Alaskawilds

December 9. to 15. 2015

The magic word. Who hasn’t heard of Machu Picchu and seen the Pictures of this Inca citadel on top of the mountains.. Many of our friends have been there, it is one of the most famous places in the world. The photographs of this mountain settlement of the Incas are breathtaking, traveling in Peru and not going there was not an option for us. Knowing how any place as famous as this was going to be touristy, we braced ourselves and joined in. We are no stranger to mass tourism and once we leave home to take a trip we are tourist too, tourists of a different kind though .

(Juneau, Alaska, our second home, is a perfect example of what we try to avoid on our travels. Cruise ships ply the waters of the Inside Passage and deposit thousands of tourists in our towns every day from May to October. They shop in mostly cruise line owned or affiliated stores and line up at the “Crab Shack” drooling as if they had not eaten in days. Back on board their floating “all-inclusive” hotels they happily line up at the buffets while their ship pumps their sewage into our fjords and switch to highly polluting bunker fuel as soon as they have left the harbor and rounded the corner, leaving a trail of brown smoke in/above their wake. Sorry, cruise lovers.)

But back to Peru:

Anna, my Cousins daughter from Oberstdorf was backpacking in South America this winter and we decided to meet in Cusco. She and her friends planned to do a treck to Machu Picchu.

We left the coast and stopped at the Nazca area to looked at some of the lines, one really needs to take a plane to see them and the extend of the area where they are located.

Then back up into the Andes, past herds of vicuña, through little towns and past beautiful lakes. The nights got colder as we worked our way up higher. The first evening we turned off the main road and drove into the hills to find a place to camp for the night. But the fields were fenced in with rock walls and finally we ended up in a little town called San Juan. We parked by the beautiful and very old little church and asked a lady if she knows a spot for us where we could spend the night. She and a horde of children directed us to a lot near the central plaza they called the “pampa”. There we stayed for the night and part of the next day, it was interesting to watch town life and we were being watched too. There are few cars and it was very quiet, we shared the “pampa” with some donkeys. A representative of the town hall came over in the morning to welcome us and wanted to know why we are here. The children hung out for hours and we let them come up the steps and look inside the camper. “Line up two and two” Günter told them, so we had a long line outside, two and two. We figured that close to 60 Children got to peak inside our “Casa Rodande” while most adults watched from a distance.

Vicunas, so delicate, big eyes with long lashes and the softest fleece.

Alpacas

San Juan, worth a visit.

Our camping spot in San Juan.

The little church has the date of 1749 above the door.

Sneak peak through a hole in the door, it was locked.

Market day near Cusco

                                                                      CUSCO

It took us three days to drive from Paracas on the Pacific coast to Cusco.

Cuscos historical center is very beautiful and worth a visit. Although we do not like to go to camp grounds and there are very few anyway, the one in Cusco sounded perfect for us since it is in walking distance to the center of town and right next to one of many Inca ruins in the area: Sacsaywaman was the site of one of the most bitter battles during the time of the Spanish invasion. The stone work is impressive and a walk through the ruins is very pleasant, with a great view of Cusco. We hooked up with our friends, shared a dinner and spent a nice evening together. The next day they were off to the Inca trail.

There are different ways to go see Machu Picchu, you cannot drive there however.

You can hike in or take the train. We visited a few places in the “Sacred Valley” on the way to Ollyotambo, the end of the road and starting point of the train.

They valley is pretty and has several interesting sites.

Dreadlocks are alive and well in the Sacred Valley, New Agers flock to different retreats for spiritual enlightenment, it is big business in some corners or the valley.

We hiked around the ruins and amazing terraces of Pisac, spent the night above the salt ponds of Salinas and finally left our camper at a litte hostal in the last town Ollantaytambo. From there we took the train to Aguas Calientes, spent the night and got an early start with the 6 am bus up to the ruins. People try to get there earlier for the sun rise, so when we left the bus there were already a few hundred people ahead of us. Ok, we hike up and around for a while and when it got fuller, we split up. Günter climbed Cerro Machu Picchu, all steps – it was not easy, but the expansive views from the top made it all worth while. While Wayna Picchu is more popular and one has to sign up ahead of time to climb it, it gets quite crowded and Günter was glad he chose the other mountain where he was the first one up there. I in the meantime I headed for Intipunku, the Sun Gate, part of the Inca Trail. There are a lot of steps at Machu Picchu and hiking poles are not allowed, I had to go all the way back down to the bus station at one point to got to the bathroom and then back up to where I had left off. Plenty of exercise and people to negotiate around.

