New, Illustrated Blog

This blog is now illustrated! Photos have been added to the Lima and Nazca posts in June and from Cusco´s Southern Valley in July. Unfortunately the snaps of the Nazca designs themselves need careful editing before posting, so even if the Internet cafe has the right software it will be a slow process. I have bunged in a couple to give you a taste. Apologies for the poor quality.

Because I have not yet figured out a way to connect the camera directly to the computer without working USB ports, posts subsequent to Machu Picchu will have to wait until my camera´s memory card is downloaded to CD again before the pictures can be added. Sorry about that.

Special thanks to Richard for the tip about using Paint to reduce the size of the image files and save storage space as well as upload time.

Question, does anyone know how to insert pictures directly into the desired place? At the moment the upload always puts the photo at the beginning of the post and I have to edit the HTML to reposition it. What am I doing wrong?

Back from the Jungle

I carefully planned to update the blog on my way to Puerto Maldonado but Cusco Airport had no Internet access. Quite remarkable.

Having dealt with my emails, this cafe at Cusco bus station will close in 15 minutes so this will have to be very quick.

I have my photos up to Machu Picchu downloaded to CD so I can start illustrating the blog. Hooray. Some of the pics are really good.

My trip to the jungle was very good, despite some very untropical weather. Read all about it in a post coming soon. Animals, birds ands swimming in a piraña-infested river! The lodge even had some tame forest-dwellers so there will eventually be pictures of macaws and a tapir. Photos of truly wild creatures were taken but may need Photoshopping as well as extreme good luck to be worthwhile posting.

I am booked on the 8pm bus to Arequipa, from where I will find a trip to Colca Canyon and, with a bit of luck, wild condors. I will make time to post more entries. I now have the trek, Machu Picchu and the jungle to write about.

Thanks for the comments, everyone.

En la selva - Part 4 Apu Victor Lake and Goodbye

Day 4 started wih farewells. Not everyone stays for the same length of time at the lodge. Amongst those to go were Jaimy, Gabriella and her niece, and Venka with her Norwegian glamour line up.

The Norwegians had been particularly badly affected by the previous day´s rain getting in to their cabins. They had also travelled light and had no warm clothes.

But new faces appeared and, despite the lodge manager´s rigid rules, got inserted into existing groups. For the fishing and swimming we had been joined by Kat and her boyfriend. Kat was from Cheltenham and was another hockey player. She had played for her county and region, but not for England. This outshone Jaimy´s long career in top level club hockey in Holland.

Today´s new face was Maggie from the New Forest. She had arrived the previous day in the awful weather as the sole independent in a boat with two large groups. So we welcomed her to our troupe.

The morning´s adventure was a hike to Lake Apu Victor. Our guide was Rafael again.

Although the weather was dry, it was still cold. The proof of this was that Rafael wore gloves!

A forest giant. Everyone had to be snapped standing in front of it.

There was one exciting mammal sighting along the trail. Rafael led us off ito the bush to pursue a troupe of monkeys. They were brown capuchins, but we didn´t get a good view of them. Presumably because of the rain there were few butterflies, but some fungi had flourished in the wet.

This toadstool was particularly colourful.

Because our previous jungle walk had been with Guide Victor, Rafael explained a number of things we already knew. But of course Maggie hadn´t been on that trek, so she was interested in everything.


Along the Gaitana River the previous day we had chugged past a large and beautiful spider´s web but it was not possible to photograph it. Luckily we encountered the same species of spider by the trail and she obligingly stayed fast in the centre while I took this picture.

Rafael pointed out a male near the edge of the web, but he took fright and scarpered. The male was less than a quarter the size of the female.

And so we came to Lake Apu Victor. The lake was a small one, with a metal lookout that gave excellent views across the water and the associated marshes.

The undergrowth was home to a number of birds, mostly LBJs (little brown jobs), but some were more colourful. There were flycatchers with bright yellow chests, horned screamers and in the distance two scarlet macaws perched upright as guardsmen on a bare branch. A blue-headed parrot flew across the lake and conveniently perched within binocular range. Directly opposite the lookout was a bush hosting several large, brown birds.

These were hoatzins, one of the species I particularly wanted to see. TICK. They are not rare, but they share some features in common with very primitive birds like archaeopteryx. For example, the chicks have claws on their wings. These are shed as they grow up.

The little jetty proved to be the home of a small colony of bats. Our tramping up and down sent them fluttering in disorder, before settling on a nearby tree. Oddly, they preferred flattening themselves against the trunk rather than dangling from a branch. Rafael said they were fruit-eaters. This surprised me because they were a small bat, and all the small bat species I know about are carnivorous. I take Rafael´s assertion with a large measure of scepticism.

Rafael viewed the lodge´s boat half-sunk in yesterday´s rain with concern. The cup-sized bailer seemed wholly inadequate. But an abandoned older boat contained a bucket and this, vigorously wielded, soon had our vessel ready for passengers.

Once we were all aboard Rafael paddled quietly round the little lake. We approached the hoatzins with great care, but they proved too shy to get near. Well before they came within camera range they would fly clumsily on to the next tree. There were 12 or 13 in the flock.

The bird-shaped blobs in this picture are hoatzins - honestly!

Parts of the lake were well populated with wild water lilies. There were a few buds but no flowers open under the cloudy sky. In the undergrowth nearby there were anis, black birds with strange beaks like swollen noses. A woodpecker flew to a dead trunk and perched there flaunting his brilliant scarlet head. Tick, tick.





The return was along a different trail, which gave me the opportunity to photograph some different fungi.

The rain seemed to have driven the butterflies away. We saw very few this day.






Flowers seemed to be scarce after the rain, too, although I cannot think of a good reason why that should be so. Luckily this particularly attractive example was right by the path.

As we neared the lodge Rafael left us, one by one, to stand alone in the forest. We were simply to relax and listen for 15 minutes. It was lovely - almost a shame to walk on and collect the next individual on the trail.





The afternoon´s schedule had us back in a long boat headed for the Briolo River.

Another group sets off to explore the jungle.

This tributary was a little way downstream on the other side of the river, just beyond monkey island.

Buzzing across the main river was fine, but in the confines of the Briolo our outboard motor proved unreliable. It just didn´t want to operate at low revs. This river was well populated with the yellow flycatchers and I saw my first night heron. Tick.

Eventually Rafael got fed up with the erratic engine and called a halt just beyond one of the farms that were scattered along the river´s edge. He produced the rods once again and, while the boatman dismantled his troublesome engine, we settled down to a peaceful afternoon untroubled by piraña or any other fish. I even dozed off.

