I just got back from a one-day bus tour of the Sacred Valley of the Incas, taking in various Inca ruins such as Pisaq, Urubamba, Ollantaytambo and Chinchero. It was fun — the bus was very friendly, and Dimitri (who I’d met on previous tours) was on the same bus too, but I think I’m pretty much Inca’d out now.

I’m also pretty sick of tourist markets too — the first two stops on the bus were at big tourist markets, and there were more tourist markets at every one of the Inca sites we visited. We also made a special stop at “the best” (allegedly) ceramics factory — basically a shop that gave a brief demonstration on how pottery is made. It wasn’t especially informative (who doesn’t know how pottery is made?), although I admit I was mildly impressed when the guy used the ceramic cup he’d made to hammer a nail into the table!

The “artesan” (i.e. tourist) markets are too much after a while, though — they all sell pretty much the same stuff, and the stall holders desparately implore you to buy their wares, calling you “amigo” while holding up their blankets/ponchos/plates/whatever, saying “only 5 soles, amigo.” In addition to stall holders, there are women with cute little kids in papooses and llamas dressed in traditional clothing, charging money for photographs, street kids selling water and candy etc., and out-and-out beggars. It’s a little depressing after a while.

I bought a few portable knick-knacks (partly out of guilty compulsion to redistribute some wealth), but the other problem on top of the relentless hard selling is that NOBODY has any change, so whenever you try to pay for anything small with a large note, there’s the whole rigmarole of the vendor running around other stalls for 10 minutes trying to get change.

Anyway, tonight’s my last night of vacation! I’m meeting up with Dimitri and some other folks from the bus in a little while for drinks and dinner, and then I’ll be heading for an early night, since I have a taxi coming around 5am tomorrow to take me to the airport for the long journey back to New York.

I’m back in Cuzco now, having just returned from two days and one night visiting Machu Picchu, the spectacular, extensive and well-preserved ruins of an Inca citadel perched on a saddle between two mountains at about 2,400 metres above sea level, and one of the premiere tourist destinations in the whole of South America. It was pretty spectacular — definitely a highlight of my whole trip.

The 2-day trip started early (of course!) on Sunday 12th September, when Nicos the travel agent came to collect me from the Carlos V hostal at 5:45am to take me to the train station in time for the 6:15am “Backpacker” train. He gave me a ticket in the name of Pedro Picardo, a guy who had cancelled his reservation at the last minute, and told me that I had to pretend to be him… I agreed rather than making a fuss (despite having paid full price for my own ticket), because I found the idea of adopting an alternative identity entertaining.

I boarded the train at the station around 6am, and was greeted by a young couple, Dmitri (Dutch) and Miluska (Peruvian), who I’d met the previous day on the Cuzco city tour.

The train eventually started moving, and proceeded to zig-zag up switchbacks along a steep incline out of Cuzco, stopping and changing direction on each segment. Gradually the ghetto housing on the outskirts of Cuzco gave way to trees, mountains and rivers; from what I saw the journey was very scenic, although I was drifting in and out of sleep for much of the way there. After about 4 hours we finally arrived in Machu Picchu Pueblo, amidst the chaos of hawkers selling tourist crap, bus tickets and hotel rooms.

Upon disembarking the train, I was met by a guy from the Quillas Hostel, who took my bags and directed me immediately to the little buses that ferry people between Machu Picchu Pueblo and Machu Picchu itself. I got on the first one, met up with Dimitri and Miluska again, and soon afterwards we were zig-zagging up the steep hill to the citadel of Machu Picchu.

I spent several fun hours going around the extensive site with Dimitri and Miluska, taking lots of pictures as we went — the place is ridiculously photogenic, with the dizzyingly vertical ruins set amongst dramatic verdant mountains. The weather was pretty good, considering the site is in a cloud forest; warm and sunny, with a little haze on the mountains in the distance.

