat in the middle of the sparse altiplano. The rock here is a very unusual mixture of different types caused by intense volcanic activity over a long period of time. This has resulted in swathes of differently coloured rocks forced against one another. The lines that you climb here are beautiful: from the most perfect chimney I have ever had the pleasure of climbing to the incredible line below following a natural cross in the rock.

This area was also very full of wildlife and one of my favourite moments of the day was on reaching the top of one of the climbs and putting my head above the edge of the cliff I found a biscacha sat on his hind legs his eyes level with mine. He examined me quizzically for a while and once he had decided I wasn´t interesting hopped off back to his hole. Biscachas are a shy South American animal that looks like a cross between a squirrel and a hare, you don´t often see them but they make a sound like a helicopter taking off that is hard to miss. Below is a photo of another amazing rock formation a kind of natural honeycomb ladder.

We finally decided we were ready for a serious high altitude trek. We chose the demanding Huayhuash circuit: 9 days and 8 passes between 4600 and 5100 meters, and we wanted to do it without a guide. Possibly a foolish idea, but we felt the paths had been so clear on our other treks that a guide was unnecessary. We would plan and buy all of the food ourselves and our mule driver (we didn´t even contemplate trying to carry 9 days food), who would hopefully come looking for us if we didn´t turn up at the campsite at the end of a day´s hiking.

The photo above is the view that greeted us each morning as we woke up. The sun would be dashing down the mountains towards us, as we clambered out of the tent wearing all of the clothes we had brought with us. Eagerly anticipating the heat of the day, I would begin pumping away manically at the battered old benzene stove we had hired and praying that my fingers wouldn´t stick to the metal. I would break the ice on top of the pot of water we had collected the night before (often an inch thick) and before you knew it we would be able to drink hot coca tea; sifting the leaves out with our teeth, warming our hands and watching the sun getting ever closer.

At high altitudes when the sun goes down cold takes on a whole new meaning. It is a cold that bites right through to your bones. After the first day we found ourselves getting into the tent at six thirty in the evening straight after the sun had set and only getting out the next morning. In the photo above you can just see the ice on the top of the tent, in reality the tent would be completely covered in ice, inside and out. As we took the tent apart each morning we would shake the outer and a beautiful storm of enourmous flakes of ice would appear in front of us catching the sun. These were not ideal conditions for our lightweight sleeping bags, only meant to be used above freezing, but we zipped them together to share body heat and ended up wearing all of our clothes inside of them – Erika was even wearing her waterproofs at night!

Our first days hiking was a lesson in just how unforgiving these mountains can be. As we left Huaraz at 5 in the morning on a bus we saw two other tourists and a guide stood on the pavement watching our bus leave. We assumed that they were headed elsewhere, but when we had to change buses three hours into the journey they appeared in a taxi looking very pissed off with their guide. As we climbed into the mountains along precipitous hairpin bends we struck up a conversation with a Peruvian carrying a karrimor bag who, of course, turned out to be a guide. As we discussed our plans with him and he explained difficult parts of the route to us we discovered his name was Messner, a peculiarly German name. When we asked him why, we were told it was because Siula Grande, the most technical mountain in the Cordillera Huayhuash, has a very famous route first climbed by Reinhold Messner and later made famous by Joe Simpson in “Touching the Void”. Just how serious these mountains were was becoming rapidly clearer.

As we wound our way into the mountains the other tourists also began to explain their plans: they wanted to do the whole circuit in six days as they were devout Jews who didn´t want to be in the mountains on the sabbath. Messner immediately turned to their guide and told him in no uncertain terms that he was insane. When their guide saw that we had a map he asked to borrow it and began studying it intently as if he had never seen a map of the area before. As we got off the bus at Llamac and met up with Oligario: the man who would organise our mule driver, the Israeli´s guide also got off the bus and asked if there was anyone in the village who would carry their gear around the circuit in six days and were told that no one would attempt it.