Rafael and Maggie were chatting and when Rafael learned that Maggie had not been on the customary expedition to Monkey Island he cast off and we started back. The motor responded to its recent care by changing one tempo of misfiring for another, but as it was mostly being run at full speed it didn´t matter much.

Our unscheduled visit to Monkey Island was fruitless. "It´s too late," Rafael explained. "The monkeys are asleep." So Maggie did not get to see the monkeys.


The end of our last expedition, with the sun low over the Madre de Dios River.

The following day was departure day for everyone remaining. After the rain the river was higher and running faster. At least this meant that the boat hugged the bank to avoid the worst of the current and we could see the birds better. Maggie was fascinated by the snowy egrets. There are several species of white egret. This one distinguishes itself by having a black bill, black legs and unexpectedly yellow feet.

And so to Puerto Maldonado and goodbye to the jungle.

En la selva - Part 3 Gaitana River

For this trip we had a different guide, Rafael. Like Victor he had had a lot of experience guiding in the jungle. However, he misidentified a couple of birds, which seems odd. Maybe he just got the English names mixed up.

Once again we were loaded into a long boat canoe. We headed upstream and Rafael kept an eye out for caiman. However, the exciting wildlife was higher up. Rafael was explaining that a tall, grassy plant was not sugar cane, but closely related, when a small face peeked out between the stems. It was a squirrel monkey and once we looked in the right places there were scores of them, moving through to the fruiting trees just along the river bank.

The boatman reduced engine revs so that we could watch until our necks were sore. Finally, however, we had to move on. We were on our way to fish for pirañas.

Once we turned out of the main river into the Gaitana River the banks were much closer and wildlife was easier to spot. There were glossy kingfishers in several sizes, blue morpho butterflies, unidentified birds and the call of the unseen ´wolf-whistle bird´. This avian, which Rafael said was small, brown and very difficult to spot, duets with its mate. The female gives a soft call and then the male responds with a two-tone blast that is the perfect wolf-whistle. No spotty human male could produce such perfect notes.

At a river fork Rafael insisted on taking the smaller channel. I don´t think the boatman was keen, but our guide had a special fishing spot that he wanted us to have the benefit of.

The long boat was difficult to manoevre in the narrow waterway. There were many fallen branches and tree trunks that obstructed the channel. See the example in the picture.

But who cares, because we saw red howler monkeys from this creek. They live in family groups, but I only saw two. They were ambling confidently from tree to tree. They are large monkeys and clearly sport red fur.

Round one corner the debris in the river was too much. The boat grounded on at least two submerged tree trunks. With the aid of the emergency paddle Rafael eased us back into deeper water while the boatman struggled to manoevre his monster drive shaft to a position where it could assist.

Back in deeper water Rafael sternly ordered the boatman to have another go - with maximum revs this time. So the clearly doubtful engineer gunned engine and aimed at the narrow opening, under which we knew there were obstacles. Rafael almost lifted us over the submerged wood and somehow we made it through.

Rafael now concentrated hard on picking the best channel from his perch in the bows, and that is why he missed seeing the otter. We knew there were otters in the region, and we also knew that they are rare and not terribly often seen. It was either Mary or Gabriella who saw it first, and I think all the tourists got a glimpse before it saw us and dived from the bank into the river. It was sandy brown, which Rafael said meant that it was a young animal. The adults, who can reach 2 metres long, are black. The name in Spanish is "lobo del rio", which means "river wolf".

After more tight corners and scrapes, Rafael admitted that the river was too low to get to his favourite fishing hole. Nevr mind. We dropped back to a bend in the river and dropped our kidney-baited hooks into the water.

Jungle-style fishing poles.

Pirañas are bloodthirsty devourers of anything that smells of blood, right? No, actually. Most of the 30-40 species are vegetarian and maybe we should have tried broccoli for bait. There were a few alleged nibbles, but no real bites.

When we got tired of this we turned around and headed for the swimming hole. Swimming in a piraña-infested river? Yep. Rafael insisted that it was perfectly safe and that he would be the first in.

Back in the main Gaitana River channel at a broad bend there is a liana that makes for perfect Tarzan swings out over the water. True to his word, Rafael demonstrated its properties before we cautiously donned our togs and followed him. The bank was very slippery and we could have made a great mud slide. Several of us slithered around anyway, to the amusement of those still in the boat.

After we had jumped from the bank, Rafael demonstrated the even better take off from a horizontal branch. The branch was a bit moist, too, but with care no-one came to harm. The river was only about 20 metres wide, but I could not touch bottom except when very close to the bank.

When we were about ready to pack up, Gabriella decided to go ashore. Like everyone else, she slipped on the bank. Having muddy clothes made up her mind. She would do the liana swing. So I was no longer the oldest swimmer - and Gabriella did her jumps fully clothed.

Happy with our water games we set off back to the lodge. There were some showers but they were warm and I sat in the boat in my togs rather than pull dry clothes over a wet body.

Back in the main river there was a noticeable wind, and the temperature wasn´t so tropical. The rain got stronger and ahead we could see a real downpour coming towards us. What we didn´t see was the icy blast that came with the downpour. The rain really stung as it lashed my skin and I hurried to pull my waterproof out of my day pack.

The last 15 to 20 minutes of the journey were most unpleasant. The Amazon basin is one place where I did not expect to be blasted by cold, horizontal rain.

Back at the lodge we found that the rain had been forced through the insect screens into the cabins. Luckily for Jaimy and me, it only affected the hammock space, not the bedroom. Others, particularly near the river, were not so lucky.

We had experienced a rare, but not unknown, phenomenon of cold air coming down from the Andes into the river basin. The lodge was caught unawares and had no sensible response. For a while, even the generator seemed to be affected by the weather. In Caiman cabin, Jaimy used both spare blankets that night while I used my sleeping bag inside the bed; not a tactic I expect to employ again in the tropics.

En la selva - Part 2b

The expedition to the "lost" lake had started at dawn and finished with a late lunch, so we were given the afternoon off to relax and explore the amenities of the lodge.

The central space was dominated by two big trees that had been selected by the local oropendulas as nesting sites. These are quite striking birds, larger than blackbirds and decked out in an eye-catching combination of black and yellow. The nests are woven to hang down from the branches. They take about a month to build and were all works-in-prgress while I was there.

