Puno
Wednesday, June 21st, 2006-=[ DAY TWELVE - Wed 21st June ]=-
After a long overnight bus ride, we pulled into the Puño bus terminal at about 3am and caught a taxi to our pool, spa and sauna equipped hotel - not that we actually used any of those facilities. Lula organised a late breakfast which we had about 10am before heading off for a walk around the streets and down to the lakeside docks, about 30mins away.
Puño is not a particular attractive town, and definately has a strong air of poverty about it. Although looking into some of the very basic and run-down looking shop fronts and houses located on dirty streets, they are furnished with all the latest creature comforts and electronic gadgetry.
The was a little bustle around lakeside, presumably the same celebrations as were going on in Cusco, but to an extremely smaller scale. The water’s edge and docklands are covered with a green floating moss, which looks almost like a carpet inviting you to walk over in order to board a boat. I think not!
Even though there was not a cloud in sight, at almost 4000m above sea level, and with a breeze blowing over the water the temperature was quite chilly. In the evening we walked down the only street in the city with any night life to speak of to find somewhere to eat.
Finally a day with no wake-up call! Instead just a leisurely day taking in the sights & sounds of Cusco. And still being the leadup to Inti Raymi, ‘Festival of the Sun’, there were certainly a lot of sights and sounds. Kirsty & I spend a good hour or so in the main plaza watching a parade of school children dressed in colourful costumes performing traditional dances.
Kirsty headed back to the hotel via some jewellry stores while I spend some time uploading some photos into my gallery. When I got back to the hotel, Kirsty greeted me with some bad news - while Cindy and Julie were also watching the parade, Julie was pick-pocketted of her money, credit card and passport. So they spent the rest of the day at the consulate, police station and airline office in order to get back to Lima for a replacement passport for Julie.
Okay, so all those previous early mornings had nothing on this one. Wakeup call came at 4am to get us up in time to beat the rush to the checkpoint 500m from camp. We were the first to arrive at 4:30am, and by 5:30am when the gate was supposed to open there were another 200 trekkers behind us. The guard arrived at 5:50, just in time to stop a collective effort by some of the guides to break the chain between us and Machu Picchu.
It was an awesome sight when the entire Incan village was lit by sunshine, and the surrounding area still in shadow. Walking around the sight was definitely an amazing experience, even after it started crawling with people when the day buses started arriving. But to look down on it from the Sun Gate definitely made the four days of agony worthwhile.
Compared to yesterday, the third day if walking was easy. It was a fairly gradual uphill with spectacular views of the Andean ranges, over Phuyapatamarka Pass at 3800m and down to the impressive Phuyapatamarka ruins.
Being close to civilisation again, Wiñaywayna has a hospital, restaurant, bar and hot showers. I skipped the shower, electing to wait until back in the hotel, but Darren, Bob and myself couldn’t help but down a couple of out-of-date Cusquenas.
Second day of the Inca Trail, and for our group definitely the toughest. Right from the start we were climbing stone steps - always up, never flat, never down - from 3400m to Dead Woman’s Pass at 4200m. Toward the end I was resting every 10-15 steps, gasping in the thin air and looking back at 100 other walkers and porters doing the same. As soon as I stepped on the level ground at the pass, I was greeted with a wall of cloud, blocking from view the steep downhill that awaited.
Having regrouped, recovered, and taken the obligatory photos, it was all downhill to lunch at 3600m at the Paqaymayo campsite, where most others would be spending the night. But not us. Instead we trudged onwards and upwards past the Runkuraqay ruins and over the 4000m Runkuraqay High Pass and back down even more steps to the Sayacmarka ruins. As sunset approached, and our calves and knees were feeling the the eleven hours of walking today, we elected not to climb the steps up to the ruins, and instead descended down to our second camp at Chakiqocha.
Surprise, surprise, another early wakeup call, this time to meet our two Inca Trail compatriots for the bus trip to the trail head at Chilca, just 2km shy of Kilometer 82. In the photo from left to right; Kirsty, me, Darren, Bob, Julie & Cindy.
Upon arriving into camp our 12 porters greeted us all with clapping and cheering. Even though they arrived into camp about 2 hours earlier and were each carrying about 25kg of equipment on their backs!
This morning we (once again) were up bright and early for a bus ride into Ollantaytambo and the Sacred Valley. On the way we also stopped at a local community that GAP has been working with to help educate the locals. They were mostly women and children there working with textiles, and their husbands mostly away working as porters. All the Peruvians we have met so far have been extremely friendly, and these villagers were no exception.
We also stopped by a llama and alpaca farm before our tour of the ruins at Ollantaytambo. We’ve seen so many ruins already that I forget their Quechuan names. But they never get any less impressive.
Once again an early wake up call had us packing our bags for the return trip to Puerto Maldonado, and then onto Cuzco. Kirsty & I have a habit of turning up at places in the middle of festivals - in this case the start of celebrations for the winter solstice. As a result a lot of the streets of Cuzco were closed to traffic, including the one our hotel was on. Instead it was lined with dozens of food stalls selling mostly beer and roasted guinea pigs - an Andean favourite.
Without too much time to relax, we were straight into a city tour, seeing some of the Incan ruins around the outskirts of Cuzco. I’m pretty much ruined out, and forgot the names of most of the ruins, but one that sticks in my mind is Saqsayhuaman, which is Quechuan for ’satiated hawk’, or something of the like. It is pronounced ‘Sex-ay woa-man’, or for us westerners just ‘Sexy Woman’.
Up bright and early this morning for a canoe trip around the lake, spotting many birds including hoaxins, herons and snake birds. We also stopped a while to watch the giant otters feeding and playing. Just before getting off the boat, right near the pier we spotted a caiman lying in the shallows.
Woke up at 6am to get ready for a 10am flight from Lima to Puerto Maldonado, via a quick passenger drop-off and pick-up at Cuzco. After a short bus trip into town we put most of our luggage into storage, bringing only what was necessary for the jungle. We were all fitted with gumboots and headed into a motor boat for a tasty lunch of fried rice as we headed Eastward down the Madre de Dios toward Lake Sandoval. A 3km hike throught a slochy mud trail took us to the lake, then we got into canoes to go across to the eco-friendly Lake Sandoval lodge.
The lodge was very comfortable, and most of the food was caught locally or grown in the vegetable garden.Our guide Oscar took led us on a jungle walk after dark in search of critters - mainly spiders. We were rewarded at the end of the tour, only about 15m from the lodge, with a good sized tarantula.