Oligario told us that he would travel with us for two days until we got to the village where our mule driver lived. We loaded up the mule and set off into the mountains, Oligario streaking off into the distance ahead of us. It was a nice gentle afternoon walking up a valley in the sunshine towards our first pass which would come the next morning. We arrived at the flat patch of ground that was to be our campsite, unpacked the mule and began to cook dinner. A little while later the Israelis arrived with a mule driver they had convinced to attempt the circuit in six days, they had failed to bring any food for him and were to pay him extra instead. Their guide arrived with one bare foot, apparently he had fallen in a stream and needed to wait for his boot to dry. The Israelis soon came over to ask us if we had a map and if they could copy it! I was stunned as they explained that they had no map nor had their guide ever walked the route before. They proceeded to take a biro and a piece of paper and sketch out the map as best they could. Their guide soon wandered over, still with only one shoe, and asked if we had any tent pegs he could borrow – he hadn´t brought any!

When we woke the next morning we saw a group of peruvians near us with no tent. We asked Oligario about them and he told us that they had indeed slept without a tent or sleeping bags. We had been freezing all night with both tent and sleeping bags, waking up periodically to pull on more clothes and try to get warm. As we got our stove lit we called them over. It was two boys of about 16 and 10 without even a warm jacket between them. They were clearly frozen, jiggling around in the hope it would stop them shivering, both with their hands stuffed down the front of their trousers. I can only imagine how much it must have hurt as the blood returned to their hands and feet. They told us they were there with their animals and had not had anything to eat the night before, we shared our tea and porridge with them and wondered how they had got away without hypothermia. We all watched the Israelis getting up and praying before packing everything up and getting ready to leave. They didn´t seem to have eaten any breakfast, indeed Oligario told us this was a part of their religion, and we watched with amusement as they told their guide he was not needed anymore and he wandered dejectedly back down the valley. We set off on the climb up to the first pass struggling to get enough oxygen from the thin air.

As we made it to the top of the pass we were rewarded with our first clear view of the mountain range that we would spend the next eight days hiking around. These magnificent snow covered peaks were razor sharp and towering above us. Our descent would take us directly towards them and we set off eagerly into a valley so lush that I don´t believe I had ever seen a vista containing so many different shades of green. We were brought up short by the first of the graves that would be scattered along the route, this one was for a 23 year old Pole who had tried to climb Paria, the peak directly above us, 10 years before. Oligario told us he had made it to the peak but had started suffering altitude sickness. He was carried back down to the path but died as they got ready to continue descending. This peak was only 5027 meters, lower than the highest pass we would have to cross.

At the end of the descent we came to the first glacial lake and Janca, the scattered group of huts where our mule driver lived. As we were introduced to Edmundo, and Oligario prepared to leave us, we began to feel nervous. Edmundo clearly was a real man of the mountains and did not seem to be sizing us up very favourably. His spanish was also considerably worse than mine and he looked like the kind of person I wouldn´t trust further than I could throw him. He ran off to get his mule and came back with a beautiful pony. He wanted to take Lucero (Lightening in english) rather than a mule. He then got his saddle and began tying it onto Lucero. I could hardly believe he was going to use the saddle. It had a wooden frame that had broken and then been repaired with little bits of wood, sheets of metal and patches of leather so many times that its original shape was hard to make out. As he prepared to put all of our gear on top of Frankenstein´s saddle I wondered how it would ever make it around the circuit without splitting apart at one of the many repairs. Below is a picture of Lucero and Edmundo with the saddle in the foreground.

We soon arrived at our second Glacial lake and as we put up our tents and got dinner cooking we kept having to stop to gaze at the sheer wall at the back of the lake rising directly into the mountains behind. As the sun began to set the peaks cast the razor sharp shadows through the clouds that you can see below, the mountain tops piercing the clouds and rising far above. The beauty of this place made us feel truly elated as we realised what lay in store for us over the coming days. In the photo below the mountain on the left is Siula Grande and the one in the center is Yerupaja rising to 6617 meters (above you can see the same view as the sun rose first thing the next morning).