Under the trees was an appealing swimming pool. From a sample of one, I have discovered that Dutch people are apprehensive about cold water. Venka (Norway) was first to the pool and first in. Jaimy (Holland) and I arrived together and Jaimy, who plays hockey in goal and thinks nothing of getting in the way of a hurtling missile, dithered for quite a while on the edge of the unheated pool. I´m used to jumping into the sea from a boat, so it was child´s play to leap into a tropical pool. Like the unheated shower in our cabin, it was merely refreshing, as Jaimy admitted when he finally climbed in.

The grounds also contained a large bird table, where fruit was offered to our feathered friends. It was dominated by a pair of scarlet macaws, who announced ther ownership with loud, harsh cries.

A scarlet macaw on the ground.

They were present for much of the time, but occasionally vanished, so they may have been wild. Macaws can crack brazil nuts, so we didn´t offer them a finger to chew on.


Other pets were a white-winged trumpeter and a pair of Spinx´s guans. These turkey-like birds allowed themselves to be photographed and then decided that I had occupied their territory for long enough. The hen started to peck my leg, which was amusing at first, but she wouldn´t stop until I moved away.

A Spinx´s guan deciding which leg hair to attack next.

Then her mate raised his crest and started to advance. We didn´t want to harm lodge pets and the only strategy Jaimy and I could think of was to retreat. This encouraged both guans to advance, giving the humiliating impression that two grown men were running away from a couple of fowls. Later we saw how the lodge staff dealt with the pests. They would make as if to pat them on the back, at which the guans ran smartly out of range.


A tree in the staff area was home to two blue and yellow macaws, a species we did not see in the wild. I´m pretty sure they had their wings clipped because they were always there, accompanied by a mealy amazon (a green parrot), that was incredibly difficult to see if it sat still. This bird could "talk" and would respond to a shouted "Hola" in kind.

For some evening entertainment, Victor took us on a tour of the garden. An elderly retainer cultivates a range of food and medicinal plants.



Before we got to the garden another of the pets turned up; this time the young tapir, Karina. She was absurdly tame and fell to the ground in ecstasy when Victor scrated a particular spot on her back.

She is free to wander into the jungle. This, explained Victor, was why there was no point in treating her ticks. Every time she went back to the jungle she would collect another infestation. However, they didn´t seem to be bothering her.

Karina was very sociable as long as someone in the group was willing to feed her grass or leaves, but when we tired of this she wandered off and we were free to learn about the plants.

There were quite a few, including one that Victor described as "Peruvian viagara". He offered to cut a sample so that we could test its effectiveness but no-one took up his offer.

You always wanted to know what a pineapple plant looks like, didn´t you?

An ordinary-looking vine was attributed hallucinogenic properties. Victor cautioned that it should only be used under the supervision of a shaman. Oddly eough, no-one wanted to try this one, either.

And a nice surprise as we made our way back to the ´front´of the lodge was two oven birds´nests. They were neat footballs of mud perched on a beam. They are entered by a passage that coils inwards like a snail´s shell. Interestingly, one curved to the left and the other to the right.

And so to our dinner and socialising in the bar.

En la selva - Part 2 The Lost Lake

Day two started with a varied, help-yourself breakfast, but not one that could compare with the Mario´s special offerings on the Salkantay Trek.

We were all encouraged to take snacks to ward off the possibility of starvation before lunch time, and the lodge provided handy plastic bags to facilitate this. Bananas and oranges were available at every meal for dessert or snacks, and the breakfast buffet added popcorn and banana chips to the help-yourself menu.

Unlike the banana chips available in a NZ supermarket, these were really banana chippies or crisps, made by frying very thinly sliced pieces of banana. They were tasty and very more-ish. It would have been easy to over indulge.

This morning Victor was going to take us to visit the Lost Lake. Just who lost it and how it was rediscovered was never explained. What was explained was that it was a 5 km trek to get there. Mary let us all know she was suffering from an injured knee and, assured of sympathy, decided to come with us.

We started with a short canoe trip downstream from the lodge and scrambled up the bank to the start of the track.

It was pleasantly warm. Not at all oppressively hot as we had feared. Victor carried a machete, and occasionally hacked at some sapling or branch that he decided was an impediment to progress. From time to time he stopped and described a tree to us, giving names in various languages and the uses to which the local people put this particular species.

Victor explaining the benefit of supporting roots to a tree growing in the shallow jungle soil.

We did not go at a great pace. We had come to see the jungle and, for once, I was not the only or the greatest delinquent when there were insects, flowers or fungi to distract the wanderer in the woods. And really the jungle is simply woodland. It was not impenetrable at all, not by a country mile.

But many creatures did live there. Most of them are small and inoffensive, though we did take care not to step on a column of army ants. I had previously been told that there are huge, solitary ants in the Peruvian jungle, and I am delighted to confirm that the tale was true. The poor beast must have been quite exhausted by the time I stopped pursuing it in a futile attempt to get a photo.

Victor located this leaf-shaped frog with deceptive ease. Maybe he had put it there in readiness for the discovery. It looks very dead leaf-ish even on this contrasting green leaf.

Not only is it very hard to see on a log or dead leaf, if it is discovered by a potential predator it puffs itself up and displayes these remarkable false eyes, hoping the bird or whatever will decide it is too big to eat.

The demonstration did not appear to hurt it. Victor put it carefully back in the undergrowth, where it wriggled once and then resumed its imitation of dried foliage.

These stems are bearing the colourful seeds of a palm tree.

There are many types of fungi in the jungle. These bracket fugi were particularly conspicuous.

Because mushrooms and toadstools do not run away I took several pictures but will save your sensibilit¡es (for now).

In this picture Victor is gently poking a thin stick into a hole in the ground. He promised us that it was a tarantula´s nest. He was eventually proved correct whe first a baby and then the mother emerged.

Fully grown tarantulas are BIG and HAIRY spiders and their appearance did not please everybody. Victor reassured us that a tarantula bite is not fatal, but the symptoms did not sound very pleasant so no-one tried to pick her up.

The final 700m to the lake were over a rather rickety boardwalk. At one point we had to stand still on one side while another group made their cautious way past.

At the lake we boarded a boat which Victor paddled very quietly round. Long, thin boats don´t turn easily, so Victor several times had to switch ends. He did this by walking confidently along the gunwhale in his gumboots. I wouldn´t care to try it myself.

The lake supported a very healthy plant population. Small turtles had hauled themselves out here and there to sun themselves and small caiman lurked with only the tops of their heads above water. There´s one in this photo just to the right of the centre of the picture.

