I already felt like I was in some sort of Enid Blyton book - the Rainforest of Adventure, or something.
But when our guide announced we were to plunge into neck-high water to glimpse some freshwater dolphins, it really got into Boy´s Own territory.
It was our last full day of five in Ecuador´s Amazon basin region and we were getting a lesson in why they call it a rainforest.
It had been belting down since the early hours and the jungle trails, which a few days earlier had been a spongy mass of fallen leaves, were now a Glastonbury-esque soup of mud.
We had seen little that morning but it was still great fun to trudge between the trees, trying to see through my rapidly misting glasses.
None of us were going to miss the chance to see the small pink dolphins, however, even if we only got brief glimpses of the endangered animals´ stubby noses.
We jumped in, soaking any bits of our clothes that had escaped the rain, and it was well worth it.
One girl lost a Welly in the process - sparking a 20-minute search - but the episode was a great end to our spell in the Amazon.
Staying in a wooden lodge - its sides partially open to the wilds to allow a bit of air into stifling room - it was inevitable we were going to encounter a few uninvited visitors.
The most annoying were the mosquitos who, undeterred by the net around our bed, instead feasted on my paler parts during my numerous night-time trips to the toilet.
We also had a regular visitor to our "bathroom" in the form of a boggle-eyed frog.
One evening, I spotted him sitting happy as Larry in between a pair of my underpants (a rather classy pair of burgundy briefs) and some of the One With The Commmon Sense´s bloomers (gaudy pink but just about presentable).
At least he had the good sense to choose the clean ones.
However, it was a third type of visitor who most disturbed me.
I was nibbling at a biscuit one afternoon and had assumed its soggy texture could be put down to the effects of the humidity.
When I noticed a bite missing, I guessed the One With The Common Sense had got to it before I had.
Only when she flatly denied any thievery, did my mind return to the rustling at our bedside table and the mouse disappearing into the wooden slats of the wall the previous night.
It appears I was eating a rodent´s leftovers.
Still, I scored a couple of hits for humankind in the battle against nature´s nasties by trying a few jungle delicacies.
Firstly, there was a scoop of ants which tasted like lemon sherbert.
But my favourite was a little white grub which had been living inside a coconut-style seed from a tree.
After Jakob - our guide - cracked open the nut, no-one else fancied popping the larvae into their chops but I was happy to give it a go.
Sure enough, the wriggling creature tasted just like coconut - really nice. (I have to admit to spitting out the rubbery skin, though)
We had seen eight types of monkey on walks through the rainforest and boat trips on the Cuyabeno river, which runs through various tributaries into the Amazon.
It was comical to watch them tumble from the treetops into lower branches, although it proved almost impossible for my less-than-nimble fingers to catch the speedy blighters on camera.
For me, the bird life along the river was just as spectacular.
High above us, we spotted several blue and yellow Macaws - more graceful than their noisy cousins the parrots, which we watched taking an early-morning dip at the banks.
There were numerous kingfishers, bright yellow flycatchers and yellow-headed vultures casting an expert eye for carrion from their high perches.
But most impressive were the toucans, their huge beaks silhoetted against the sky.
Among their prey are the eggs of yellow-tailed oropendolas, whose nests dangle like huge earrings from branches in a bid to avoid the thieving predators.
For me, however, simply being in the jungle and listening to its noises was a delight. When the driver turned off the boat´s engine and we drifted downstream, you could hear a cacophany of whistles and croaks made by who knows what animals.
Actually, Jakob could name most of them.
A "knock-knocking" noise turned out to be made by a tree frog, rather than a woodpecker. Meanwhile, we caught the heartbreaking lament of an owl that cried "boo-hoo-hoo-hoooo", rather than hooting.
Legend has it that it fell in love with the moon, which refused to come down from the sky so they could be united.
A night walk revealed more creatures, including a tarantula bigger than my hand, huge centipedes and stick insects.
We all treaded as quietly as possible and did our best to avoid disrupting nature, including ducking below the delicate web of a spider.
That is until The One With The Common Sense - probably the shortest person in the group - forgot to allow for the enormous bun atop her head and ploughed through the whole thing.
Meanwhile, another of the highlights was an evening spent piranha fishing. Or rather, on my part, an evening spent getting very frustrated while dangling a bit of raw beef from a simple rod.
I got plenty of nibbles and at one stage had one of these infamous fish a foot out of the water but, alas, he got away. It´s not as easy as crabbing.
At least our boat driver caught one so we could admire its teeth before he set it free.
Worryingly, we had taken numerous dips in the same stretch of river as we fished.
Despite this, we survived with all our toes after drifting blissfully with the current, while wearing a lifejacket to save us doing anything too energetic - like swimming.
It´s truly amazing how many uses you can find for jungle creatures and plants... but I never expected to find myself whipped with nettles.
Jakob had told us about the antiseptic properties of a blood-red tree sap, which can be used to clean sores.
Meanwhile, he also showed us ants with huge staple-like claws which indigenous people have used to stitch wounds on account of the ants retaining their grip for hours.
And when he found out about my bad back, our guide insisted he was going to give me a good lashing.
Firstly, he gave me a quick going-over during a walk through a jungle community, to the fascination of the rest of our camera-toting group who watched in awe as my back exploded into angry red lumps.
Swearing by the healing properties of these stinging plants, he then encouraged several of the girls into various states of undress as he tried to ease a variety of swollen tendons.
Sadly for him, however, he had far more luck with me. I spent part of my last evening at the lodge lying on the floor, stripped to the waist, and displaying a half-moon as he tried to aid my lower back.