Peru’s National Institute of Culture have done a very good job with the site, leaving it effectively untouched; there are no safety barriers (and plenty of long drops!), almost no signage, no shops and no litter bins. Some of the more fragile parts have been roped off, and there are obvious ongoing conservation efforts taking place, but otherwise the site is almost completely uncluttered by 20/21st Century additions.

After lunch just outside the site entrance, I walked down the hill with Dimitri and Miluska and said goodbye as they left to catch the train back to Cuzco. I went back to my hostal and got my swimming gear, then walked up to the hot springs (or aguas calientes). The hot springs weren’t really very hot, and there were several school parties using them at the time, so it was pretty much bedlam, with kids running around screaming and splashing each other. It wasn’t very restul, although it was quite funny.

A little later I had dinner in the town’s main square (a terrible pizza that was more like cheese on toast, and it wasn’t mozzarella cheese either!), a beer in a bar at the top of Calle Pachacutec, and then went to an Internet cafe to check e-mail and update this blog; unfortunately the connection was really slow, and I was so exhausted I started falling asleep at the keyboard, so I went back to the hostal for an early night at 10pm.

I was planning to get up early the following day in order to get to Machu Picchu when it opened at 6am or 6:30am so that I could see the dawn, but when I awoke at 6:15am it was cloudy, so I had a much-needed lie-in and a leisurely breakfast before arriving at the site around 9am — still well before the train-load of day-trippers that arrived at 10:30am. The weather was very different from the previous day, with the site shrouded in thick white clouds — it looked very ethereal.

I had a quick walk around the site taking more pictures before heading out of the far side for the hike up to Waynapicchu, the nearby mountain that looms over the citadel. The hike up was pretty tough, but very enjoyable — about 30 minutes hard climbing up uneven stone steps. At some points it was more like proper climbing than walking, and there was even a narrow cave/tunnel to pass through at one point near the summit. At the summit were a few folks and, mysteriously, a humming bird, but unfortunately there was no view of the citadel below, which was completely shrouded in cloud.

After catching my breath and cooling off for about 20 minutes on the summit I started down again, but before I got too far down, the clouds cleared and I had a spectacular view of the citadel from way above.

After taking yet more photographs (I have a whole roll of 35mm film plus a load of digital images of Machu Picchu now), I descended back to the main site for a last spin around, before having lunch in the posh restaurant (a US$12 cheeseburger!) attached to the most expensive hotel in Peru (US$400 a night for a single room).

Then I took the bus back down to the Pueblo, had a quick wander around the tourist markets and back streets of the town, retrieved my bags from the hostal and went to catch the train back to Cuzco. The train journey was very scenic and quite sociable, as I was chatting with various folks I’d met over the last few days, although it was a little too long at 4 plus hours.

Now I’m back in Cuzco, and have to go to find some dinner before hitting the sack. I have a very civilized 8:45am start tomorrow for a tour of the Sacred Valley of the Incas, which should be interesting.

Tomorrow is also my last full day of vacation before returning to New York — and real life! — early on Wednesday…

Incidentally, I forgot to mention that Cusco’s football team, Cienciano, won the Recopa 2004 (which I believe is the South American equivalent of the European Champion’s League) a day or two before I arrived, by beating Argentina’s Boca Juniors 2-0.

Right now I’m in the historic town of Cuzco, population about 300,000, which used to be the capital of the Inca empire and is now Perú’s biggest tourist attraction. It’s a very high city — about 3,200 metres if I remember correctly — so a lot of people get altitude sickness when they first arrive here. I should be OK though, because I came from Arequipa which should have given me plenty of time to adjust to the altitude.

After the late arrival of my ‘plane, I found the local tour agent Nicos, who took me and two other guys to our respective hotels momentarily to drop off bags and laundry, before heading back into town for the 4-hour Cuzco city tour.

The first stop on the tour (which had already begun) was the Convento de Santo Domingo, a colonial building that was built by the Spanish conquerors right on top of the main Inca temple in the town, Qorikancha. Nicos deposited me with an English-speaking guide, Victor, who was already in full swing with an assorted group of about 10 English speakers.