When the river rises in the rainy season the lake becomes connected to the main river. It thus becomes accessible to fish, turtles, caiman and other water dwellers. Victor promised us that we were seeing the baby caiman and that their mother was also a resident of the lake. He proved it, too, finally locating the mother´s head in the shadows under some waterlogged roots. If the youngster in the photo is going on one-and-a-half metres to the tip of his submerged tail the mother must have easily been four metres. Anyone want a swim?

In one of his books Gerald Durrell observed that the most common animal life seen by the jungle pedestrian is the butterflies that flutter and dance across the path. My impression is exactly the same.

Most of them settle too briefly to be photographed but this specimen, sadly one of the less colourful ones, decided to alight on my hand. There he worked his proboscis vigorously. I don´t know what nourishment or treasure he was hoping to find.

Our paddle round the lake completed, we retraced our steps over the 700m boardwalk. Near the end was a lookout, carefully constructed by the lodge as a spiral staircase round one of the big, forest canopy trees.

We were only allowed to ascend four at a time. Those left on the ground took the opportunity to have a reat and eat their banana crisp snacks.

I had to use this time to summon up some courage. The steps were wooden and, although they looked strong enough, they didn´t inspire me with confidence. There was also a rope that snaked round the trunk of the tree and a carefully constructed rope ´bannister´ on the outside.

As you can see, when my turn came I made it to the top. I didn´t enjoy the climb but in truth it wasn´t so bad.

Looking out over the top of the forest was a very pleasant alternative view. There were many trees to admire of various types but they contained remarkably little animal life. There was an occasional butterfly and, briefly, a swallow. I had just decided to go down when a large, chestnut-brown bird landed in a neighbouring tree.

It has a enormous tail and seemed unsure wether it was a bird or a monkey because it mainly ran along branches or leaped between them. Only occasionally would it actually fly. I wondered if it were a hoatzin, beause I knew they are weak flyers. However, I was pretty sure a hoatzin had a crest, which this bird lacked.

Back on the ground Victor couldn´t identify the bird from my vague description, but promised I would see hoatzins at another lake. Back at the lodge I quickly identified it from one of my field guides. It was a squirrel cuckoo. Tick.

Our return to the lodge was by a different route. This took us to a different waterway and another boat. This one was equipped with several paddles, not just one. Victor pointed out that we didn´t have to paddle, but if we didn´t it would be a very long journey and a very late lunch.

The crew was arranged carefully. Jaimy, as the sole representative of the young, male class was positioned in the bow with a paddle. Victor took the stern with another paddle. The rest of us were ranged along the canoe with three paddles to share. I was right at the back, just in front of Victor.

Fruiting palm beside the ´ditch´.

I must say it was very pleasant to be paddled along what was wssentially a 3 km long ditch. There were tiny fish in the water, little brown birds in the undergrowth and countless butterflies on either side. There was something about this waterway that the butterflies could not resist. It was truly no exaggeration to talk of clouds of them. Unfortunately my attemps to photograph them were a disappointment.

I remember my cousin Michael describing a canoe trip in Canada where at one point he was lying back while all the motive power was provided by two bikini-clad young women. This was almost as good. Jaimy and Victor sweated as they paddled continuously. The ladies of the group passed the other paddles around to add their energy to the cause, but the paddles never came my way.

I did remind Sandra that I was willing to take a turn, but she passed sideways to a Japanese girl with all the upper body strength of wet blotting paper. Finally chivalry won out and I almost dragged a paddle back to my bench so that I could do my bit over the last 10 minutes or so.

After disembarking we only had a short walk to the river bank and our motorised canoe back to the lodge.

En la selva (In the jungle) - Part One

Between returning to Cusco from Machu Picchu and departing for the jungle I spent a day on such chores as my laundry, sqeezed in a visit to a museum (Museo Inka) and went on a day trip to the Sacred Valley. I was hoping for a tour of the Inca sites but it turned out to be mostly a tour of souvenir stalls, so I do not count it a successful day.

Some of the souvenirs I didn´t buy.

Departure day for the jungle started badly. Some of the stitching on my day pack ripped and the right shoulder strap was hanging on by a single stitch. There was no time to do anything about it. I just had to go.

This was my final farewell to the family that had hosted me during my Spanish lessons days. Luz and Alcides (pictured) had made me very welcome and treated me more as a friend than a paying guest.

Check-in time was 2 hours before take off. This seems absurd for a domestic flight, but my Spanish isn´t up to arguing with airline officials so I meekly obeyed.

Having checked in, two more setbacks arose. I had planned to use the waiting time to update my blog but there was no Internet access at the airport. Not even at absurd, inflated, airport prices. Then the security check discovered my penknife. It had a blade less than 2cm long; ideal for peeling an orange and useless, I would have thought, for aerial terrorism. However, I can´t claim that I didn´t know the rules. I had carefully put the knife in my checked luggage for the flights from NZ to Peru. So my penknife joined other non-weapons in the security check bin.

The 50-minute flight to Puerto Maldonado allowed wondeful views of snow-capped peaks and then of the mud-brown Madre de Dios river winding through the tropical greenery.

Some Andean peaks.

Madre re Dios River.

Eco Amazonia efficiently managed the pick-up at the airport. We had 20 minutes to explore Puerto Maldonado before the boat left. It reminded me of other towns in hot, humid places. Commerce is very small scale, varying from tiny permanent shops to market stalls to barrows. Butcheries tried to shade their produce, and I only saw a few flies testing the quality of the meat.

Transport to the lodge was in a long, narrow boat powered by a large Evinrude outboard. Long and narrow is the locally popular design, and allowed great speed though the water. I estimated 20 knots. The helmsman preferred the centre of the river to gain maximum help from the current. Even so it was an hour and 20 minutes journey.

Photo taken from our boat. The sister vessel, as you can see, was for the luggage.

Being 100mfrom the nearer bank severely limited bird-watching, but I did manage to identify snowy egrets. Tick. More eye-catching were the tall trees, whose name I have forgotten, with pink blossoms that punctuated the green of the forest.

One large sandbank was being busily dredged for gold. Minerals are still a major source of income in the province, despite the falling returns, as mesured in grams of gold per day.

We arrived at Eco Amazonia Lodge in time for a late lunch, beautifully wrapped in banana leaves. This is a special touch only for the welcoming lunch, though the quality of the food was uniformly high.

I was allocated accommodation with Jaimy, an outgoing Dutchman and hockey player, so the conversation was animated until our first expedition into the jungle.