For 30 minutes he whacked me. I quickly became numb to the stings but I never quite got used to the tiny thorns which raked my back every few strokes.
The worst moment came when a twig came loose and lodged itself in my underpants. With every whip it charted a worrying southward path until I yelled for him to stop and removed the offending material.
By the time he had finished, my back had ballooned and was an alarming shade of red.
A soothing rub-down with menthol oil helped and I have to confess to feeling very relaxed, though I´m not convinced it did that much to cure my sciatica.
More to the point, I´m still sporting several bumps around the base of my spine and find myself removing the odd sting from my upper buttocks.
Thursday 26 May 2011
Sunday 15 May 2011
...on the highway to (nearly) the middle of the world
You get immune to bus drivers slamming on the brakes so the crash came as a big shock.
I had already been propelled forward when the driver swerved wildly - first left, then right - before the shunt sent me on another lurch.
Unfortunately for me, I´d left my seat upright to support my bad back. The lady in front had hers reclined, meaning it was at the perfect height to connect sharply with my Adam´s apple.
In the first instance, however, my main concern was the harsh scraping noise passing down the side of the bus where I was seated.
I was surprised to find the window intact and, once the bus shuddered to a halt and The One With The Common Sense and I had checked on each other, we sat in stunned silence.
As the driver´s assistant raced forward to smash his way out at the front, the mind raced through a number of unpleasant thoughts.
Was the driver okay? Was anything else about to hit us? Were the fumes hanging in the air from the engine, the brakes or a more sinister indication of fire?
Perhaps the worst aspect was that all the curtains on the night bus were closed - including those separating the driver´s cabin at the front - so it was hard to tell what was going on.
However, one resourceful bloke - another bus company employee, we think - checked out what was going on up front and reassured everyone that all was okay.
Welcome to Ecuador.
Our driver had swerved to avoid a bus braking sharply in front, only to find himself head-on with a car and so moved back with no time to miss the bus, it transpired.
However, it was to be getting on for two hours before we could get off the stricken vehicle because the seriously buckled door wasn´t safe to clamber through.
In the immediate aftermath of the crash, we were left with only emergency lighting and - without the air-con - a very breathless atmosphere.
Paramedics arrived after perhaps 15 minutes but fortunately nobody was hurt apart from one little girl who got a bump on the head.
The biggest pain was some of the old-enough-to-know-better women who insisted on making the situation more uncomfortable for everyone by crowding around the front and fussing about.
If they had sat still by the window, they would have been a lot cooler than by rushing back and forth, shouting about how hot they were.
As a result, the poor lady in front started to panicking to the extent she was reduced to tears and The One With The Common Sense got a serious cob on with three rotund women who insisted on hovering around her seat.
One even tried the old chestnut: "There are children in here. It´s too hot for them," which roughly translated as: "I´m a bit uncomfortable. Help me quickly. Me, me, me, me, me."
Inevitably, it took the fire brigade to calm things down properly, getting the ladies hot under-the-collar in a different way and lightening The One With The Common Sense´s mood considerably.
They all just looked like fat old blokes to me, but then I´m not one to get excited about fluoroescent pants and helmets.
It still took them an inordinately long time to get us out, with the help of a pneumatic jack and a huge circular saw.
The mood among the waiting passengers was lightened when the resourceful man from earlier removed one of the skylights so a paramedic could climb onto the roof to be handed a baby who needed a bit of fresh air.
It all ended in quite a dignified fashion with the passengers being lifted - women and children first (but only once the firemen had shamed a couple of middle-aged blokes) - through the shattered door frame by two burly fire officers.
The front-left corner of the bus was pretty badly stoved in - and it was missing its windscreen - but we were certainly glad to be travelling in a proper bus and not the minibuses that ferry people along many routes.
I´m not sure I´d have been writing this blog just now.
It might not have been so bad had we been near our destination - Quito.
However, we were only an hour from the Peruvian border and so had another eight hours on a replacement bus to look forward to.
It had already been a tough journey.
Firstly, a rickety bus from the seaside town of Mancora (a disappointment due to its lack of surf) had left us at Ecuadorian immigration.
Then the bus staff had packed the passengers into taxis back to the town centre we´d just left to get into a variety of onward buses.
We nearly missed ours because the cabbie dropped us at the wrong depot. (Though maybe that would have been preferable).
To add insult to injury, when we finally arrived in Quito, there had been a landslide which meant the taxi cost a fortune and took much longer than it would have done ordinarily.
I then spent our first day in the capital in bed, with my back in serious pain, my stomach badly upset, my throat sore from the crash impact, and the makings of a cold.
Finally feeling well enough to confront the world, it seemed reasonable that we should go straight to its heart.
It´s not every day you get to straddle the equator, which lies just outside Quito, so we decided to head to the Middle of the World Museum.
After a fairly complicated journey on the city´s public transport system - broken by visits to cafes to spend a centavo or two - we found ourselves at the site.
After forking out for entry, we found ourselves in some sort of horrific theme park village being pestered every four paces by people trying to drag us into cafes or souvenir shops.
We watched some entertaining enough traditional dancing in the square but that seemed to have little to do with the equator itself and so we pressed on to the globe-topped monument marking 0 deg latitude.
Unfortunately, the point was measured inaccurately years ago by the French (zut alors, imbeciles) and the massive tourist infrastructure is 250 yards away from the actual ecuator.
So, we wandered up the road to find a rival, GPS-measured - and much more interesting - museum.