He told us that the Inca building techniques were quite remarkable; unlike the Spanish conquistadors, the Incas used angled walls and laboriously complex stonemasonry (e.g. T-shaped stone blocks with 18 corners) to make their structures highly earthquake resistant. When a big earthquake hit around 1650, all of the Spanish Colonial structures built on top collapsed, whereas the Inca foundations survived unscathed.

After we finished the quick tour of Qorikancha, we all piled into a small bus and set off for additional Inca ruins in and around Cuzco: Sacsayhuaman (pronounced very similarly to “sexy woman”!), Qenko, Puca Pucara and Tambo Machay. It was definitely “speed tourism,” but a very good way to see a lot of sights and get a lot of information in a very short space of time — plus it was quite a friendly group, which made it more fun.

We finished up (predictably) in a huge tourist shop where skilled saleswomen tried to flog us wool and baby alpaca clothing; I ended up buying a hat and a scarf for $35 U.S., which hopefully I won’t lose once it becomes winter in NYC.

After the shopping expedition I returned to the Carlos V hotel, collected my laundry and met up with Nicos again, who informed me that I would need to be up and ready to go by 5:45 the following morning for the trip to Machu Picchu… Argh! Another early start!

Anyway, after sorting things out with Nico, I went out for dinner at a restaurant called El Truco, where they put a little Union Jack flag on my table, and where there was all manor of “traditional” Perúvian music and dancing. It was good fun I guess, although I found myself being quite skeptical about the authenticity of the various costumes and dances.

Anyway, that was today — tomorrow I’m off to Machu Picchu.

My hiking trip to Colca Canyon was very good: A taxi came to collect me from Hostal San Isidro in Arequipa (which was very pleasant, incidentally) at 1:30am on Thursday morning, just a few hours after I’d gone to bed the previous night. Apart from the driver, there were two Peruvian women in the taxi — someone from the travel agency whose name I didn’t catch, and a fellow “trekker,” a girl from Lima called Eli (Elizabeth).

We got to the bus station and were given bus tickets by the agent, a bargain at 1 soles, or about 28 cents, each. The bus left the station around 2am, and after chatting with Eli for a bit (she had lived in the U.S. for some time, so fortunately for me spoke fluent English), I tried to get some sleep. Sleeping got considerably more difficult, however, when the tarmac road ended not far out of Arequipa and we started bumping along a dirt road, so by the time we got to the small town of Cabanaconde, about 170km north of Arequipa, I was pretty tired.

We got off the bus in the main square of Cabanaconde around 7am and were met by a girl who took us to a nearby hostal for breakfast: Fried eggs, bread and jam and mate de coca. She also gave us some dried mate leaves at Eli’s request, because they help alleviate the symptoms of altitude sickness: Cabanaconde is pretty high, at an altitude of 3,300 metres (according to my guidebook).

After breakfast, our guide Rolando arrived and we set off towards the canyon in bright sunshine at around 8am. Rolando didn’t speak much English, but Eli did a fantastic job of translating the various bits of historical and botanical knowledge Rolando offered.

After about 10 minutes we reached the lip of Colca Canyon, one of the deepest canyons in the World (although not THE deepest apparently). The view was definitely spectacular; hundreds of metres below on the opposite side of the canyon were traditional indian villages and Inca terraces, and 1200 metres below was the Rio Colca.

We descended down winding paths to the bottom of the canyon, spotting various species of flora and fauna on the way, and collecting samples of plants with medicinal properties such as moonia (no idea how to spell this), which apparently is also a good remedy for altitude sickness. At the bottom of the canyon we joined a group of other gringo trekkers paddling in the river. I wasn’t initially planning on paddling (the water was very cold), but I slipped on some algae while washing my face and partially fell in!

Once my shoes and socks had dried a little, we crossed a rickety cable bridge to the other side of the canyon and started climbing up to the picturesque village of San Juan de Chuchu, a beautiful verdant garden of a place irrigated, like all of the villages in the canyon, by meltwater from the nearby mountains carried by Inca water channels. Rolando told (and Eli translated) the story of how the town got it’s name: Apparently, centuries ago some visitors arrived and, after eating the local fruit, they started shaking violently — hence the “chuchu,” or “shaking” (the story sounded much like the magical realism in “100 Years of Solitude,” which I’m currently reading).