Monkey Island
Long ago, the river carved a new channel that created a large island. A population of monkeys was isolated by this event. We learned later that nature put three species on the island and the lodge added two more.

To get to the island we were split into small groups, each with a guide and each herded into a canoe. This vessel had the long, thin design of all the river craft. Propulsion was provided by an unbranded two-stroke motor atached to a propellor by an enormously long shaft. This was encased in a sturdy metal tube, with guards to protect the propellor from the many floating logs and other hazards. This robust design allowed the tube to be used as a lever if necessary, and it was pivoted so that the propellor could be swung to the side for turning or even directed forward to give reverse thrust.

Normally nature watching demands quiet, if not actual stealth. Instead, our guide, Victor, marched along the trail hollering, "Platanos. Platanos, monos." (Bananas. Bananas, mokeys.) They are wild animals in the sense that they are uncaged, but they are used to late afternoon banana hand-outs. Nevertheless, it was quite a while before a single black spider monkey swung cautiously down through the branches.

He obligingly came low enough for everyone to attempt photography in the undestorey gloom, and then retreated with his booty, giving a wondeful demostration of his prehensile tail. We marched on, and in a few minutes were able to see two brown capuchin monkeys. These were a lot slower to come within banana-grabbing distance. Then a troupe of white-fronted capuchins appeared. These were much bolder. Then, all of a sudden, the trees were alive with monkeys. A whole troupe of the black spider monkeys joined the white-fronted capuchins, dangling from their tails in classic spider monkey style.

Somehow, all the groups of visitors had converged, and the monkeys were being offered bananas from all sides. A few steps away from the main action the shyer brown capuchins stayed aloft, but well within range of a thrown banana. In their tree a saddleback tamarin appeared level with my head. Tamarins are the smallest of the primates but this one trotted through the branches with great confidence.

This picture of a saddleback tamarin is the only half-decent photo I got on Monkey Island.

So in the end the outing was a great success for tourists and monkeys alike.

The way back to the canoe was enhanced by a colourful sunset, and flights of birds on their way to their night-time roosts. These included my first wild macaws. One bird was moved by the occasion to sing and display in a tree-top. Victor identified it for me as a crested oropendula. "Not the same species as at the lodge."

Vicor had been guiding for over 14 years. His English was more than good enough, and he knew both the English and scientific names for very many of the plants and birds that we saw. He also knew that the pattern of marks in the muddy sand was the trail of a female turtle, left after she laid her eggs.

Caiman Spotting
The manager of the lodge was very strict. We had to dine in our groups. Luckily our group was a sociable one that was happy to comply. There was Mary from Washington state with her 19-year old daughter, Sandra. We quickly established that Sandra would rather have been with her sister and their boyfriends. There was Gabriella from Switzerland. She was probably the oldest in the group, the only smoker and much the most colourful character. She was accompanied by her niece, Antoinette (I think), who did all their organising and coped with her aunt´s impulsive nature with great good humour. Then there was Venka from Norway with a beauty chorus of two daugters and two nieces in tow.

Excursions left on time. I came to call the manager "the colonel" because of his insistence on military-style rigidity and timing.

So down to the dock we went at the appointed hour and hopped nimbly into our canoe. Victor was carrying a car battery and a powerful light. The idea was that the light would reflect red when it lit on a caiman´s eye. I did see a red reflection once, but Victor semed able to spot a caiman without this identifier.

When he spotted a head on the surface he would signal to the boatman and the motor would quieten as we nosed carefully in for a closer look. Eventually we would get too close and the mud-brown head would duck below the surface with a soft plip.

We saw three in the water and one on the bank. The 10cm head (these were all quite small as caiman go) was attached to a body and tail that together measured about a metre and a half. Unfortunately the only one we saw entire like this quickly took fright and dived into the river.

We had been heading upstream in our search. To get back the boatman headed away from the bank and then cut the motor so that we could drift back to the lodge listening to the sounds of the jungle at night.

Machu Picchu

Peruvians are very proud that Machu Picchu has been selected as one of the new Wonders of the World. I´ve only seen one of the other Wonders and a few of the runners up, so I won´t try to compare it. However, I readily agree that it is a most impressive site, perhaps the most complete city that remains of the very impressive Inca civilisation. OK, Jose, Ancient Quechua civilisation (see "My Inca Trail").

One of my Dutch companions on the trek, Winnie, wanted to be on the first bus from Aguas Calientes up the mountain to Machu Picchu. There is a very good reason to be early. Hundreds, if not thousands, of non-trekkers arrive each day by train from Cusco and the site becomes very crowded. But the first train gets in at about 10am and the first bus is at 5:30. I must be too much of a gentlemen because I agreed to catching the first bus.

So we were up at 5 o´clock and breakfasting in a cafe at 5 past. I hope I didn´t pay much for this meal (it was part of the package) because it was pathetic. Getting the first bus to Machu Picchu is a popular notion and at 5:15 the queue was already long. Jose had previously explained that there are several "first buses"; a nonsense I suspect was intended to placate Winnie. The first bus leaves promptly at 5:30 and others follow as fast as the tourists can climb aboard. The fleet is shiny, new Mercedes vehicles. The operator can well afford them, since the monopoly on the route is milked for all it is worth - US$12 return.

On the way we passed sturdier folk hiking up the steep mountain, determined to save $12 and still see the dawn from the Inca site.

The day was cloudy so we didn´t see a dawn; night eased into pale daylight. I hope Winnie was pleased with the effect.

Jose was impressively alert for such an hour and launched into his last and longest history lesson. For Wikipedia´s discourse click here.

Briefly, Machu Picchu is reckoned to be a major centre of learning. There is a part of the site that archaeology strongly suggests was a cluster of workshops, but there are many temples and multi-door rooms that are believed to be classrooms.

This is the temple of the sun. There are two windows, one aligned with the summer solstice sunrise and the other with the winter solstice. The winter solstice marked the beginning of the Incas´ year.

The photo was taken as the sun finally came through and shows how the light fell on a carefully positioned stone. We were there not long after the winter solstice so the morning sun was shining through the ´New Year´ window.

This is a young mountain caracara. They are carrion feeders so it was presumably hoping someone would fall off one of the steeper parts of the site.

Did an Inca architect get it wrong? No, Hiram Bingham, who ´discovered´ Machu Picchu, excavated too close to this wall and it started to slip. Jose told us that earthquakes have made the gaps between the stones wider.

This is intihuatana, the "hitching post of the sun", another huge stone positioned with great accuracy as an astronomical device.

Cooking pools? No.

The royal lavatory? No.