The next morning we came across a second group of Israeli trekkers: eight people with five guides, mule drivers, cooks and three emergency horses. The emergency horses are in case anyone suffers a serious problem, you can then sit on the back of the horse until you get to the nearest road, but there were people sat on the back of all three horses. As we walked through the group none of the tourists would even offer us the time of day, but the guides were an altogether friendlier bunch. They told us that the tourists were on the horses because one had a bad stomach, one was suffering from altitude sickness and the other was too tired to continue, even though we were only a couple of hours into that days hiking. We were delighted to discover that the head guide, Edgar, was the father of Messner, who we had chatted to on the bus, and he told us about a view point away from the main path that we should climb up to. Below you can see Edgar and I at the view point he told us about.

Behind us you can see the glacial lake, Siula, and the icebergs that drop into it from the glacier above. Edgar told us that he could remember when he had first come here almost 30 years before. At that time this glacial lake did not exist because the glacier far above us then came down to the morraine that you can see as a ridge at the back of the lake. The glacier had retreated several kilometers in just a quarter of a century. Actually seeing the results of global warming in front of you was a sobering experience and we said very little for some time.

As we made our way back to the path I was amazed to see the 3 people riding horses all smoking cigarettes. No wonder they couldn´t walk. As we struggled up towards our first really serious pass we were rewarded by the amazing view of a glacier you can see below. As we walked along we could hear enourmous thunder claps as the ice was forced downhill by the pressure of the ice above. Glaciers are rivers of solid ice so they do not flow like a liquid. Rather the pressure of millions of tons of ice and snow builds until the ice below shears, making unbelievable crashes and sending showers of ice far into the air and down the mountainside.

Once we had made it to the pass we began our descent, but were soon to realise that we had lost the path and were descending into the boggy area you can see below. The valley floor ahead of us was a series of basins filled with broken lakes and islands. As we approached one of the lakes we found that the plants covering the ground and forming itself into islands was actually rock hard. Before we knew it we found ourselves jumping from island to island and able to cross even the largest of the lakes rather than have to walk around.

We found the path again and that night arrived in Huayhuash, a valley as close to climbing heaven as anywhere I have been. I was delighted that I had brought my climbing shoes and started clambering around on some of the boulders right in the middle of the campsite. As we hiked up the valley the next day I realised that the boulder field covering the broad floor of the gorge was at least five kilometers long. There were also big walls on either side of the gorge stretching up for hundreds of meters, each being completely different in character. On the left was a wall split into flutes and gables by enormous vertical breaks looking like giant stalagmites and on the right was a wall split by colossal horizontal breaks. As I marvelled at the rock around me I vowed that at some point I would return.

The night after Huayhuash we found ourselves camping in a valley unlike any other we would encounter. The Pumarinri valley looked otherworldly from the moment we set eyes on it. It was full of rocks the turquoise colour of malachite and strange clumps of cactus growing low to the ground and covered by what appeared to be large balls of cotton wool. as we descended further into the valley we realised what had caused these strange surroundings. We began to see pools similar to those on the floor of other valleys, only here they were steaming. The valley was so active geothermally that there were literally hundreds of pools of hot water scattered across the ground in front of us. The cactus can grow here because the ground is heated, as long as they stay close to it they would never experience frost no matter how cold the air above them. That night we camped by a large concrete pool that had been built into the floor of the valley. We pushed a sod of earth into the hole in one of the bottom corners and then directed the overflow from one of the steaming ponds into our concrete box. Once it was full we clambered in and were surprised to find the water so hot we had to get in very slowly. Once the water was up to our necks we were not leaving, we stayed there until our skin became so wrinkled we wondered if it would start peeling off. It was such a change from our normal method of washing we felt like royalty. For the five preceding days we had only had glacial streams to wash in, the air being so cold as well, we would only wash one half of our bodies at a time, keeping the rest of our clothes on in a desparate attempt to stay warm. The photo below is me washing myself whilst keeping all four layers of clothing on.

