Darkest Peru

In which our heroes decode ancient murals, hike through thin air to turquoise lakes, wake up on floating islands in the clouds, fly over spacemen, get to know the Peruvian medical system, photograph the craters of the moon, make the best lasagne ever, play dress up with the locals, learn to dance Peruvian-style (and not set themselves on fire in the process) reach new heights and get adopted by a dog called Stevie Jumpers.

The previous blog left our group in a rather lovely bushcamp just inside Peru. We quickly descended out the verdant hills, in fact it was the last we would see of green for a couple of days as we headed back in to the Peruvian desert.

Not very green...

Our destination was Huanchaco, just outside the city of Trujillo, famous both for its surf and for its archeological ruins

Beautiful Huanchaco beach

Local fisherman's boat - AJ demos not quite how it's done

Peru = Pisco - it's a necessary cultural experience

Huanchaco camp

We had a nice breakfast at our Huanchaco camp before heading off for some quality culture in the form of a visit to the ruins of Chan Chan and Huaca de la Luna.

Our guide Eduardo took us to Chan Chan first, the city belonged to the Chimu people, who co-existed with the Incas (well until the Incas decided they wanted the desert and coast too which spelled the end of the Chimu.) They were a desert people whose skills at controlling and diverting water are still impressive today in this arid land. What’s left of the ancient city is made up of a series of palaces, the tradition was that when their King died his palace must be closed up permanently and turned in to a giant tomb (along with his wives and servants who had to die with him, sometimes gently by drugging them with the hallucinogenic San Pedro cactus before killing them, or brutally if they resisted.) The next King would then start work building his own palace which would then become his tomb and so on. In total 9 palaces were built and we got to look around one of the enormous structures.

Chan Chan ceremonial square

The walls were often built with holes in to let the sea air circulate 

Ancient reservoir and some precious green

AJ channels her inner Chimu

Chan Chan Can Can

Next it was on to Huaca de la Luna which pre-dated the Chimu era by about 700 years. This belonged to the Moche people who had a strangely similar belief in constant rebuilding on top of old temples, the result is the startlingly impressive Huaca de la Luna, or Moon Pyramid which is a series of temples built one on top of the other to create a pyramid shape decorated in bright colours with pictures of gods, animals, warriors, slaves and a fascinating mural of different images which no archeologist has been able to decode. It features, oddly enough, a European-style King in a crown, something which there is no other evidence of in Peru until the Conquistadors arrived 1000 years later. It’s all very Dan Brown!

Huaca de la Luna

The creator god

The mural of myths

Peruvian hairless dog, the govenment has decreed that all archeological sites must have these indigenous animals present. Their bodies are 2 degrees warmer than normal dogs and the ancient people of Peru used them as bed warmers

The general consensus was that we’d had far too much oxygenated air by this point so we headed back up in to the Andes to Huaraz at a breathtaking 3000m above sea level.

We had to negotiate a few political rallies which took place in the road - not much other flat land about

Huaraz

Huaraz is all about the mountains and traditionally a mountaineers hangout but it holds on to its Peruvian roots superbly and hasn’t been completely overrun by Gringos so it’s a nice little slice of chaotic, noisy Peru which happens to be surrounded by stunning mountains.

Huaraz Square

Danielle adds to her collection of photos with Llamas

Many of our keen hikers headed out to Laguna 69, a steep uphill walk at serious altitude to a beautiful glacial lake, a great reward for those who pushed through the pain.

Hannah and Danielle enroute to the lake

Worth every breathless step!

Team 69...

Si makes friends with a high altitude cow

Some headed out to the Chavin ruins, older again than the Moche people dating back to 1200BC at its oldest through to 500BC. The people worshipped animal based Gods from Pumas to Condors, something mirrored throughout Peru’s different civilisations. The site sits partly underground and has a complex drainage system (these mountain people had the opposite problem to the water-starved Chimu people down in the desert 2000 years later!)