There, we watched water rush down a plughole without circling anti-clockwise, as it does in the northern hemisphere, or clockwise, as down under.
There was another experiment involving balancing an egg on the head of a nail which is, apparently, easier on the equator. Someone more intelligent than me will have to explain that one.
We were also encouraged to feel how centrifugal forces make it difficult to walk along the line of the equator with your eyes closed and arms outstretched - though I seriously doubt my ability to manage that anywhere in the world.
(Except maybe after a few sherbets, when I can do just about anything.)
It was all very entertaining and included some displays about indigenous life which included recreations of typical homes, some deadly jungle animals and a shrunken head.
And not a cafe hawker in sight. What more could you ask for?
Quito seems like a really pleasant city but now it´s time for an overnight bus journey through winding mountainous terrain to the jungle... can´t wait for that one.
I had already been propelled forward when the driver swerved wildly - first left, then right - before the shunt sent me on another lurch.
Unfortunately for me, I´d left my seat upright to support my bad back. The lady in front had hers reclined, meaning it was at the perfect height to connect sharply with my Adam´s apple.
In the first instance, however, my main concern was the harsh scraping noise passing down the side of the bus where I was seated.
I was surprised to find the window intact and, once the bus shuddered to a halt and The One With The Common Sense and I had checked on each other, we sat in stunned silence.
As the driver´s assistant raced forward to smash his way out at the front, the mind raced through a number of unpleasant thoughts.
Was the driver okay? Was anything else about to hit us? Were the fumes hanging in the air from the engine, the brakes or a more sinister indication of fire?
Perhaps the worst aspect was that all the curtains on the night bus were closed - including those separating the driver´s cabin at the front - so it was hard to tell what was going on.
However, one resourceful bloke - another bus company employee, we think - checked out what was going on up front and reassured everyone that all was okay.
Welcome to Ecuador.
Our driver had swerved to avoid a bus braking sharply in front, only to find himself head-on with a car and so moved back with no time to miss the bus, it transpired.
However, it was to be getting on for two hours before we could get off the stricken vehicle because the seriously buckled door wasn´t safe to clamber through.
In the immediate aftermath of the crash, we were left with only emergency lighting and - without the air-con - a very breathless atmosphere.
Paramedics arrived after perhaps 15 minutes but fortunately nobody was hurt apart from one little girl who got a bump on the head.
The biggest pain was some of the old-enough-to-know-better women who insisted on making the situation more uncomfortable for everyone by crowding around the front and fussing about.
If they had sat still by the window, they would have been a lot cooler than by rushing back and forth, shouting about how hot they were.
As a result, the poor lady in front started to panicking to the extent she was reduced to tears and The One With The Common Sense got a serious cob on with three rotund women who insisted on hovering around her seat.
One even tried the old chestnut: "There are children in here. It´s too hot for them," which roughly translated as: "I´m a bit uncomfortable. Help me quickly. Me, me, me, me, me."
Inevitably, it took the fire brigade to calm things down properly, getting the ladies hot under-the-collar in a different way and lightening The One With The Common Sense´s mood considerably.
They all just looked like fat old blokes to me, but then I´m not one to get excited about fluoroescent pants and helmets.
It still took them an inordinately long time to get us out, with the help of a pneumatic jack and a huge circular saw.
The mood among the waiting passengers was lightened when the resourceful man from earlier removed one of the skylights so a paramedic could climb onto the roof to be handed a baby who needed a bit of fresh air.
It all ended in quite a dignified fashion with the passengers being lifted - women and children first (but only once the firemen had shamed a couple of middle-aged blokes) - through the shattered door frame by two burly fire officers.
The front-left corner of the bus was pretty badly stoved in - and it was missing its windscreen - but we were certainly glad to be travelling in a proper bus and not the minibuses that ferry people along many routes.
I´m not sure I´d have been writing this blog just now.
It might not have been so bad had we been near our destination - Quito.
However, we were only an hour from the Peruvian border and so had another eight hours on a replacement bus to look forward to.
It had already been a tough journey.
Firstly, a rickety bus from the seaside town of Mancora (a disappointment due to its lack of surf) had left us at Ecuadorian immigration.
Then the bus staff had packed the passengers into taxis back to the town centre we´d just left to get into a variety of onward buses.
We nearly missed ours because the cabbie dropped us at the wrong depot. (Though maybe that would have been preferable).
To add insult to injury, when we finally arrived in Quito, there had been a landslide which meant the taxi cost a fortune and took much longer than it would have done ordinarily.
I then spent our first day in the capital in bed, with my back in serious pain, my stomach badly upset, my throat sore from the crash impact, and the makings of a cold.
Finally feeling well enough to confront the world, it seemed reasonable that we should go straight to its heart.
It´s not every day you get to straddle the equator, which lies just outside Quito, so we decided to head to the Middle of the World Museum.
After a fairly complicated journey on the city´s public transport system - broken by visits to cafes to spend a centavo or two - we found ourselves at the site.
After forking out for entry, we found ourselves in some sort of horrific theme park village being pestered every four paces by people trying to drag us into cafes or souvenir shops.
We watched some entertaining enough traditional dancing in the square but that seemed to have little to do with the equator itself and so we pressed on to the globe-topped monument marking 0 deg latitude.
Unfortunately, the point was measured inaccurately years ago by the French (zut alors, imbeciles) and the massive tourist infrastructure is 250 yards away from the actual ecuator.
So, we wandered up the road to find a rival, GPS-measured - and much more interesting - museum.