We stopped for lunch at a tranquil and seemingly-deserted hostal, and had a lunch of a traditional vegetable stew, followed by a salad with fresh avocados plucked straight from the tree, plus lots of beer. The beer was expensive by Peru standards at 8 soles ($2.25 U.S.), but it has to be brought from Cabanaconde by mule, so I didn’t mind too much paying a little extra! There was no electricity in any of the villages, but they managed to keep the beer reasonably cool anyway — at such a high altitude, it’s warm in the sun but quite cool in the shade.

After lunch we continued our hike through the other villages, encountering local people with a variety of domestic/farm animals. The towns are inhabited almost exclusively by old people, and are evidently declining in overall population as the youngsters get out as soon as they can.

After passing through 3 or 4 more villages, we crossed a hanging valley and descended past some Inca agricultural terraces before reaching the bottom of Colca Canyon again. We crossed another rickety suspension bridge and climbed up a little way to the Oasis, a small campground with a swimming pool fed by tepid thermal spring water and various rustic “cabanas,” little bamboo shacks.

By this time it was about 5pm and we’d been walking for the better part of 8 hours, so Eli & I were both pretty tired (if Rolando was, he wasn’t admitting it) and our feet were aching. After chilling out with a beer and chatting with some other gringos for a while, Rolando fed us some fairly basic and uninteresting food, and then it was time for bed (at 8pm!), because he wanted us to get up at 3am (ANOTHER ridiculously early start!) for the hike back out of the canyon. By now it was a chilly pitch black moonless night, with countless stars visible, so I was very glad of my new baby alpaca sweater.

Getting up at 2:30am in the pitch black was pretty miserable, and we didn’t really have enough flashlights between us; Rolando had a small flashlight and I had a small keyring LED torch, but that was it. Along with various other groups, we started the slow trudge up the steep dark slope. It wasn’t a lot of fun, and Eli was suffering from some combination of asthma, nausea, altitude sickness and fatigue and was having a very hard time: It was slow going. A little past half way up, a guy with a couple of mules passed us, so we paid him to take Eli up on one of the mules. We also encountered an indian woman selling drinks and snacks halfway up, which was very welcome: A Fanta and a sweet bread roll gave me a much-needed energy boost.

Not long afterwards, we reached the top of the canyon and it was then a short easy walk back to the hostal for another egg and bread breakfast, before catching the bus (which had to stop to change a punctured tyre on the way) to Mirador Cruz del Condor, a scenic viewing spot at the edge of the canyon where condors can be seen swooping and gliding around against the spectacular backdrop of the canyon. The condors didn’t disappoint us — several of the huge birds soared right over our heads.

About 45 minutes later, the next bus came and took us (plus assorted locals and a baby lamb) on the slow bumpy ride back to Chivay and then Arequipa.

I went back to Hostal San Isidro and, after getting cleaned up, went back into town to meet a couple of guys, Jon from Colorado and Yves from Antwerp, from the Oasis for dinner: We all ate chicken carapaccio (raw chicken marinated in lemon juice — living dangerously!) and various kinds of alpaca steaks, which were pretty delicious. After dinner Yves and I went for a few drinks and a game of pool (Jon had to catch a bus), then I headed back to my hostal for a much-needed proper night’s sleep in a real bed — basta rustico!

Shortly I’ll be heading back to the airport for a flight to Cuzco, my final destination before heading home next Wednesday (once again, my flight today has been delayed by a couple of hours, so I came back into town to use the Internet).