The ruins are indeed beautiful and the location amazing, the morning was cloudless and even when a few clouds crowned the peaks around in the afternoon we could not stop marveling at the ruins and the surroundings. Most people head back to the busses around lunch time, so it was less crowded in the afternoon.

We left Aguas Calientes again that evening by train, a funny train trip with entertainment, the conductor doing some Inca dance dressed in a costume and the “train attendants” modeling alpaca sweaters and shawls for sale.

Back in Cusco we stocked up on groceries but did not go back to the camp ground since one of the German ladies there had been very rude to Günter. There were several German campers in the camp ground, retired couples mostly. When we first arrived there from the coast this woman had asked us for help with different issues (truck, laptop) because her husband was gone and Günter did his best to fix her problems on several occasions. The day we left she got really mad at him for warming up the engine of our truck for just a short time. She accused him of being “totally Americanized”, I guess that is supposed to be an insult, she told us we probably do not have children and grand children to worry about so we just pollute the environment. (Never mind that she and her husband drive a diesel truck camper around.)Oh well, we were so shocked about this ungrateful and insulting behaviour that we just turned around and left her standing there. The shame is on her.

We wanted to go camp by ourselves somewhere, where it is peaceful and quiet. It was time to move on and go south, to Bolivia.

Cusco

Dinner with Anna und Benny (und Birgit) in Cusco.

Sacsaywaman

Inca stone work, I could not get my finger between the rocks.

                                                                                SALINAS

Another great spot to spend the night.

                                                                            PISAC

                                                                MACHU PICCHU

Günters view from the top

Sissis view from the Inca trail

El Condor

Camelidae

This reserve is on the wind-swept Peruvian coast, it is beautiful in its own way. Devoid of much vegetation it consists of sandy hills and mountains, high cliffs, coves, bays and beautiful rocky islands. There are many seabirds breeding in these cliffs and sea lions hang out on the rocks offshore, we heard them and to us it is a very familiar sound.

Some overlanders avoid this park because it has had a bad reputation, robberies of campers were reported. We decided to go for it in spite of the stories and hoped that those robberies had been isolated incidents.

Driving to Paracas you pass through the town of Pisco, made famous by the drink. Pisco (destilled wine) it is mixed with lime or lemon juice,  egg-white and sweetened with cane syrup to make a ” Pisco Sour”. Lots of fishing boats lined the beach and even more were on anchor offshore. At closer look we saw, that there were hundreds of large fishing boats ( purse seiners) out there, waiting to unload. At night, they fish for anchovies and other small fish along the coast and sell it to the huge fish meal-oil processing plants that line the road to Paracas. It smells so bad it takes your breath away, we could still smell it when we were already at the park entrance.

The salmon farms in Chile and other countries, as well as other aquaculture factories are in need of this product.

But there are different fishermen along this coast too. Small one man operations, they are the dive fishermen. We talked to them and were amazed at how hard they have to work for so little,

with leaky neoprene outfits in the cold water. They pry limpets from the rocks, spear fish for octopus, collect sea cucumbers and harvest sea weed. They show up in the morning and disappear in the waves, in the afternoon they bring in their catch, clean, sort, pack it in big bags and head to town. On two different occasions we helped them get their trucks started and were rewarded with fresh seafood. The limpets made delicious ceviche, the little corvina tossed in for good measure. So we had company at our camp site, got “high fives” from them and felt secure.

Hiking the cliffs of the park was just amazing, the boobies had fledglings in their nests and were busy feeding their hungry offspring. You could sit on the edge of the cliff and watch for hours.

The fishermen had a trail down to the beach, it was steep and treacherous, I would not attempt it without my trekking poles. They on the other hand hike up and down this trail with heavy bags of their harvest barefoot – and never miss a step.

On the third day we decided to drive south through the park on the road that looked like a regular road on the map . After we passed some beautiful bays and many sand dunes the “road” disappeared and we just followed the tracks of the trucks the seaweed harvesters had made. Finally we were at wit’s end and decided to back track. We hate to backtrack and Günter kept saying “could have..should have” but really, there were 35 km of sand dunes without a road ahead of us and this was the prudent thing to do.