There, we watched water rush down a plughole without circling anti-clockwise, as it does in the northern hemisphere, or clockwise, as down under.
There was another experiment involving balancing an egg on the head of a nail which is, apparently, easier on the equator. Someone more intelligent than me will have to explain that one.
We were also encouraged to feel how centrifugal forces make it difficult to walk along the line of the equator with your eyes closed and arms outstretched - though I seriously doubt my ability to manage that anywhere in the world.
(Except maybe after a few sherbets, when I can do just about anything.)
It was all very entertaining and included some displays about indigenous life which included recreations of typical homes, some deadly jungle animals and a shrunken head.
And not a cafe hawker in sight. What more could you ask for?
Quito seems like a really pleasant city but now it´s time for an overnight bus journey through winding mountainous terrain to the jungle... can´t wait for that one.
Thursday 12 May 2011
...beside the seaside
This travelling lark can really take it out of you.
To those sitting behind their desks at work, I appreciate, that last sentence might sound a little ungrateful.
But there´s no doubting that life on the road can leave you needing a little break every once in a while - a holiday within a holiday, if you like.
Our slow march along the Inca Trail had taken its toll.
The One With The Common Sense was flattened by a stomach upset for two days. Meanwhile, at some point I must have slipped a disc because my sciatica flared up - making even sitting down uncomfortable.
(Ironically, I suspect I did it carrying two full rucksacks up the hostel stairs when the walk was all over.)
Spending 30 hours on buses during two days wasn´t the best cure but we really felt like it was time to head for the beach.
So, we´ve spent a few days doing what normal people do on holiday; lazing about on the sand, sipping cocktails during improbably long happy hours, eating good seafood and bobbing about in the sea.
Huanchaco in northern Peru was the perfect little town to relax, with its friendly atmosphere, pier to stroll along and glorious sunsets.
It also enabled us to do a bit of surfing for the first time on our trip, which was great.
It´s also been nice to eat some fish for a change. Often here it´s served raw in ceviche, a delicious spicy sauce with vinegar, yucca and onions.
It has certainly made a change from inadvertently ordering offal. After being told that something on a cheap Cusco menu al dia was cow´s meat, I received something green and rubbery that I can only guess was lung.
The soup contained something that tasted chicken-ish but looked like valves of some sort, while on another occasion The One With The Common Sense managed to be served cockerel´s neck stew when she´d been expecting meat wrapped in a banana leaf.
(No prizes for guessing who had to eat that)
I´m getting used to being laughed at in the street.
People´s reactions to us have been getting more varied the further north we´ve come.
There seem to be fewer of the huge gangs of bearded Israelis now that we´ve left the Andes and so my unruly facial fluff is obviously something of a novelty.
Aside from the looks of friendly amusement, I´ve been both called a werewolf and howled at. A man also yelled "Osama" at me in the street. Bin Laden must be turning in his grave.
Meanwhile, the One With The Common Sense gets attention of a very different kind.
On a night out in Huanchaco, we ended up in the sort of terrible disco that only exists in seaside towns.
After being dragged onto a podium by two of the local girls (where her booty sadly lacked the necessary proportions to match their enormous gyrations), the One With The Common Sense spent the night being pestered to dance by 18-year-old Peruvians.
On the one occasion she accepted, the guy backed her into a corner and started questioning her about our relationship.
He seemed disugusted that she should be hanging around with me. But then, having looked in the mirror this morning, I can´t say I blame him.
Some tour guides are real experts, others´ enthusiasm brings history to life, while many just have an easy manner to make a pleasant day... Others are just plain barmy.
That was definitely the case when we visited the 1,200-year-old remains of the city of Chan Chan, near Trujillo.
The One With The Common Sense and I had already bickered about whether to hire someone to explain the significance of the biggest pre-Colombian archeological remains in South America.
Other Peruvian sites had been lacking in information to really get to grips with what you´re looking at.
And as my knowledge of the Chimu kingdom - which was eventually absorbed into the Inca empire in the 1400s - was based on a few paragraphs from my guide book, I felt the extra cost was worth it.
Of course, I was wrong.
For a start our guide, named Clara - which perhaps should have sounded a warning - had no eyebrows. Instead, under a mop of wild, frizzy hair, she had two arches of what appeared to be black marker describing a look of permanent surprise on her face.
Her ample belly had forced her flies open, while she marched about with her jacket over her head.
Rather than telling us about life in Chan Chan, she instead compared (in Spanglish, rather than the English we paid extra for) the wall carvings to just about every other early civilisation across the globe - implying some unexplained link.
Her catchphrase was "I saw". She had seemingly been around to see the walls were adorned with (and unplundered of) precious stones and metals and the markets full of fine goods.
Meanwhile, all her explanations were to do with time and space - four pillars with three recesses for the seven days of the week, 12 alcoves for the months of the year, four doors for the seasons.
No matter that there would be four more pillars on the other side of the room, or another 12 alcoves on the opposite wall.
I suppose it was nothing if not entertaining, particularly when she demonstrated the acoustics by facing the wall and bellowing "thank you for visiting my city" as we listened, baffled, from across the way.
The site itself had some equally crummy features. Some of the restorations were frankly quite slapdash, with the recreations of animal designs particularly poor.
I don´t know why they felt the need to recreate the past because the place was fascinating enough as it was.
Built to withstand earthquakes, some original construction remained after tremors destroyed the replicas.
Rising out of the desert, its walls provided shelter from both the shearing sun and the sands whipped up by high winds.