Health concerns are starting to weigh on my mind a little now — my stomach’s recovery after the jungle seems to have been short-lived, so I’m a little dehydrated and am planning to start taking antibiotics today after all. I’ve also got a large painful sore on my backside, presumably where some unknown animal bit me during the night through the mosquito net in the jungle (although to be honest I don’t really know when it happened, because it didn’t swell up at first). It doesn’t seem to have gone down much over the last couple of days; hopefully the antibiotics will help this too, but perhaps I’ll get it checked out in Cuzco to be on the safe side.

Well, time to head back to the airport…

I just witnessed an exhibition of religious fervour that was kind of spooky and surreal…

I was sitting by the window in an empty restaurant called Las Querenas around 7pm, eating an allegedly traditional Arequipan meal of steak and potatoes, when I noticed that the normally incessant horn-honking of the taxis and combis (crazy little private minibuses, common throughout Peru, that solicit passengers by sounding their ambulance sirens and having a conductor who hangs out of the door shouting at passers-by) had gone quiet, and that people in the street were crossing themsleves and going into the convent opposite.

Soon afterwards, the convent’s bells started ringing a discordant and unsettling tune, and a procession with a military band appeared in the street carrying some kind of float with a huge effigy of Santa Catalina, the patron saint of the monastery (I’m guessing 8 September is SC’s saint’s day). Even more bizarre, there were nuns in white habits on the roof of the convent shovelling great bucketfuls of rose petals down onto the effigy. The procession stopped right in front of my window, the float with the effigy of SC turned 90 degrees, and then they all went into the convent. I heard a round of applause from within, and then it all went quiet.

Minutes later, the military band left with their instruments, and normal traffic resumed in the street.

It probably doesn’t sound that odd as I’ve described it, but the whole scene had a very David Lynch quality at the time.

Incidentally, I wouldn’t normally make 3 posts in one day, but I came home to get some sleep before my trek and discovered that there’s a computer with free broadband in my hotel, and couldn’t resist.

I’m now in Arequipa, at an altitude of about 2400 metres in the southern part of Peru. The climate here is much more comfortable than either the jungle or Lima — it’s warm, sunny and dry, although I’ve been warned that it’s going to get pretty cold tonight.

An agent met me at the airport and put me in a taxi that brought me to the tour operator’s office in the centre of Arequipa. It took quite a long time, because traffic was restricted due to a religious festival going on in the main square, Plaza des Armas — lots of people (including nuns and monks), statues of Jesus and the Madonna, incense and religious fervour.

The folks at the tourist office explained the itinerary for the Colca Canyon hike I’m doing tomorrow: Somehow I’ve managed to book myself onto a serious walking tour — 7 or 8 hours hiking a day for 2 days — and cheat myself out of another night’s sleep! They will be coming to pick me up at the hotel at 1:30am tonight, after which we will go on a (probably rickety) public bus somewhere or another, start hiking around dawn, and will continue hiking in the hills pretty much all day until we stop for the night at some cabanas out in the sticks (sounds a bit rustic again). The next day we hike some more, and eventually finish up at the Cruz del Condors, a vista point in one of the deepest canyons in the world that is full of, er, condors (and reputedly one of the best sights in South America). They also told me I need to bring all kinds of things that I don’t have, such as warm clothing, a hat, gloves, and a torch/flashlight.

After checking in at Hostal San Isidoro (nice, but quite remote from the centro in Vallecito), I came back into town and had my first food for over 24 hours — a desayuno americano (American breakfast — basically the Peruvian idea of bacon and eggs). Probably not the best thing to break a fast after a period of stomach upset, but it was good! As for my stomach… So far, so good.

After breakfast I found a street full of cheap knock-off goods and bought myself a fake NY Yankees baseball cap for less than US$2 (I needed a hat anyway, as I got pretty sunburned in the jungle and my face is peeling), and then bought myself a jumper/sweater made of baby alpaca wool for about US$40, which will apparently do the job of keeping me warm (I think an alpaca is some kind of indigenous llama-esque creature). Then I went a bit crazy and, seduced by the idea of functional souvenirs, bought another baby alpaca jumper/sweater and a pair of baby alpaca gloves.

