In Nazca we were hot downhill champs for a day, o yes. Ski Sunday should be updated for the modern world and translated onto sand, with K and I presenting as we bomb downhill on weird wooden boards, that awesome theme tune covered by a clangy Peruvian mountain band ringing in the background. Sadly in reality you don´t actually travel that fast at all on wood on sand (though I hate to discolour your delciously highspeed account Kieran!)... Sandpaper has never been known for its smoothness, really, has it. Before hurling ourselves down The World´s Tallest Sanddune we were told that the world record - top to bottom - was SEVEN SECONDS. Aghast, we thought that sounded very fast. It turned out that ´top to bottom´ is in actual fact 3OO metres, once you´ve climbed up halfway from bottom, and that 7 seconds equates to about the pace of an averagely merry llama running downhill at average speed.
For all that cynicism both Kieran and I wowed our Peruvian guide by safely beating the world record hurtling downhill on our bums. Sandy, but the least stylish way is always the most effective.
Tick: motion-that-followed-sickness count 1.
Motion-that-followed-sickness count 2 took us both by extreme surprise. Having bravely dealt with churney boats, dodgy alligator and heady mountain heights, the last thing that should cause us trouble is a piddly little aeroplane flying a few feet above the desert, right?
Well! Nazca Home of The Highest Sandune Ever apparently landed on its tourist feet by also having been chosen by the ancient Nazca culture (1,100 B.C. – A.D. 750 FYI) as the perfect spot for drawing hundreds of giant hummingbirds, spiders, monkeys, fish, whales, llamas, and lizards in the sand. See figure below. To this day no one has a clue what they were for, or why they were there. This is mainly because the only way to see these lovely pictures is from the air (or google earth, which is also cheaper) and everyone´s almost dead certain that the ancient Nazcas did not have aeroplanes (yet to be proven) or google earth (proven).
By way of example, The Monkey:
This monkey is, no word of lie, roughly 250 metres wide. And it´s been there in the sand for HUNDREDs of years. Quite some staying power. Someone accidentally built a road through the tail of the lizard so that one looks less cool, apparently.
Ápparently´, because taking to the air in a hi-tech super-lite really-fun 4-seater desert plane, Steph discovered that her belly was REALLY bad at flying: I didn´t see a thing other than the ground wobbling as we took off and the door opening as I dashed through it to lie as flat as poss on the safe ground once we landed. Kieran valiantly snapped photos of every figure as we soared agonisingly one way round it, then the other way round it, so that i could at least look at the photos. Ridiculous. Not even telling myself that Michael Palin would´ve been down with it helped. The pilots and helpful grounds-people in neon jackets tell you that looking at the horizon helps. It does not. The horizon is impossible to find. Think cat in a see-through tumble-dryer plus sand.
But we ´did some culture´ though! Lonely Planet cultural activity achieved.
From Nazca and its sandy lines, via Lima again to Cusco (3395m above sea level), we checked into loco hostal Loki, partied too hard on white russians and warm Peruvian wine and began a monumental four-day trek to legendary Machu Pichu. Healthy bout of hangover and/or altitude sickness in tow. Lonely Planet says drinking aggravates altitude sickness. Kieran says it helps, and he´s going to be a doctor, so we went with his advice. Pehaps this was erroneous. Day 1 of The Expedition required mountain biking from 4200m to 2500m in hail, fog and headache with dubious brakes and an exquisitely large crevice constantly to one side of us. Hairy. But we have learnt that Motion + Sickness = FUN....
... Having dried out amongst the chickens in a tiny mountain foothill town (inadvertently eating some of their brothers as warming soup, oops), we set out marching through the forests of the Urumbamba River valley, Inca ruins-wards.Palin would definitely have been down with this and most probably has walked the Inca Trail himself, but I thought it about time to try a new Patron Saint of travelling. Maybe we´d feel less sick. So, enter Mr. Hiram Bingham (very difficult for Peruvians to pronounce so it took us a while to figure out who he actually was). Tall, lanky, conservative Yale Professor and later US senator, he is probably the basis for the actual Indiana Jones character. FACT. More to the point, he got all excited about the Andes and the Incas and asked so many questions and went so far around Peru on petulant mules that he finally found Machu Pichu pretty much on his own in 1911. Wow. Definitely worth a try as a P.S. of travelling. He wrote a completely exciting book about his adventures creatively called ´Inca Land´ which is so good that the National Geographic have published it as one of the World´s Hundred Best Adventure Classics. Christmas read? It really is good. In fact, as naff as it is to quote (!!) someone else in a blog, he does way better at explaining what the trek to Machu Pichu is like than I could, and I know you won´t read the book (which you should) anyway, so:
"From Torontoy to Colpani the road runs through a land of matchless charm. It has themajestic grandeur of the Canadian Rockies, as well as the startling beauty of the Nuuanu Pali near Honolulu, and the enchanting vistas of the Koolau Ditch Trail on Maul. In the variety of its charms and the power of its spell, I know of no place in the world which can compare with it. Not only has it great snow peaks looming above the clouds more than two miles overhead; gigantic precipices of many-colored granite rising sheer for thousands of feet above the foaming, glistening, roaring rapids; it has also, in striking contrast, orchids and tree ferns, the delectable beauty of luxurious vegetation, and the mysterious witchery of the jungle. One is drawn irresistibly onward by ever-recurring surprises through a deep, winding gorge, turning and twisting past overhanging cliffs of incredible height. Above all, there is the fascination of finding here and there under the swaying vines, or perched on top of a beetling crag, the rugged masonry of a bygone race; and of trying to understand the bewildering romance of the ancient builders who ages ago sought refuge in a region which appears to have been expressly designed by Nature as a sanctuary for the oppressed, a place where they might fearlessly and patiently give expression to their passion for walls of enduring beauty. Space forbids any attempt to describe in detail the constantly changing panorama, the rank tropical foliage, the countless terraces, the towering cliffs, the glaciers peeping out between the clouds".
Spot on.
Starting walking at 4am on our last day, Kieran and I made it up to the top with our new trek buddies in the first
50 people of the day. This is supposed to be quite good because one of the littler mountains you climb up to look down
on the ruins from is too little and sinking to have more than 400 bodies on it a day. This means people like to be sure
and get in amongst the first 50, just to be safe. Sorted.
More importantly, the place was BREATHTAKING. Ruins take on an extra-spectacular aura when you have hiked your
brains out of your body to get to look at them, but these are something else entirely.
Clinging to the small rocky plateau that hangs off the 2800m high peaks, the place made us all feel dizzy with
mystery (dehydration/exhaustion) and thus mad enough to climb the surrounding peaks for the ensuing 11hrs.
Compelled to get Í´ve-been-there, look-how-stunning-it-is-guys photos´ from every possible angle, we walked
and walked and walked the hilltops `til all we could do was waddle.
And so waddling a few thousand metres down to some lusciously steamy but yellow-with-sulphur aguas calientes
(hot springs for you uncivilised ones), we healed our toes, took a large draught of the local tiple and a train back
to Cusco. Hiram would´ve been down with that adventure. And I am definitely going to become an Explorer-Mountaineer.
Motion accomplished, sans sickness. Result.
Cusco brought us more hangovers and a beast of a night out dancing (´deadly´ to you Irish), an ensuing horrifically sickly
journey back to Lima from whence we voyaged intrepdily into the Cordillera Blanca mountains in the North. Trekking ahoy,
hurrah hooray! (But sighs as we realise the motion and the sickness still haunted us (for our sins, for our sins).
Check out the humour of the mountain folk in their Christmas present toy suggestion for kids and their eatery names ...!
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