It was time to head up to Cusco and go to Machu Picchu, my cousins daughter  and friends were on their way to Peru, backpacking and trekking,  and we wanted to meet up in Cuzco.

Seiners waiting to unload their catch.

can you see our home down there?

Peruvian boobies

watching the boobies below

Cormorants

turkey vultures standing by

towing the fishermens truck to get it started

seaweed harvest

sea cucumbers for Asia

pulpo

limpets for ceviche, our reward for helping out

oyster catcher

Let the pictures give you an idea of the road through the eastern Cordillera Blanca. It took us two days.

Portachuelo Pass

Top of the pass

In high altitudes flowers seem so make do without a stem.

The lillies smelled wonderful and she liked them too.

Orange wool !

Some of the highest mountains in South America are part of the Cordillera Blanca most are more than 6000 m high and loom majestically over steep green valleys that are dotted with little settlements inhabited by the descendants of pre Columbian people and the Incas.

The mountains are draw for climbers, trekkers and hikers all over the world.

We left the coast and drove up to Caraz by way of the Canon the Pato, a one way paved road with lots of little tunnels. From Caraz, quiet little farming town that specializes in growing berries and carnations, a small dirt road winds its way up to a beautiful lake surrounded by all those famous mountains. Laguna Paron (4200 m ) is as picturesque as it can get and we decided to spend the night by the lake. The high altitude does not bother our sleep anymore and waking up to the aquamarine lake surrounded by snow-covered peaks is an unforgettable experience. We hiked to the end of the lake, an easy hike with great vistas.

Laguna 69 is another nice hike in the area, we camped in a field with cows near the trail head. The hike is very popular, so Günter got up early the next day and hiked up by himself. I stayed near the camper and watched the water fowl and viscachas (rabbit like animal with long tail, related to the chinchilla)near laguna Llanganuco. The drive over to the eastern side of the range was beautiful and long. Small dirt roads led through little towns, up passes, down canyons, it seemed like it took us forever to get to the ruins of Chavin de Huantar. In one particular town we saw several harps on the porch, it must have been a musical town, however, we did not see or hear anybody playing and the people were quite shy.

The ruins are not much to look at when you get there, but the interesting part is underground which was just fine since it had begun to rain. As we wandered through the underground rooms and hallways we finally found “Lanzon de Chavin”, the mystical obelisk 4,5 m high. It made us stop and think for a while. The ruins were a ceremonial center from a major cultural period around 1200 BC to 500 BC, long before the Incas. Chavin also has a nice museum and Querco thermal baths which we visited on a Monday, after the cleaning. We had a large tub that could hold a family and soaked in the sulphury water, it was great.

One of our tires was giving us a lot of troubles, it had been patched four times and still kept leaking air. We drove to Huaraz, the hiker/climber/trecker/mountain biker hub, to get the tire fixed yet again. We did not like that town and left as soon as we could, we read in our guide about a plant that grows only in a few places in the area. The grow in the valley that leads up to Nevado Pastoruri, the plant, Puya Raimondii is in the pineapple plant family and can grow to 7 m high, it matures late in life, can reach to proud age of 100 years and blooms only once. Its high stalk bursts with thousands of white flowers that buzz with humming birds, other birds and insects. We hiked up to the glacier and then spent the night in the midst of these majestic plants, something you can only do if you travel the way we do.

Lima was our next destination, we decided now to just get a set of new tires and were hoping that in a big city like Lima we can find the size we need.

Camping in Caraz

Live guinea pigs for sale

Carnations in Caraz

LAGUNA PARON:

Driving up to Laguna Paron

A room with a view

Günter coming down

LAGUNA 69:

Andean geese

Camping with the cows

CHAVIN DE HUANTAR RUINS:

We camped by the ruins, this picture was taken from the camper window.

Puya Raimondii

Puya Raimondii, the worlds largest bromeliad. It looks like this for at least 40 years. Grows only in an altitude between 3000 m and 4800m.

When it decides to bloom the spike grows to a height of 9–10 m, with more than three thousand flowers and six million seeds in each plant.