After Pumarinri we climbed to the highest pass so far. From 4950 meters the views of the mountains were breathtaking but it was the glacier directly in front of us that really made an impression. The form of the ice with a covering of snow was a strange combination of a solid and a liquid form. Full of motion but simultaneously hanging in space as if frozen at one particular moment. The beauty of the colours failed to be captured by my camera; where there were crevasses in the ice allowing us to see far into the glacier the colour was not the white of the surface but a delicate blue green that appeared to glow, as if it was not the ice we were seeing but the light travelling through it.

We knew that the next climb would be the hardest of our whole trek. We descended into a deep valley and camped at a point where we could see the way up to the next pass. This was a pass that was not a part of most people´s treks, anyone who did want to climb to the pass to reach 5100 meters would do so and then return the way they had come. We had decided to climb up to the pass and then descend into the valley on the other side, the guides we had spoken to had described the descent as very difficult but not impossible. Edmundo had told us that he would not risk Lucero on the descent.

As we sat in our campsite looking up at the six hundred meter scree slope that led up to Cerro San Antonio and knowing that the descent was going to be even steeper, doubts began to grow. The next morning we got up early and set out as soon as we could. climbing the scree slope was not as hard as we had feared, but what we had not been able to see from the valley floor was that the upper part of the slope was not scree but dry mud that lay across the slope almost like a light form of gravel. With each step your foot would slip back down the slope practically to the level where you had placed your last foot. We were forced to move slowly by the thinness of the air, but this latest obstacle made the going even harder. As we desparately struggled to get enough oxygen into our lungs and to find a solid foot placement we crawled up to 5100 meters across a moonscape of dried mud and monolithic boulders.

Above is the view that greeted us upon reaching the top. As soon as we saw it we realised that the struggle had been worth every second, there were glaciers and lakes far below us and valleys stretching into the distance in all directions. This landscape was filled with a myriad of colours and dominated by truly awesome snow capped peaks. Directly in front of us we could see the desperately steep and pathless slope that would be our route down. Going down a scree slope is always easier than going up, the sliding of your feet cushions your steps and allows you to move surprisingly fast. We were soon skipping down the mountain and trying to spot the point where we needed to traverse out of the valley we were following to avoid the cliffs lower down.

As we traversed to the left we were able to see the bottom of the valley to our right. This is the view you see above with the three glacial lakes clearly visible as the glacier retreats up the valley behind them. Around Huayhuash there are many examples of glacial lakes grouped together, almost always with strikingly different colours. Here the first is white, the second turquoise and the lowest a dark green. As we continued to descend we spotted a group of four birds climbing up a thermal in the valley far below us. As they circled up towards us we realised how big they were and settled down to watch them. As they climbed closer we were able to see the clear black and white markings of the Andean condor. Watching these birds spiral past us, and seeing just how big a 5 meter wingspan really is, made us feel like dwarves trespassing on someone else´s territory.

We continued walking across the eiree landscapes we had come to expect knowing that our rest day was just around the corner. We had chosen the campsite that was reputed to be the most beautiful on the circuit as the place to relax for a day and as we dropped down to Jahuacocha we were not disappointed. We were greeted by the view you see below. We camped close to an abandoned farmhouse where we were sheltered from the wind and asked some of the campesinos who lived around the shore of the lake if they would be able to fill one of our water bottles with milk and catch some fish for us. The next morning, we woke as someone wandered around the lake towards us carrying a bottle of milk straight from the cow and six trout. After our porridge we got out the half kilo bar of chocolate flavoured with cloves and cinnamon that we had carried for the last week. We proceeded to break it into small pieces and melted it in a litre of boiling water before adding two litres of milk. Since the moment I tasted that magical hot chocolate, “chocolate caliente” has been my hot drink of choice. A day relaxing in such incredible surroundings, exploring the shores of the lake, drinking hot chocolate and eating fresh trout was the perfect end to a trek that I cannot recommend highly enough.