It must have been quite something in its day and it´s a shame that modern practices threaten to spoil it.
"Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition..."
And few expect the museum of the inquisition to be closed, least of all us.
However, that was what we found as we sought to kill time in the Peruvian capital, Lima, on the way to the coast.
Despite this setback - the museum had promised a view of all sorts of gruesome instruments of torture - we spent a pleasant few hours soaking up Lima´s atmosphere, largely from a bench in the Plaza Mayor.
The most impressive thing for me was the number of vultures occupying the square. I counted 18 around the cathedral at one point, with a couple jostling for position atop the Holy Mary´s head.
Our people-watching was disrupted at one point by an aggressive beggar, who started banging a shoe on our bench when we refused to cough up any cash.
I wasn´t too worried about him getting violent but was quite concerned that his trousers might fall down in the effort.
He was already revealing more than I was comfortable with as he clutched his tiny waistband in his hand and I had my leg cocked ready to imitate a Leighton Baines penalty kick at his crotch should he release his hold.
Thankfully, a cathedral security guard came to chase him away.
It got us thinking how lucky we´d been to avoid any trouble thus far.
However, we had a reminder that night of the perils of strange, far-away places, when a supermarket security guard warned us off wandering too far up one road as we searched for somewhere to grab a bite.
Mugging territory, apparently.
Best to keep on our guards.
To those sitting behind their desks at work, I appreciate, that last sentence might sound a little ungrateful.
But there´s no doubting that life on the road can leave you needing a little break every once in a while - a holiday within a holiday, if you like.
Our slow march along the Inca Trail had taken its toll.
The One With The Common Sense was flattened by a stomach upset for two days. Meanwhile, at some point I must have slipped a disc because my sciatica flared up - making even sitting down uncomfortable.
(Ironically, I suspect I did it carrying two full rucksacks up the hostel stairs when the walk was all over.)
Spending 30 hours on buses during two days wasn´t the best cure but we really felt like it was time to head for the beach.
So, we´ve spent a few days doing what normal people do on holiday; lazing about on the sand, sipping cocktails during improbably long happy hours, eating good seafood and bobbing about in the sea.
Huanchaco in northern Peru was the perfect little town to relax, with its friendly atmosphere, pier to stroll along and glorious sunsets.
It also enabled us to do a bit of surfing for the first time on our trip, which was great.
It´s also been nice to eat some fish for a change. Often here it´s served raw in ceviche, a delicious spicy sauce with vinegar, yucca and onions.
It has certainly made a change from inadvertently ordering offal. After being told that something on a cheap Cusco menu al dia was cow´s meat, I received something green and rubbery that I can only guess was lung.
The soup contained something that tasted chicken-ish but looked like valves of some sort, while on another occasion The One With The Common Sense managed to be served cockerel´s neck stew when she´d been expecting meat wrapped in a banana leaf.
(No prizes for guessing who had to eat that)
I´m getting used to being laughed at in the street.
People´s reactions to us have been getting more varied the further north we´ve come.
There seem to be fewer of the huge gangs of bearded Israelis now that we´ve left the Andes and so my unruly facial fluff is obviously something of a novelty.
Aside from the looks of friendly amusement, I´ve been both called a werewolf and howled at. A man also yelled "Osama" at me in the street. Bin Laden must be turning in his grave.
Meanwhile, the One With The Common Sense gets attention of a very different kind.
On a night out in Huanchaco, we ended up in the sort of terrible disco that only exists in seaside towns.
After being dragged onto a podium by two of the local girls (where her booty sadly lacked the necessary proportions to match their enormous gyrations), the One With The Common Sense spent the night being pestered to dance by 18-year-old Peruvians.
On the one occasion she accepted, the guy backed her into a corner and started questioning her about our relationship.
He seemed disugusted that she should be hanging around with me. But then, having looked in the mirror this morning, I can´t say I blame him.
Some tour guides are real experts, others´ enthusiasm brings history to life, while many just have an easy manner to make a pleasant day... Others are just plain barmy.
That was definitely the case when we visited the 1,200-year-old remains of the city of Chan Chan, near Trujillo.
The One With The Common Sense and I had already bickered about whether to hire someone to explain the significance of the biggest pre-Colombian archeological remains in South America.
Other Peruvian sites had been lacking in information to really get to grips with what you´re looking at.
And as my knowledge of the Chimu kingdom - which was eventually absorbed into the Inca empire in the 1400s - was based on a few paragraphs from my guide book, I felt the extra cost was worth it.
Of course, I was wrong.
For a start our guide, named Clara - which perhaps should have sounded a warning - had no eyebrows. Instead, under a mop of wild, frizzy hair, she had two arches of what appeared to be black marker describing a look of permanent surprise on her face.
Her ample belly had forced her flies open, while she marched about with her jacket over her head.
Rather than telling us about life in Chan Chan, she instead compared (in Spanglish, rather than the English we paid extra for) the wall carvings to just about every other early civilisation across the globe - implying some unexplained link.
Her catchphrase was "I saw". She had seemingly been around to see the walls were adorned with (and unplundered of) precious stones and metals and the markets full of fine goods.
Meanwhile, all her explanations were to do with time and space - four pillars with three recesses for the seven days of the week, 12 alcoves for the months of the year, four doors for the seasons.
No matter that there would be four more pillars on the other side of the room, or another 12 alcoves on the opposite wall.
I suppose it was nothing if not entertaining, particularly when she demonstrated the acoustics by facing the wall and bellowing "thank you for visiting my city" as we listened, baffled, from across the way.