After my shopping spree, I visited the Monasterio d Santa Catalina, a huge convent, parts of which date back to 1579, and apparently the “finest example of colonial architecture in Arequipa.” It was actually very enjoyable strolling around the various cloisters and streets of the convent; I haven’t really done that much cultural/historical tourism on this trip, and it was architecturally interesting, highly photogenic and muy tranquillo, as the say en español.

Now that I’ve spent another hour or so in this Internet cafe, it’s almost time to find some dinner before heading back to the hotel for a few hours’ kip before they come for me at 1:30am…

Getting out of Iquitos and the Amazon jungle turned out to be much harder than I anticipated, because of the UTTER CRAPNESS of Peru’s state airline TANS Peru.

Yesterday started pretty well overall: I woke up in the luxury hotel room, showered, had breakfast, and took a motorkar to Belen Market very briefly for a bit of speed-tourism. The motorkar had a picture of Che Guevara on it, and the young driver, Michel, offered to give me a quick guided tour of the market and port area, made up of houses on stilts — it is flooded during the rainy season, and is known as the “Venice of the Peruvian jungle.” Apparently Werner Hertzog filmed the movie Fitzcarraldo there. After a 10 minute walk, we jumped back into the motorkar, stopped to pick up my laundry, and dropped me off back at the hotel. I checked out and took a taxi to the airport, arriving there about 11:15am.

At this point things started to go wrong again; the TANS Peru flight that was supposed to leave around 1pm was going to be late arriving, and they didn’t even know when it was going to arrive. They told me maybe 3pm, and to come back later for more information.

At this point I could have gone back into town, but I decided to camp out in a little cafe with a soft drink and read my Spanish textbook for a bit. Hours passed. More hours passed. Each time I went back for more information, I was told to come back later.

The chairs in the airport were incredibly uncomfortable, and after getting fed up trying to learn Spanish, I killed time listening to my Minidisc, reading “100 Years of Solitude” (an English edition purchased at great expense at Bogota airport) and having fantasies about forcing the chair’s designer to sit for a similarly prolonged period in one of his own creations. Eventually it cooled down a little outside the terminal building, and I sat at a wooden bench in front of a little snack hut at the far end of the airfield, reading and drinking Inka Kola (basically cream of soda with added caffeine and yellow colouring — it’s good!).

The plane didn’t arrive until 6:30pm, and left 20 minutes later — luckily I was on it, but there was almost a riot at the airport because it was supposed to stop somewhere else en route to Lima, but didn’t. TANS Peru is without doubt the worst airline I have ever flown with.

Anyway, I eventually made it back to Lima, was picked up at the airport and taken back to the Hostal Pukara, where Peter rearranged the remiander of my itinerary. Right now I’m at the airport in Lima, about to catch a plane to Arequipo.

I also had my first bit of “traveller’s tummy” yesterday morning, which was a little strange because all I’d eaten in the previous 12 hours was some very inoccuous-looking frozen pizza. I have some antibiotics, but it’s really not too bad at all and I’d rather not take the medicine, so am gonna try fasting for 24 hours first.

I’m back in Iquitos now (unexpectedly it looks like I’m gonna be here for another night, but more on this later), after two nights in the Amazon jungle: It was a good but very intense experience.

The trip started early on Saturday 4 September. Once again, I had a very early 5am start after not getting very much sleep, and was taken by motorkar (the main kind of taxi here, a motorized tricycle made from the front half of a motorbike with a double seat behind, basically the same as a tuk-tuk in Thailand) to a boat on the Amazon River. A few other Peruvians and gringos came on board, and pretty soon we were on our way south down the Amazon, and since it was dark and there wasn’t much to see anyway, I grabbed a couple of hours of much-needed sleep.