The road to Chavin - "it's a female road - all curves"

AJ at Chavin ruins

AJ and Ellie keeping dry

Fried guinea pig near Chavin

The first taste

Just when we were adjusting to this altitude again Emma and Si thought it would be a perfect time to head back to sea level, we like to keep everyone on their toes! So we headed down to a brand new location for Odyssey, The Lachay Reserve just north of Lima. This is an unexpected gem in an area of dust and sand and chicken farms, you turn off the Panamerica up a big desert like hill to what looks like a burnt out bit of scrubland. You keep climbing and enter the reserve to find actual trees with real green bits on them. The park wardens explained about the reserve, it’s a geographical oddity, for 7 months of the year it looks much like this

Joanna in Lanchay

But from June - October the sea mist comes in and this particular set of isolated hills soak up the moisture and turn in to this...

Gorgeous green - thanks Google

However the fact that we were there during the dry times didn’t detract from its beauty, we were the only people in the reserve, we explored the walking tracks, enjoyed the stunning views, a beautiful sunset and fell asleep to near silence only to wake up in the morning to find ourselves on a floating island surrounded by cloud and mist, it was a very special experience the whole group agreed.

Hannah and Mike out walking

Sunset

Emma and Hannah get dinner going

Bartley and Mike undertake the dangerous task of draining pasta

Odyssey's floating island home

Reserva Lanchay sunrise

Our next stop was another National Reserve, well we at Odyssey don’t believe in doing things by halves, and the next place we stayed turned out to be just as beautiful as Lachay. Our home for the night was the Paracas Reserve South of Lima, a section of the coastal desert has been protected and we took Ithaca on a bit of an offroad adventure exploring the inlets and beaches before setting up camp at sunset.

Cathedral Beach - used to be an arch until one of the many earthquakes that shake the area knocked it down

The group out photographing the coast

Camping on the beach

Despite the beautiful surroundings our camp that night has since become known only as ‘Lasagne Camp’ as we put together what is arguably the best meal of the tour. Pete’s (Odyssey head honcho) famous Potjie Lasagne. Emma had managed to snaffle the recipe off Pete and together with her trusty cookgroup (who she kept busy with some slightly oversoaked and very sticky Lasagne sheets) they became heroes of cooking together with Simon who loaded the Potjie with hot coals off the fire and a team of watchers who kept an eye on the proceedings with a mandatory beer. Together with fantastic local produce from Huaraz market and some of the best cheese we’ve found in South America the result will live on in tales for years to come.

Before...

During...

And after!

The next day we headed off to the Ballestas Islands, these beautiful series of caves and coves off the coast of Paracas are home to more birds than you can possibly imagine, plus a whole load of Penguins, Sealions, Crabs and Starfish. It was a lovely start to the day.

Another morning, another beautiful sunrise

En route to the Ballestas Islands we saw the famous candelabra, origins unknown, possibly ancient inhabitants of the area, possibly Spanish pirates, possibly aliens

Ballestas Islands

Lots of birds

Penguin

Cormorant

Crab

Ballestas Sealions - aka Brighton Beach

Baby sealions play in the waves

For Andrew the day took a slight downhill turn when he fell over and hurt his ankle in Paracas town which led to most of the locals getting involved and Emma and Andrew heading off for a free ride in a police car to nearby Pisco (yes, like the alcohol) to find a doctor.

For everyone else it was time to head off to Nazca, somewhere we had stopped briefly on our way North. It is famous for its mysterious lines and pictures made in the vast swathes of desert. There is no one theory for how or why these lines were made but the most likely idea is that the local Nazca people drew them partly as an indication of water sources (water is a very sacred thing in this inhospitable land) partly a mirror of star constellations and partly an offering to the Gods in the sky and stars above. The strangest truth about the lines is the people who made them had no way to see them themselves but today we are lucky enough to have to chance to fly over them which many of the group did. It is the only real way to appreciate the scale and size of these things and was a very worthwhile and awe-inspiring experience.