These are shallow pools believed to have been used as mirrors for teaching astronomy. It is much easier to make sure the class understands if the teacher can point to a star in the classroom instead of pointing to the sky and hoping that everyone is looking at the right point of light.

After Jose had spent two hours educating us, we were free to spend the rest of the day wandering round the site. All the guide books recommend climbing the adjacent peak, Huayna Picchu for its magnificent views of the site and the surrounding mountains. The path is very steep and narrow and the authorities have decided to limit the visitors to this summit. Only 400 per day are allowed. As we queued two officials came down the line, counting. "Trescientos noventa y nueve, cuatrocientos!" And the arm of doom fell between Jasper and me. Well someone has to be 401st.

Later, Jasper and Winnie reported that the climb is very hard and the path is distinctly vertiginous. I am an acrophobe, so maybe it was just as well.

Having been thus separated from my companions I found a quiet corner (not easy at Machu Picchu) and had a nap to compensate for the early start.

Proof that I was really there and didn´t just copy someone else´s pictures. I am standing on some agricultural terraces with the main site and Huayna Picchu in the background.

The camera was on my mini tripod and the sun was in exactly the wrong place.

About 20 minutes walk from the main site is the "Inca Bridge". It´s remarkable not for the three logs across the gap but the mass of stonework built up the sheer cliff face.

The dark spots are larger stones that project out from the wall to be used as steps, presumably in the construction of the massive viaduct.

The bridge is no longer in use. The path to it has fallen away from the mountainside entirely.

I couldn´t spend hours anywhere without some nature observations. These red bromeliads are perched on a tree not far from the Inca Bridge.

In this area I also saw rwo amazing butterflies. They were the size of morphos, i.e. giants. They appeared to be all white, but as I watched their fast, erratic flight there was a fuzzy, electric blue after image. If anyone knows about these butterfles and their optical properties, please leave a comment.



As the bus zig-zagged carefully back down the mountain it was ´raced´ by a youth running down the steps. This is a local custom designed especially to extort tips from tourists. Since the bus often had to pause to manoevre past buses coming back up, I don´t think the endeavour was all that remarkable.

The remainder of the day was spent in Aguas Calientes, where Peru´s most expensive Internet cafes (3 soles per hour when the norm in Cusco is 1 sol or 1.50) delivered the most terrible connection.

Perurail has a very strange system of allocating seats on the tourist trains and the tour operator, Wayki Trek, has to take what it is given. Matt, on the previous day, was on a 4:30pm train. Jasper, Winnie and I had to wait until 8:00pm. Even changing to a minibus at Ollantaytambo, which is faster than staying on the train, we did not get back to Cusco until about midnight.

You, too, can visit Machu Picchu by taking a virtual tour. More pictures and explanations.

My Inca Trail

As I lay in my tent on the first night and swallowed 2 Panadol with a slurp of water so cold it almost burned my mouth I reflected: I had got up to visit the toilet tent 3 times, when even the 2 to 3 metres vertical rise over the turf to the primitive facility was a breath sapping effort; I had not stopped shivering until I was wrapped in thermal underwear, an extra pair of pants, 3 pairs of socks, shirt, sweater and jacket all within a good quality sleeping bag; and I had a migraine-style headache. This was not a happy moment.

But it would not be appropriate to describe it as a low point becasue we were camped at 4,200 metres above sea level (masl). Jasper, of the Dutch couple, had calculated that this was 14 times as high as the highest point in Holland. Matt from Cornwall had admitted that it was rougly 3 times as high as Ben Nevis, Britain´s highest peak. It is even higher than every one of NZ´s real mountains. We were seriously high up.

Day One
The day had started with a 6am pick up from my Cusco accommodation. When the party was complete, the minivan carried us and our support crew out of Cusco´s valley and into a countryide of very low tech farming. Early morning pigs quartered the edge of the road looking for anything edible. Suddenly our route took us off the paved road over a terrible track between farmhouses. Surely this wasn´t the way to Mollepata, where we were scheduled to start walking?

Indeed not. We parked and while Mario, the cook, and his daughter/assistant Maria got breakfast ready, Jose, the guide, showed us an Inca site, Tarahuasi, that is still being excavated and restored and is thus not on the regular tourist trails. There were no imposing Imperial Inca walls, but some working water channels and a carved stone with an image interpreted as the moon.

With his back to a grove of eucalyptus trees Jose gave us the first of several history lessons. "Inca" was the title of the leader; the God living. The rest of the population were not called Inca. We do not call the ancient Egyptian peoples "the Pharoes", Jose argued. The leader was the Inca and the people were the Quechua. We should call it the Quechua civilisation. The fact that Jose is of predominatly Quechua blood and speaks Quechua as his first language is merely incidental. We were impressed by the logic and had to correct Jose several times over the next 4 days when he used the common term, Incas, to describe the people who served the Inca.

Behind Jose dozens of birds called and fluttered, despite the eucalyptus being exotic trees from Australia. And for once I had not bothered to carry my binoculars. Curses! But I did manage to remember enough to identify two species later with the help of my field guides.

Breakfast was served with paper napkins on a folding table. The four trekkers and Jose sat on little camp stools. It could have been a picnic at Henley, but I doubt that mate de coca features on Henley table cloths. Drinking ´coca tea´ and chewing coca leaves is a centures old tradition in the Andes and is a boon to those struggling with the altitude. Jose advised that we would need to absorb 20kg of leaves to have a hallucinogenic effect. We wondered whether the few grams in our tea means we could test positive for cocaine. I presume not, or the Peruvian football team would all be suspended.

As the van crawled through the ruts back to the road a lady drove her herd of cattle out to graze on the mountain. One steer (or young bull), one heifer and one calf. How can she make a living from these resources? On the other side of the lane a man was ploughing. It was the first time I had seen a ox-drawn plough except on a TV documentary. I´ve since seen another example - and in over a month I have yet to see a tractor in Peru.

One thing I did see was a ground tyrant. This family of birds was new to me, but the size and upright attitude was unmistakeable. Another tick. Good.

When we did reach Mollepata there was a fiesta in progress. Once again (see Pisac post) a brass band of indifferent quality shambled to the church and disappeared inside. On this occasion the square was being decorated with pavement art, but instead of chalk the colour was provided by chopped vegetable matter. I´m sure the green frame was simply grass clippings.