Above is a photo taken during a sunday procession in the square of my favourite Peruvian town. Chachapoyas is on the edge of the towering Andes just before the land plunges into the Amazon jungle. It is a remote and lush area where the people are still interested in tourists, keen to talk and fiercely proud.

The markets there are full of the incredible range of produce available in an area where there is plentiful tropical sun and rain as well as a large number of different climates close together due to the variations in altitude. As well as the fruits above, the beans are also amazing including both coffee and cocoa, as well as fava, orca and kinds displaying every colour of the rainbow inbetween. It is an area that has been heavily inhabited for a long time and as you hike through the mountains and the cloud forest you find yourself on the top of a ridge confronted by the ruins of ancient cities that have been overrun by the verdant green that is everywhere.

On one of our first days here we went on a day hike up to the third highest water fall in the world. this walk took us through the cloud forest you can see above. Full of giant palms, enormous ferns and orchids whereever you look. The cloud forest is broken and sparse in places and in the photo below you can see the waterfall we were hiking up to in the background.

As we hiked further up the valley the size of the waterfall gradually became apparent as we glimpsed it through the breaks in the canopy above us.

The volume of water in the fall was not vast, as you imagine some parallel to Niagara, but the height was breath taking. As we approached it we had to hide inside ponchos and plastic sheets. At the back of the valley it was as if you were in the middle of a raging storm, everything soaking wet with fine rain being lashed across us by gusts of wind. Above us the water looked like an avalanche as it poured over the lip and broke up into a falling, billowing cloud of spray. Only returning to the expected form of a river as it struck the rocks around the plunge pool thousands of feet below.

Once we had hiked back down we found a welcome meal waiting for us at the village at the foot of the valley. It was a meal of chicken that had lived such a full free range life that its meat was dark, tough and flavoured more like game than what we know as chicken. The meal was served in the room below where the ever present image of Che Guevara was painted above the door next to a speaker so large it was as if one of his speeches was about to begin booming out at any second, flattening everyone round the table.

We now had a taste for trekking and decided to take a little bit further. We headed up into the cloud forest for four days trekking following ancient trade routes passing a number of abandoned and unexplored hilltop cities and finishing in Kuelap, the greatest of the mountain top fortresses built by the pre conquest civilizations.

We began our trek heading up into the mountains through the forest on paths like the one above. It was just idyllic and we lost ourselves in the vistas that would loom up out of the clouds as we reached the top of each pass.

The unpredictability of the weather only added to the magical atmosphere we found in this world. Cloud forest is a form rainforest and nature made it very clear that this was a wild part of the world. Brilliant sunshine would become raging thunderstorms in just a few minutes and would pass just as quickly. We spent alot of time hiding in Ponchos and waterproofs and pushing to get into the next valley where the weather would be entirely different.

On the second day of the trek we were due to climb nearly two thousand meters and so mules had been hired to make sure we made it up to the pass. The idea was that each of us would sit on the back of a tiny mule, our feet pratically dragging on the ground. The owners of the mules would walk along beside geeing up the animals and making sure they weren’t distracted by the undergrowth for too long with some gentle encouragement involving freshly cut switches on the backs of their legs. As I realised how steeply the path was climbing and descending and the trouble the mule was having with my weight on his back, I rapidly went off the whole idea. Not only that but we were not moving any faster than a normal walking pace and the saddle I was sat on appeared to have been constructed from pieces of wood especially selected not to compliment the human form.