The site itself had some equally crummy features. Some of the restorations were frankly quite slapdash, with the recreations of animal designs particularly poor.
I don´t know why they felt the need to recreate the past because the place was fascinating enough as it was.
Built to withstand earthquakes, some original construction remained after tremors destroyed the replicas.
Rising out of the desert, its walls provided shelter from both the shearing sun and the sands whipped up by high winds.
It must have been quite something in its day and it´s a shame that modern practices threaten to spoil it.
"Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition..."
And few expect the museum of the inquisition to be closed, least of all us.
However, that was what we found as we sought to kill time in the Peruvian capital, Lima, on the way to the coast.
Despite this setback - the museum had promised a view of all sorts of gruesome instruments of torture - we spent a pleasant few hours soaking up Lima´s atmosphere, largely from a bench in the Plaza Mayor.
The most impressive thing for me was the number of vultures occupying the square. I counted 18 around the cathedral at one point, with a couple jostling for position atop the Holy Mary´s head.
Our people-watching was disrupted at one point by an aggressive beggar, who started banging a shoe on our bench when we refused to cough up any cash.
I wasn´t too worried about him getting violent but was quite concerned that his trousers might fall down in the effort.
He was already revealing more than I was comfortable with as he clutched his tiny waistband in his hand and I had my leg cocked ready to imitate a Leighton Baines penalty kick at his crotch should he release his hold.
Thankfully, a cathedral security guard came to chase him away.
It got us thinking how lucky we´d been to avoid any trouble thus far.
However, we had a reminder that night of the perils of strange, far-away places, when a supermarket security guard warned us off wandering too far up one road as we searched for somewhere to grab a bite.
Mugging territory, apparently.
Best to keep on our guards.
Thursday 5 May 2011
...on the Inca Trail
Depending on the list, it is one of the wonders of the world. It is also the most expensive destination on our trip... and it took four days to walk there.
Yet our overwhelming reaction on seeing Machu Picchu was of being, well, underwhelmed.
However, as the sunlight edged its way over to light up the 600-year-old Inca city, we slowly came to appreciate its beauty.
It is the natural setting as much as the man-made construction that makes the site impressive.
Cradled by towering mountains, the city reveals another stunning vista around every corner.
Some of the theories about its boundaries being modelled on the shape of a condor - or its buildings on the form of an alligator - seem, at least to this sceptic, a bit dubious.
But the more you see its constructions - and hear how their shape fits with the movements of the sun and stars, and follows a route to the mountains - the more believable becomes the premise of it being a path to the gods and reincarnation.
And still more impressive is the fact it is here at all.
Despite the use of agricultural terraces and storehouses, it is still hard to figure out how they fed the army of workers it must have taken to build this city in such uncompromising surrounds.
Some of its buildings, like many in the old Inca capital of Cusco, are constructed from huge stones - expertly fitted without mortar.
Exactly how they did it remains a mystery.
Many travellers tell you the Inca Trail is like a motorway of tourists, too packed to be enjoyable, and that alternative treks involving zip-wires and mountain bikes are better.
I suspect more than a few of them just failed to get around to booking their place before the daily limit of 500 was reached.
It certainly is busy - as would be any route as important as this - but the One With The Common Sense and I found ourselves completely alone on more than one occasion.
The landscape was probably not as attractive as on the Choro Trail we had walked in Bolivia but as a creation it was more impressive.
Climbing over a mountain pass to 4,200-metres above sea level, it then plunges deep into the cloudforest jungle, taking in several Inca sites as it passes through their Sacred Valley.
Each day had its highlights.
As we overlooked our first Inca site - a small temple - on the first day, a wind whipped up carrying distant rumbles of thunder. Very atmospheric - like a warning to modern man to reconsider his path.
It was a fantastic feeling to reach camp after struggling 1,200-metres uphill during an 8km slog on day two.
Meanwhile, emerging from a tunnel carved into the mountain to a jungle of ferns and vines, hemmed in by mist, as hundreds of frogs whistled around us, made for a magical hour or so on day three.
And after watching the beauty of Machu Picchu emerge from the "sungate" on the mountain above, it felt great to walk around the site, feeling strong despite a four-day hike with early mornings and uncomfortable camp beds.
When we had realised two 60-something Americans were our only fellow passengers for the trip, our hearts sank.
Dick and Adrienne (how hard to resist re-enacting the closing scenes from Rocky) were not quite the obnoxious gun-toting Texas Republican-types we feared they might be.
Both having had interesting careers, including working in the Middle East - they were far more broad-minded than the almost-always inaccurate stereotype.
However, it quickly became apparent that they were happy to talk about themselves and totally disinterested in us. As they were entertaining enough company, that was no bother to us.
They were quite funny to listen to as they fussed over each other, while Adrienne´s dodgy stomach had a comical habit of letting rip with loud, rasping farts at regular intervals.
The cracks in our relationship with them started to show when they expressed their distaste for alcohol.
Dick - his name suiting him more each day - suggested that while the Catholic Church permitted alcohol in moderation, its followers indulged a little more than they should.
The One With The Common Sense was not going to let that lie and pointed out that she was no alcoholic, at which point Dick admitted that it was those with no faith who were most at fault.
Laughing, I put him right that a committed atheist such as myself was not automatically a drunkard.
The more opinionated Dick became, the more ridiculous he sounded. Even my friends from the States would see the irony in an American declaring that "those from Germanic nations" were annoyingly loud.