Simon and his private jet

Trapezoids that point to water sources

The Spider

The Tree (and the view tower we visited back in February)

The Panamericana highway was built before they knew about the lines

The Hummingbird

The Spaceman / Owlman

What really brought them to life was that the previous night many of us had visited the Maria Reiche Planetarium, she was a German lady who had dedicated her life to the lines, painstakingly clearing them in the desert on her own in the blistering sun and fighting for their protection. She believed strongly in the link between the lines and the stars and we had to chance to look through a super-strong telescope at planets and stars and even photograph the craters of the moon, an unexpected destination that was definitely not on the itinerary!

Nazca also gave many of the group the chance to head out to the Cauchilla cemetery, a recently discovered burial site belonging to the Ica-Chincha people around 1000AD. The bodies were preserved by the intense dryness, heat and sand, some had skin, hair and teeth left and many of their clothes had survived the 1000 years of burial, it was a very interesting and slightly unsettling experience but definitely worth a visit.

The group at the cemetery

Bodies buried facing the rising sun in the foetal position has led to theories that these people believed in rebirth

A short drive down the coast brought us to our final stop on the Peruvian coast and our last view of the Pacific Ocean at Puerto Inka, an ancient Inca fishing port and mini holiday resort. The crashing waves caught many of us out on the beach whilst others explored the ruins of the Inca buildings and watched the local fishermen bring in armfuls of seaweed.

Steve enjoys the view

AJ enjoys the surf

The next day took us up in to the mountains again as we began our slow climb to Cusco in order to adapt the group as much as possible to altitude before they headed off hiking. Our first stop is a fabulous city of Arequipa, which, despite years of terrible earthquakes is still full of beautiful colonial buildings and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000. Just wandering the streets of Arequipa is a lovely experience but a real highlight is the Santa Catalina Convent, built by the Spanish settlers to house nuns who were daughters of the wealthiest families in Peru it quickly became a cradle of luxury, learning and opulence. The nuns, against the wishes of the Catholic Church, lived in their own beautiful houses complete with servants, huge dowries from their families and gifts brought by important visitors made it a very rich and beautiful place to spend their lives. It is often described as a citadel as it is almost a city within Arequipa behind huge walls, it’s a beautiful and peaceful place to wander around and you can lose a few hours there easily listening to the guides tell stories of the different women who lived there.

Santa Catalina and Arequipa sit in the shadow of volcanoes, a constant reminder of the instability of their lives

Convent street

Fantastic convent kitchen

Arequipa is also a great culinary destination and many of the group headed out to Zig Zag Restaurant to experience some alpaca, quinoa, and in Johnny’s case the slightly less local Flambé Madeira Ice Cream. 

AJ with her alpaca steak

Johnny's dessert

Onwards and upwards, Ithaca trudged her way up across the Andes reaching just under 5,000m before dropping down in to little, chilly Chivay, a town nestled at one end of the huge Colca Canyon. It is also home to some rather lovely hot pools so many of us went and sat in the 38 degree water as the sun set. We couldn’t help but feel content that we hadn’t opted to join many of the group who had set out a day earlier to go hiking in the Colca Canyon, who would surely be a little achey by this point! However when we found them the next day they raved about the beauty of the walk and the sense of achievement. The best thing about the hike had to be the dog who had adopted them on the walk, named Stevie Jumpers by Hannah who found him next to Steve’s bag with no Steve in sight, after confirming Steve hadn’t turned in to a small dog in a red jumper the name still stuck and little Stevie followed them on their entire 3 day hike.

Stevie Jumpers - our hiking guide dog

Colca Canyon group - at the start

Beautiful walking track in the canyon

Danielle & Wayne relaxing at camp

Mike & Steve relaxing on the hike

Hannah makes it to the end - high altitude hiking is tough!

The hikers and Stevie - without the jumper

Meanwhile the rest of us had been exploring the Canyon, deeper than the Grand Canyon in America it’s a stunning sight and we had the chance to head to Condor Point with a few other Gringos to see the awesome spectacle of Condors soaring on the morning thermals over our heads.