I spent the rest of the day walking alongside and inbetween the mules. Everyone else joined me for shorter or long stints. When the path became particularly treacherous or someone felt particularly sorry for their mule the group of walkers would swell. Much of the path had been worn into a kind of giant mud stepping stones. The mules who transported goods back and forth between the settlements along side the route trod in same spots and had worn mud filled troughs between which were high ridges of mud. In the photo below you can see Erika leading her mule across just such a section of the climb.

On the last day of the trek we came to the most amazing castle I have ever visited. It is a fortress built on the top of a mountain using three times the amount of stone required for the great pyramids of Egypt. It was built without metal tools or the wheel. As it loomed up out of the forest and cloud the sheer size and location blew me away. Surrounded by llamas, covered by the invasive green of the forest with a 360 degree view of some of the highest mountains in the world it could hardly fail to inspire.

We had promised ourselves a beach holiday. Mancora was the relaxed town we chose right on the northernmost tip of Peru. The beach you can see above is the picture perfect one where we spent the best part of ten days. It is a tropical surfing beach where the water is warm and and the waves big and bold.

Mancora is surrounded by semi arid desert, perfect for early morning hikes. While hanging around in hammocks and sharing salads we met a great bunch of travellers and relaxed completely. The woman in the picture above is Angela; an Austrian who has been living in Peru for seven years running a fantastic bakery and offering us a wealth of knowledge.

One of her tips was to take a collectivo to Puerto Pizarro, the fishing port you can see in the photo above. Once we arrived there we hired a rowing boat and headed out into the mangrove swamps for a day in another world. The oars may have only been planks of wood but this suited the world we entered perfectly. The wildlife in the lagoons was so abundant it was hard to look anywhere where there weren´t birds diving into the water, hermit crabs clumsily dragging their shells out of the way or fish jumping.

As we headed silently out across the water we were able to float into the narrow passageways between the mangroves; amazing trees that look otherworldy growing ontop of the stilts they put into the seawater, only becoming roots once they have hit the bottom of the lagoon. Eventually we came to the breeding center for the alligators that were at one time so plentiful in Peru.

We then headed back to one of the mudflats where a few tables on the sand enabled someone to serve food to the passing crafts. we stopped and were treated to one of the best ceviches we have had so far. Ceviche is a dish we have been treated to all along the coast of Peru: basically it is raw fish marinated in lime juice and chilli served with camote (a type of sweet potato), sweet red onions and plaintain or chocklo (a type of white maize). This marinade is left on the fish for about twenty minutes and soft cooks it – in effect curing it. Ceviche may not sound like the most inspiring dish in the world, but I don´t think I have ever been anywhere where the seafood is fresher or more varied, and any fish or shellfish can be put into ceviche. The amazing example below included minute baby squid, octopus, black mussels, scallops and a selection of different white fish. Suffice to say I think I ate ceviche almost every day for over a month and am still dreaming about returning to the coast even if only for the seafood…

As we headed back into the port we found that the tide had risen high enough for the fishing boats to be preparing to leave the port. Everyone was busily getting ready to go and catch whatever they could. Even the youngest kids were drafted into service ferrying things back and forth between the fishing boats and the port. Which itself appeared to be floating as many of the streets that earlier approached the water were now flooded and their inhabitants could only reach their front doors with their canoes.

Finally I cannot resist just one more beautiful shot of the sun setting over Mancora. The sunsets were so beautiful here that the beaches were often more crowded as the sun went down than at any other time of day…

Trujillo has been the first town that we came to in Peru and we have been here almost a month now. It is a town full of life and relatively free of tourists where we have been able to relax and begin to learn Spanish. Erika´s Spanish has begun to soar as I drag myself along like a lame english donkey. Apparently patience is a virtue, and we do have plenty of time.