What really set Dick off, however, was the fact we finished the gruelling second day a full two hours ahead of them. It brought out the Alpha male in him and suddenly everything became a competition.
He even wanted to beat me at my slightly tragic hobby of birdwatching.
And despite numerous digs at "my fellow countrymen", as he called them, I maintained a self-deprecating view and British stiff upper lip.
That is, until the last morning when I awoke in a serious grump.
After a petty argument about whether Americans had better toilet habits than the rest of the world (seriously), we fell silent until a group further forward cheered as the sun popped up.
"Idiots," grumbled Dick, adding that the route should be the preserve of the sensible over 40s.
I finally snapped, telling him: "Heaven forbid that anyone should have fun here."
That finally shut him up - I don´t think he´s used to people answering back.
Inca sites are not the only phenomenon on the trail.
The porters and camp cook also fit that billing.
Mostly tiny guys from farming communities, the porters charge along the treacherous stone paths - often running - with towering 20kg packs containing tents, gas bottles, camp chairs and other supplies on their backs.
No fancy hiking shoes for them - most wear thin trainers or sandals, their blistered toes hardened and thick cracks showing in their heels.
Among their burdens is the party´s food - enough for two or three courses at every sitting - and generally prepared with quite some flair. Stuffed peppers, meat rolled around a vegetable filling and vanilla pudding all featured.
One morning for breakfast, our bread and jam was supplemented by eggy toast, a banana meringue pie and even a huge cake.
It certainly set you up for the day but, if anything, there is just too much. I did my best to pull my (growing) weight for the group.
However, it all proved a little too much for the One With The Common Sense. One night, her digestive fumes were so powerful as to awaken me from my slumber. Good thing our tent had plenty of vents.
We had spent the night before the trek at the village where two of the porters lived.
It was a chance to get a taste of life in a rural community, where families use bulls rather than tractors to plough fields.
Getting there was fun enough. Along with about 25 locals, including several in traditional dress, we crammed aboard a tiny minibus.
Facing backwards, we saw the amusement our fellow passengers were having at the expense of the pasty pair struggling to keep hold of their bags as the van swung wildly around corners.
The village was fascinating, as our guide showed us the mud bricks used to construct houses and the fruit and herbs grown in most gardens.
We visited some of the homes where people live around tiny kitchens, heated by clay ovens.
Most farm small areas of land, neighbours helping with the donkey-work, to sustain themselves - selling whatever surplus they have.
The simplicity of life was shown by the presents we were advised to take - a couple of packets of biscuits, some hot chocolate and cooking oil.
We finished our night with something of a hoe-down in our host´s kitchen, as a harp-playing neighbour bashed out traditional tunes and the porters and their wives did their holding-hands and swinging around dance routine with us.
Invariably, the floor of the homes were alive with guinea pigs - one old man had 50 of them.
Far from being pets, they are bred to serve up on special family occasions.
Obviously, I wasn´t going to pass up a chance to try a new meat but I had to wait until we were back in Cusco to taste the fat little critters.
At a local place recommended to us by our trail guide, I was presented with half of every six-year-old girl´s favourite pet, served on a bed of the obligatory two carbs - pasta and roast potatoes.
It´s head - teeth and all - fell off the minute I put the fork in but there was no getting through the rubbery skin.
It looked like crispy chicken skin but was much more greasy and rubbery, so I scraped it off and tucked into the meat.
It was quite hard going finding morsels between the tiny rib cage but the rump revealed plenty of fragrant flesh.
The nearest comparison I can make is to crispy duck´s stringy meat but the guinea pig was much stronger and sweeter.
I don´t reckon the locals mess about with a knife and fork but I did my best and devoured most of it... though I did resist the temptation to chew on its stiff little claws.
Yet our overwhelming reaction on seeing Machu Picchu was of being, well, underwhelmed.
However, as the sunlight edged its way over to light up the 600-year-old Inca city, we slowly came to appreciate its beauty.
It is the natural setting as much as the man-made construction that makes the site impressive.
Cradled by towering mountains, the city reveals another stunning vista around every corner.
Some of the theories about its boundaries being modelled on the shape of a condor - or its buildings on the form of an alligator - seem, at least to this sceptic, a bit dubious.
But the more you see its constructions - and hear how their shape fits with the movements of the sun and stars, and follows a route to the mountains - the more believable becomes the premise of it being a path to the gods and reincarnation.
And still more impressive is the fact it is here at all.
Despite the use of agricultural terraces and storehouses, it is still hard to figure out how they fed the army of workers it must have taken to build this city in such uncompromising surrounds.
Some of its buildings, like many in the old Inca capital of Cusco, are constructed from huge stones - expertly fitted without mortar.
Exactly how they did it remains a mystery.
Many travellers tell you the Inca Trail is like a motorway of tourists, too packed to be enjoyable, and that alternative treks involving zip-wires and mountain bikes are better.
I suspect more than a few of them just failed to get around to booking their place before the daily limit of 500 was reached.
It certainly is busy - as would be any route as important as this - but the One With The Common Sense and I found ourselves completely alone on more than one occasion.
The landscape was probably not as attractive as on the Choro Trail we had walked in Bolivia but as a creation it was more impressive.
Climbing over a mountain pass to 4,200-metres above sea level, it then plunges deep into the cloudforest jungle, taking in several Inca sites as it passes through their Sacred Valley.
Each day had its highlights.
As we overlooked our first Inca site - a small temple - on the first day, a wind whipped up carrying distant rumbles of thunder. Very atmospheric - like a warning to modern man to reconsider his path.