We now came to our first decision, would we start walking or continue in the van? Jose recommended continuing in the van. We had a hard climb on Day 2 and it made sense to preserve our energy. We felt this was good advice but, as we watched other groups sweating in the sun, we wondered if we had been a bit feeble. Jose pointed out that the cheaper treks did not use minivans but the public bus to Mollepata instead, so they had no option but to walk.

The end of the road was a pleasant area of grass, bushes and streams where we met Rene and his horses. Porters are not used to carry the baggage over theSalkantay route. Long before tourists discovered it, the local farmers had started using horses and mules to carry their produce and in consequence had broken up the steps built by the Incas - sorry, ancient Quechua - for their human and llama beasts of burden.

This was also our lunch stop, and in no time Mario had whipped up a delicious soup (no packets) and a nourishing main course. Despite the choices offered, we all stuck to the infusion of coca leaves to finish the meal.

And now to the real business. We shouldered our day packs and set off. Back in Cusco Wilbert had earnestly coached me in high altitude tramping; take small steps, breathe in through the nose to avoid heat loss, take short rests so that the muscles don´t lose heat and suck coca toffees. Remember it´s not a race. I tried to put all this into practice, but it was hard. Breathing through the nose was the toughest part. My body craved more oxygen and I wanted to suck great draughts into my lungs. Worst of all, I was the slowest. I knew it wasn´t a race but I´m not used to being the slow one on the trail and, irrationally, I felt I was letting the team down.

They say that age is not a factor in altitude sickness, but I´m quite certain it is harder for an older body to adjust to high-altitude activity. My lungs have had 55 years of life at sea level to unlearn. If Sir Edmund Hillary needs oxygen when he visits Nepal these days I guess it´s all right for Bill Heritage to puff and take frequent rests in the Andes. If you want to know, I was fully 30 years older than everyone else on the trail (except Mario, and he has lived all his life at altitude).

For all that, we all completed the climb to the first nominated camp site well inside the time Jose had predicted. He told me several times that I was doing well. "The others are fast." And 5 minutes after I arrived at the site I was fine. Once the effort stops, the body quickly recovers its equilibrium.

Decision no.2. Shall we press on to a higher camp site? It would be colder, but it would mean less of a climb to the pass on Day 2. Here the wisdom of the extra few kilometers in the van was evident. The weather was beautiful today and who knows what it would be like tomorrow. We picked up our packs and moved on.

It wasn´t a long hike, hardly more than climbing around the shoulder of the mountain. Jose had estimated one-and-a-half hours, but Jasper had timed the youngsters at 1 hour. Apparently I was truly not far behind.
And I had overtaken a trekker in another group. At least I wasn´t the slowest on the trail.

The camp site at Salkantay Pampa is at 4,200 masl. I took the picture by holding my arm out and pointing the camera where I hoped it would capture both the sign and my grinning face.

And it did - look!

The warning about the extra cold was, if anything, understated. It was bitterly cold and none of the foreigners was terribly constructive in pitching camp. Jasper and Winnie had one tent, of course. Matt and I had the option of separate tents, but we agreed that sharing would provide a morsel more heat in the tent.

In the dining tent we were presented with hot drinks and freshly popped corn. This, I thought, is sensible. Carb loading before the effort of scaling the pass. What Matt and I didn´t realise was that this was merely a pre-dinner snack. At 8 o´clock on the dot Mario served another 4-star soup, followed by a main of such size and succulence that I felt it was an insult not to finish it. The result was that I ate far too much, even though I could not clear my plate. This no doubt contributed to the miseries during the night.

Day Two

We were roused soon after dawn with a hot cup of mate de coca, and by the time we had packed our sleeping bags direct sun was visible on the upper slopes and the air was warming up. Mario´s breakfast for mountaineers included a yummy Spanish omelette. I know a couple of guys who have climbed Mt Cook. I must ask them if they have been served with a hot breakfast at more than 4,000 masl with mountain caracaras wheeling overhead.

No-one had slept well and we had all heard avalanches rumbling down Mt Salkantay in the night. However, anyone who looked out of their tent in the night was treated to a glorious display of stars in the cloudless sky.

Matt´s thermometer had registered -2 degrees Celcius when we went to bed at 8pm, but +5 degrees in the tent. No-one´s water bottle had actually frozen, but the little lake nearby was covered in ice. A fist sized rock lobbed at the pond just bounced and skidded away. Ice on the trail was at least 5mm thick. Jose estimated that it had probably dropped to -10 during the night.

We hit the trail again. Walk 20 to 30 steps, pause for a few breaths and shuffle on again. Just keep going, little be little and suddenly Jose was talling me that the pass was just 12 seconds away. Yes, there were the others grinning and taking photgraphs. The sign said this was the Salkantay Pass; Jose insisted it was the Humantay Pass. Whatever, all the authorities agree that the saddle between the two mountains is at 4,600 masl, about 13,800 feet.

I added a stone to one of the cairns to thank the apus (mountain spirits) for my safe arrival and took lots of photos.

Me, Jose, Winnie, Jasper and Matt. The picture is badly framed and poorly exposed but it does prove we made it to the top!

Walking down the other side was easy! With the body not doing the hard work of lifting my 90kg against gravity, the need for oxygen was reduced. This was more like it. I still lagged behind, but now it was because I was scanning the puna (high altitude grassland) for birds. Mostly they were little grey birds that would not come close enough to permit observation of identification details.

Jose was amused by my interest in birds and liked to tease that there was a "condor over there". Once he pointed at a "white condor" as a plane flew over.

The lunch site was at Huayracpampa, a large and marshy river flat. It was home to a few pigs and many large plovers that I was able to identify as Andean Lapwings. Tick.

Note that we had only got to the soup course. It is accompanied by warm garlic bread.

The afternoon hike continued downwards and we quickly exchanged the puna for cloud forest. The path was mostly quite narrow and the passage of thousands of ponies had left the trail as a rubble of irregular stones in a treacherous mixture of dust and bedrock. Hiking downhill is easy on oxygen consumption, but it is hard on ankles and knees. Finding secure footholds added significantly to the effort required.

There was disappointingly little visible birdlife. One hummingbird raced past at about the speed of a ´white condor´ and another one was seen as a singing silhouette.

But there were interesting plants. The others all marched straight past sprays of gorgeous yellow and chestnut orchids but Jose called them back as I experimented with the super close up function of my camera.


This is another type of orchid. There were several others rather less spectacular and I won´t bore the non-botanists with their photos. For scale, each ´bell´ is about the size of two peas and only slightly larger than the two-tone variety above.

The end of our trail was Collpapampa, where some beautifully cropped turf was an ideal campsite. The local farmer apparently cultivates this to promote sales of bottled drinks to trekkers. Maybe the tour company also pays for its use.