Around 10am I was dropped off on the muddy river bank at a small village with a young guide called Luis, who led me through the village and a jungle path for about quarter of a mile to a small lake called Lago Lapuna. After waiting around for about 30 minutes in light rain, tired, having had no breakfast and becoming increasingly cranky and skeptical about my guide’s ability to guide me anywhere, a small boy arrived with a small canoe, and we all tried to get in it. There was no way it was going to take the weight of two adults, one child and my luggage, and my rucksack got pretty wet in the attempt. The prospects of a successful canoe ride to the other side of the lake were not looking good, and my patience with Luis starting wearing a little thin. Eventually, Luis decided to make multiple trips to the other bank, and then proceed to the next meeting point on foot. The little kid took my stuff first, and then me (with much trepidation, because the canoe was not very stable). I made it without getting dunked though, and then the little kid brought Luis across before setting off in the canoe with my large rucksack to the meeting point.

Luis & I then started off through the thick jungle, and before long my confidence in his jungle guiding and navigating abilities dropped even further. We were stumbling around in circles through thick undergrowth, using sticks to clear cobwebs and foliage because we didn’t have machetes. It seemed like we were wandering around for hours, getting hot, wet and muddy. Eventually we arrived at another bank, and a guy called Peter met us with a larger canoe. We all got into this, and made slow progress through a narrow muddy channel to another lake, Lago Yarina, where the water became deeper. After another 10 minutes of paddling, we arrived at a landing raft of the Emerald Forest Camp.

This was a bit of a shock to me at first, because the camp comprised nothing but a clearing with 4 open-walled shacks with palm roofs, with a bizarre selection of people wandering around (think of the scene in the movie Apocalypse Now when Martin Sheen arrives at Colonel Kurtz’s camp in Cambodia). Primarily I was shocked because I hadn’t grasped that I’d booked myself into a jungle camp — I’d assumed there would be some kind of lodge facility with toilets, running water etc. etc. But no, this was much more… Rustic.

I was directed to the “dining room,” which was another open-walled shack with mosquito netting around it, and crashed out in a hammock for a whiole before some coffee and eggs were brought in. At this point I noticed the sleeping facilities: Another open-walled shack, with a bamboo platform and a series of small white mosquito-net tents on it!

After eating, I was introduced to a few of the camp’s staff, such as Peter (the owner), Carola (the cook) and Tirsa (the cleaner, who crawled around the camp on all fours due to underdeveloped legs), and my guide, Raoul. I also met a few other tourists — there was a mixed group of about 5 Poles, and another group of two Italian girls, all of whom spoke better Spanish than I did!

After breakfast and resting for a while, Raoul took me for a 4-hour walk through the jungle, pointing out various plant and animal species. He was a pretty good guide, and we saw various critters (including a hawk that swooped down and grabbed a marmoset out of a tree), but also got very muddy and a bit scratched up. We got back to the camp just before it got dark, and I washed myself and my shoes in the lake before crashing into a hammock and waiting for dinner with the other gringos. I was invited on a nighttime excursion to look for snakes and tarantulas, but by this time my lack of sleep got the better of me, so I declined and hung out in the hammock for a while. I played cards with the Italian girls and some of the staff for a while until it was time to cocoon myself in the mosquito net and go to sleep.

The next day after breakfast Raoul and I set off in a canoe for a bit of fishing in the Yarapa River, using very simple fishing rods made of a stick, about a metre of fishing line and a hook. Raoul cut up a small piranha (the most common kind of fish in this river!) to use as bait, and very soon afterwards we started catching more piranhas, which would flip around gnashing their teeth menacingly in the bottom of the boat until Raoul skewered them with a knife. Raoul caught more piranhas than me, but I caught the biggest fish of the day, a catfish of about 20cm length. We also caught a couple of other kinds of fish, but I don’t remember what they were.

Just as we were finishing our successful fishing trip, the Italian girls arrived with their guide Wilson, who was taking them upriver to a village called Nauta to catch a bus back to Iquitos. Raoul suggested that we tag along, so we jumped into a larger canoe with an outboard motor fitted to it, and set off down the Rio Yarapa, with Raoul and Wilson pointing out all manner of critters (eagles, hawks, vultures, kingfishers, various kinds of monkeys in trees, freshwater dolphins etc.) along the way.