It is a city with a real sense of pride: whether it is the Cebiche they cook so beautifully, the colourful main square you can see above and below, the local marinera dance, or the insane driving we are witness to each day (minibus drivers with a glint in their eyes and no respect for anything other than the sound of their own horn – you have to be careful as you get in as they do not even wait for you get both feet off the ground and into the bus before they accelerate away in the race for the next stop). People here are just enthusiastic about life, whatever form it takes, except for customer service. Western ideals of how to treat customers are not common currency here. Actually it goes further than that: I am beginning to suspect that the Peruvians do not have a strong tradition of hospitality. Nothing is offered when you enter a house; even after three weeks of going to our Spanish teachers house for 3 hours of lessons every day and us taking drinks and biscuits that we share each day, never is anything offered in return.

Alot of our free time in Trujillo has been spent at a small town on the coast 20 minutes drive away. The photo below is of the fire station in Huanchaco. It is a town where life is lived at a different pace. The fire station actually looks like it has suffered a pretty severe fire itself. If these fireman were called out to an emergency, the fire would probably have burnt itself out before they would manage to move the car parked infront of the gates and get themselves organised enough to remember where the keys for the fire engine are!

The beach at Huanchaco is an enourmous scythe of sand cutting into the desert lanscape that encloses the town. Everything in the town is dominated by the sound of the enourmous waves that roll in from the pacific day after day. There are always surfers out in the bay and the local fisherman still use traditonal boats made from reeds that are capable of making it out safely through the surf. These boats are left to dry at the back of the beach as the fishermen repair their nets for the next day’s work.

Trouble writing? In peru you can use one of these guys sat at their little tables. tell him what you want to say and he will type it out for you. Indeed he can even transcribe it into official language for you. Brilliant- who needs a computer?

Lastly I wanted to speak about the appartment we have been staying in while we have been in Trujillo. It is on the roof of a hostel with a bedroom and a separate living/dining area and we use the family’s kitchen downstairs. The only downside revealed itself when we woke up to the sound of really loud rain. We didn’t think anything of it until we opened the door into the living room and found water everywhere. The roof had been made in such a way that rather than leading the rain to a gutter, it led it to the center of our living room and then dumped it on the floor. Twenty minutes later our appartment looked like the photo below.

One of the appartments saving graces is the large windows looking onto a beautifully kept park, complete with humming birds, and then over the rest of the city. The views of the tropical sunsets each night are fantastic.

I feel as if I am trapped in a latin american soap opera. We are in the midst of a family living life to epic proportions. Carmela is the hard nosed matron of the house. She has incredible eyebrows; I am sure there are some hairs in there somewhere, but I am mesmorised by the broad strokes of black make-up that arc from the bridge of her nose up across her forehead. She is small by Peruvian standards which makes me feel like a giant. However, she rules the house with an iron fist. Her English husband will not do the slightest thing without her permission, indeed he only speaks to her to ask for instructions. He is a mouse who divides his time between watching endless games of football on satellite television and looking at the internet. He doesn´t seem to leave the house unless he is giving a guided tour around some of the local archeological sites and eats by himself at the dining table while the rest of the family eat at the big table in the kitchen.

Carmela´s most popular topic of conversation is just how good for nothing her only daughter is. Her only child is Delicia: nine month´s pregnant and living back at home with her first son, her husband dashing in and out and never a good word to say about her mother. Erika and I get to hear both sides of the coin. Mother and daughter relay the latest episode in the family sagas to us in hushed tones. At least they begin in hushed tones, but rise gradually as they are carried away by the emotion of the situation. I have trouble following the details of their complaints but the gist, gestures and raised eyebrows are more than enough to understand exactly what is going on, as Delicia gets closer and closer to popping.

Histrionics are a daily event as the battles between Delicia and Carmela escalate in a never ending crescendo. Delicia´s son Wilder is six years old and spoilt rotten. He refuses to eat and so it seems that one of the maids has to spend at least three hours a day trying to convince him to eat. I think when his little brother enters the household it will be a major shock to the system. The maids are one of the household’s saving graces; the two of them work their fingers to the bone, seemingly there every hour of the day but Viviana and Tatiana are unfailingly generous with themselves and their time and always quick to laugh.