While Mario worked more magic on his two gas rings we collected dead twigs and branches for a campfire. We had descended to only 2,900 masl - lower than Cusco - and the forest retains some of the day´s warmth. It was comfort indeed to eat our meal by the light of the flames and then to drink coca and yarn until the last of the fuel had been used up.

Day Three
This was to be a relatively short hike, so it was 7 o´clock before Maria called "Buenos dias" and handed round the morning drinks. Everyone had slept soundly and Jose´s enquiry detected no injuries. My right knee has a history of strange pains so I wore a brace on it just in case.

As a concession to the easier terrain Mario only served plain omelettes this morning.

Our hike to La Playa was "Inca level", i.e. up and down. The day was warm and there were plenty of stretches of loose rubble to demand attention. One spot was alive with swifts and swallows to remind us of the importance of mosquito repellent.

We followed the valley of the Santa Teresa River. It looked like ideal torrent duck habitat, but Jose had never seen a duck in the valley and, despite great vigilance, nor have I. However, there were still orchids of different kinds and increasing numbers of butterflies.

There were also more farms, although there was no vehicle access. Everything has to be carried by ponies or humans. The produce includes potatoes, bananas, avocadoes, a large and most delicious variety of passionfruit and coffee. The plots were tiny. No wonder selling a few bottles of water to passing foreigners was considered worthwhile.

La Playa means "The Beach" and refers to banks of boulders beside the river. Peruvians have a sense of humour! (And playa de estacionmento means parking beach, i.e. car park!) The straggling village is the end of the road and actually has a bus service. The campsite was once again delightful, springy turf. The trekkers actually get there before the horses, so we put up the tents while Mario whipped up another Cordon Bleu offering for our late lunch.

We had a free afternoon, so I retired to my tent and tried to enjoy a siesta. Unfortunately someone nearby had a very loud receiver tuned to Radio Misery. Properly the station was Radio Santa Teresa, but it played an endess succession of dreary songs. I came to believe that the singers would finish their 25 stanza wails and then shoot themselves in the studio. Occasionally an announcer would tell us the time with so much excitement that the news of 4:27 was apparently more wonderful than a large, unexpected legacy.

Matt trying to ignore Radio Misery.


Again there were few birds. A couple of hummingbirds were spotted in gardens and flocks of parrots flew high overhead, chattering excitedly to each other.


For his last dinner Mario excelled himself. After the soup five separate dishes were delivered to the table, all of them hot and all of them delicious. How did he do it? Even Maria was smiling. She ususally wore a very solemn expression. This was only her second trek and we suspected that she was not a genuine volunteer. We guessed that she was 15 or 16 and had only been recruited because the schools were closed due to a teachers´strike.

Maria in her usual sombre mood photographed on Day 2.

Day Four

We have a mountain to climb and descend before lunch and an early start is essential. Maria´s morning greeting was accompanied by the sound of rain on the tents. Ugh.

At least there was a nice little hut to eat breakfast in, not the cramped dining tent. And what was this? Pancakes! Mario, I want you to come to New Zealand and open a Peruvian Restaurant.

My waterproof cape is more than 30 years old but it is still waterproof and it goes over everything. We trudge off on the muddy path leaving Mario and Maria to strike the tents and pack up in the rain. They are going to catch the bus (another reason for the early start) and meet us at the hydroelectric power station for lunch.

The trip documentation describes this climb as "hard" but there are two mitigating circumstances. This trail has not been churned up by horses and we are much lower so there is more oxygen. And maybe we are fitter.

Winnie leading the way with Jasper in pursuit.

Matt was not feeling well, so I was not last for a change.

After about an hour the rain petered out. The valleys were full of swirling cloud and birds start to make their presence felt. If there weren´t a real need to make good time this could have been a great birding morning. But we did see parrots just too far away to identify and the large brown birds crashing around in the branches are Andean Guans. Tick. Botanical studies continued with some strange and beautiful plants to admire along the trail.

A fist-sized orchid after the rain. You can see the raindrops.


Jose´s attempt at a group photo at the top of the pass was out of focus, but I can tell you the ridge was strongly reminiscent of NZ bush, with many epiphytes and mosses.

Five minutes of descent brought us to Llaptapata, where a small part of the site has been cleared of bush and restored. Jose explained that the restored rooms have two doorways, which is interpreted as a meeting room or classroom.

A history lesson at Llaptapata. Professor Jose holds forth.

Matt retired to the bushes for a few minutes and returned looking much better.

We had once again made good time so we enjoyed a long break to eat our daily snack of fruit and chocolate bars. Clearly Mario wanted us to finish the trek heavier than when we started. I saw a large bird with a puffed out rufous chest. It should have been easy to identify, but I have not been able to find it in my field guides.

The downhill from Llaptapata to Hidrolectrica is steep and tiring. The track is very variable and constant care is needed.

Once down in the valley I saw my first Peruvian morpho butterflies. They look very similar to the ones I saw in tropical Australia.

The lunch in Hidrolectrica is Mario´s farewell. He and the baggage were going back to Cusco. The trekkers have the choice of walking to Aguas Calientes or taking the train. Correction, Matt has no choice. He is not coming to see Machu Picchu with us and foreigners may not use the local trains so he has to walk 11km to catch his train from Aguas Calientes. Maria went with him to ensure he claimed his ticket and got the right train.

Mario always looked cheerful, even before he received his tip.

The rest of us took the train option. After brief confusion about where we were staying, we checked into a hostal. My room has no furniture except the bed. The ensuite bathroom was equipped with modern hardware, but the shower only delivered cold water. This is not a welcome discovery after four days of hiking.

So, after a cold sponge down, I packed my togs and set off for the local hot pools. By chance, Jose did the same, although I could not have missed the way. It was nothing like the Polynesian Spa in Rotorua, but the water was pleasantly warm and just the thing for a tired body. The pools serve liquor to bathers - in glass containers! Happily, I did not see anyone step on broken glass.

Aguas Calientes exists only for tourists going to Machu Picchu. Much of it is newly built and it is growing, but it is a clip joint. The restaurant dinner provided was significantly inferior in both quantity and quality to what we had enjoyed in the three previous evenings. Three traditional Andean musicians arrived and played loudly next to our table. They were quite good, but we didn´t invite them so we declined their invitation to buy a CD or tip them. I fear we did not make friends there.

And so to bed. We were to rise early again the next morning to visit Machu Picchu.