After a while, the Yarapa River opened out into the Amazon, and we travelled upriver (west) towards it’s source, the confluence of the Marañón and Pucate rivers. The Rio Amazon is a really bug river! We took the right fork up the Rio Marañón, and after a while reached the village of Nauta. By this time I was using other peoples’ clothes to cover my skin, because I was getting brutally sunburnt (still sore as at time of writing).

The Italians left to get their bus, and Raoul and I had a wander around the town, stopping occasionally to buy bananas, bread and beer. After a couple of hours, we got back in the boat and headed back to the camp for dinner — which included some of the piranhas we’d caught earlier! They actually taste pretty good, although there isn’t a lot of meat on the average piranha, and it’s pretty hard to separate the meat from the bones.

The night passed fairly uneventfully (at this point I was the only gringo/tourist in the camp), with the exception of the commotion caused when the father of the cook showed up from a hunting trip with a dead wild boar.. Some of which appeared this morning on a plate for breakfast!

After breakfast, I packed up my stuff and Raoul, Chino and I set off back to Nauta again, following pretty much the same route as the previous day. Along the way, a different kind of piranha jumped into the boat! We got to Nauta again (although more quickly, since the boat was less full), and after a beer or two Raoul and I got the bus back to Iquitos.

That should have been the end of the jungle story — I should be in Lima by now, in time for a bus trip to Colca Canyon tomorrow — but unfortunately my flight was cancelled. Apparently it’s quite common, and they didn’t even offer to provide a hotel for the night! They were even more arsey with me than everyone else, because I hadn’t confirmed my flight 24 hours previously (apart from the fact that no-one confirms their flights anymore, how could I call them from the middle of the jungle?).

So, I came back to Iquitos by motorkar, dropped off my smelly muddy jungle clothes at a lavanderia, and checked into the flashest hotel in town, with air conditioning, bath, sauna, minibar etc. etc. It’s $77, and so far has been worth every penny! Hopefully I’ll be able to get back to Lima tomorrow — they told me to turn up at 11am (although didn’t sound too certain they’d be able to accommodate me).

This is a bit mad — I’m in the Amazon jungle right now! But more on that later…

I spent most of yesterday daytime in Lima faffing around with various admin. chores, such as getting laundry done and changing my return ticket back to the U.S. so that I can fly from Lima on the 15th September, rather than Santiago. This ended up necessitating a reissued ticket and cost me $150 at the TACA office (which is annoying because the flight back from Santiago had a plane change in Lima anyway), but at least it’s sorted.

In the evening, Peter the tour guide came to meet me at my hotel and we planned a comprehensive itinerary for the rest of my trip, although I made sure to leave a couple of slack days with nothing planned in advance: A few days in the Amazon jungle near Iquitos, a two-day hike in Colca Canyon, and then six or seven days in and around Cuzco for the whole Inca ruins/Machu Picchu bit before heading back to Lima for the flight home. I wasn’t originally intending to book everything without some shopping around, but he made it very easy, the price seemed very competitive and I appreciated being able to get everything sorted out quickly in one go.

After sorting out my itinerary, I went out for dinner at an average and deserted chirascurria (charcoal meat grill) in Miraflores, and then took a taxi to meet Eduardo. We had a few beers in Eduardo’s beautiful family home before his buddy Juan joined us and we took a cab to a fun bar/club called Sergeant Pepper’s, for yet more beer. We ended up eating delicious sandwiches at a late-night eatery before I finally took a taxi back to the hostel in the not-so-small hours for 1.5 hours of sleep.

The knock on the door at 6:30am came all to soon, and before long I was groggily in a taxi on my way to the airport for the flight up to Isquitos, a former rubber town in the jungle on the Amazon River. Isquitos has a population of about 300,000 people, and yet it can only be reached by either air or water — there is no road connecting it to the rest of the World!

It’s much hotter and more humid here than Lima, and so far it seems like a very friendly, lively and vibrant town. I have one night here, and then tomorrow I’m going by boat to a lodge in the Amazon jungle for a couple of nights. Should be fun!