Condor viewpoint

The beautiful Colca Canyon

Travelling is often a series of meetings and partings and leaving Colca Canyon behind was to be one of the hardest goodbyes for many of the group, sadly we had to leave Stevie Jumpers and after removing him from the truck twice it was a very sad group who watched as poor Stevie chased the truck down the road for the best part of 2km before we lost sight of him. If you are in the little town of Cabanaconde in Peru and you see a dog in a red jumper, give him a hug and tell him we’re sorry!

So it was time to go, back up out of Chivay and to the highest point of the trip during a spectacular sunrise.

Ithaca at altitude

Photographing the volcanoes at sunrise

High!

Wayne adds to the rock piles built as an offering to Pachamama, Mother Earth

This was to be one of the most spectacular drives of the trip so far as we turned off the tar road and headed off on the dirt in to snow-capped hills and fields of llamas, the cameras got a good workout!

Snow!

Cameras and alpaca hats got some good use in the cold

Llamas in the snow and mist from the heating track

Our destination was the little village of Raqchi, just outside Cusco where the local people run a community tourism project and kindly invited us in to their homes for the night to experience the life of the indigenous people of Peru who live much like their ancestors have for generations.
It was a fantastic experience and one that the group loved, we were placed with local families who fed us beautiful food grown entirely in the village, from quinoa cakes to giant corn to black potatoes and weird and wonderful local herbs and flavours.

The local ladies wait nervously to see which Gringo's they'll get!

Heading off following our families to their homes

Backpack carrying device

Some of us had the chance to harvest corn for dinner and breakfast 

Hannah carries the corn in the local way

Ithaca hiding in the corn

That evening our families dressed us up in their handmade local clothes and we all met up at one of the homes to experience a local ritual which dates back to the time of the Incas involving coca leaves, pisco and blessing the mountains and Pachamama. Afterwards they got a fire going and we had some local music and dancing which everyone thoroughly enjoyed.

The group in local dress

Mike

Le & Tee

Johnny & Ann

Danielle & Wayne

Emma & Simon

Ellie shows off her baby carried in the traditional way

The group and people of Raqchi

The next morning after a peaceful and comfortable night's sleep tucked up in alpaca blankets we were treated to a ceramics demonstration. Raqchi sits on a bed of clay and so for generations the people here have produced beautiful pottery. Johnny even got to have a go himself!

Ceramics demonstration

Johnny the potter with a young critic

Not wanting to miss out Andrew looks on after it turned out he had a broken ankle after his fall in Paracas

They start learning young here

Proud as punch!

Painting the pottery

Shopping time!

A visit to the local ruins was next which were an important temple to the Inca creator god Viracocha. They were also an important local store for food for the entire valley and we learnt more about how clever the Inca people were and how important the stars, phases of the moon and movement of the sun were to them.

Raqchi ruins

Central supporting wall for the temple

Spring water from the mountains tapped by the Incas and still running today

Emma translates the ruins tour

Those who didn't go to the ruins, hit the souvenir shops (Hannah and Johnny)

or explored the village and met more of the locals...

Tee meets the locals too!

It was a really fantastic experience staying in Raqchi and a wonderful way to really understand the people of this part of Peru, it was a sad goodbye for some and a very enthusiastic thankyou to the people of Raqchi which Emma did her best to translate!

Saying goodbye

Emma attempts to translate 'you are all beautiful people, thankyou for your kindness and hospitality' - they got the general idea!

Our time in Peru isn’t over yet, however we have had a little time to reflect on this place so chock full of history , here it feels like you are visiting the past at times, Peruvians are incredibly proud of their long history and they are on a big campaign to protect and preserve it. It is also a country of mystery and myth inextricably tied in with the natural world around it, from the Nazca lines to strange incomprehensible murals in the North, a series of cultures have left a legacy devoid of any written evidence, these were cultures who didn’t have writing, what we know about them we learn from what they left behind. But you can also learn a lot about the past from the people today, Peruvians see themselves as the inheritors of a great legacy and many of them keep up traditions that are hundreds or thousands of years old. Staying with the people of Raqchi is as close as any of us can get to unravelling the past and if the hospitality of all the people we have met along the way is anything to go by it must have been as great a country then as it is now.