It was a fantastic feeling to reach camp after struggling 1,200-metres uphill during an 8km slog on day two.
Meanwhile, emerging from a tunnel carved into the mountain to a jungle of ferns and vines, hemmed in by mist, as hundreds of frogs whistled around us, made for a magical hour or so on day three.
And after watching the beauty of Machu Picchu emerge from the "sungate" on the mountain above, it felt great to walk around the site, feeling strong despite a four-day hike with early mornings and uncomfortable camp beds.
When we had realised two 60-something Americans were our only fellow passengers for the trip, our hearts sank.
Dick and Adrienne (how hard to resist re-enacting the closing scenes from Rocky) were not quite the obnoxious gun-toting Texas Republican-types we feared they might be.
Both having had interesting careers, including working in the Middle East - they were far more broad-minded than the almost-always inaccurate stereotype.
However, it quickly became apparent that they were happy to talk about themselves and totally disinterested in us. As they were entertaining enough company, that was no bother to us.
They were quite funny to listen to as they fussed over each other, while Adrienne´s dodgy stomach had a comical habit of letting rip with loud, rasping farts at regular intervals.
The cracks in our relationship with them started to show when they expressed their distaste for alcohol.
Dick - his name suiting him more each day - suggested that while the Catholic Church permitted alcohol in moderation, its followers indulged a little more than they should.
The One With The Common Sense was not going to let that lie and pointed out that she was no alcoholic, at which point Dick admitted that it was those with no faith who were most at fault.
Laughing, I put him right that a committed atheist such as myself was not automatically a drunkard.
The more opinionated Dick became, the more ridiculous he sounded. Even my friends from the States would see the irony in an American declaring that "those from Germanic nations" were annoyingly loud.
What really set Dick off, however, was the fact we finished the gruelling second day a full two hours ahead of them. It brought out the Alpha male in him and suddenly everything became a competition.
He even wanted to beat me at my slightly tragic hobby of birdwatching.
And despite numerous digs at "my fellow countrymen", as he called them, I maintained a self-deprecating view and British stiff upper lip.
That is, until the last morning when I awoke in a serious grump.
After a petty argument about whether Americans had better toilet habits than the rest of the world (seriously), we fell silent until a group further forward cheered as the sun popped up.
"Idiots," grumbled Dick, adding that the route should be the preserve of the sensible over 40s.
I finally snapped, telling him: "Heaven forbid that anyone should have fun here."
That finally shut him up - I don´t think he´s used to people answering back.
Inca sites are not the only phenomenon on the trail.
The porters and camp cook also fit that billing.
Mostly tiny guys from farming communities, the porters charge along the treacherous stone paths - often running - with towering 20kg packs containing tents, gas bottles, camp chairs and other supplies on their backs.
No fancy hiking shoes for them - most wear thin trainers or sandals, their blistered toes hardened and thick cracks showing in their heels.
Among their burdens is the party´s food - enough for two or three courses at every sitting - and generally prepared with quite some flair. Stuffed peppers, meat rolled around a vegetable filling and vanilla pudding all featured.
One morning for breakfast, our bread and jam was supplemented by eggy toast, a banana meringue pie and even a huge cake.
It certainly set you up for the day but, if anything, there is just too much. I did my best to pull my (growing) weight for the group.
However, it all proved a little too much for the One With The Common Sense. One night, her digestive fumes were so powerful as to awaken me from my slumber. Good thing our tent had plenty of vents.
We had spent the night before the trek at the village where two of the porters lived.
It was a chance to get a taste of life in a rural community, where families use bulls rather than tractors to plough fields.
Getting there was fun enough. Along with about 25 locals, including several in traditional dress, we crammed aboard a tiny minibus.
Facing backwards, we saw the amusement our fellow passengers were having at the expense of the pasty pair struggling to keep hold of their bags as the van swung wildly around corners.
The village was fascinating, as our guide showed us the mud bricks used to construct houses and the fruit and herbs grown in most gardens.
We visited some of the homes where people live around tiny kitchens, heated by clay ovens.
Most farm small areas of land, neighbours helping with the donkey-work, to sustain themselves - selling whatever surplus they have.
The simplicity of life was shown by the presents we were advised to take - a couple of packets of biscuits, some hot chocolate and cooking oil.
We finished our night with something of a hoe-down in our host´s kitchen, as a harp-playing neighbour bashed out traditional tunes and the porters and their wives did their holding-hands and swinging around dance routine with us.
Invariably, the floor of the homes were alive with guinea pigs - one old man had 50 of them.
Far from being pets, they are bred to serve up on special family occasions.
Obviously, I wasn´t going to pass up a chance to try a new meat but I had to wait until we were back in Cusco to taste the fat little critters.
At a local place recommended to us by our trail guide, I was presented with half of every six-year-old girl´s favourite pet, served on a bed of the obligatory two carbs - pasta and roast potatoes.
It´s head - teeth and all - fell off the minute I put the fork in but there was no getting through the rubbery skin.
It looked like crispy chicken skin but was much more greasy and rubbery, so I scraped it off and tucked into the meat.
It was quite hard going finding morsels between the tiny rib cage but the rump revealed plenty of fragrant flesh.
The nearest comparison I can make is to crispy duck´s stringy meat but the guinea pig was much stronger and sweeter.
I don´t reckon the locals mess about with a knife and fork but I did my best and devoured most of it... though I did resist the temptation to chew on its stiff little claws.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)