Month: February 2025

I heard someone describe Arequipa as ‘the prettiest city in Peru’. That isn’t exactly how we’d describe it. Like most cities in Peru (in Latin America, for that matter), there is a picturesque colonial centre surrounded by ugly rings of auto parts shops, junkyards, clogged roads and slums.

Still, it’s the second largest city in the country, so we stop in for a few days.

Many of the building are built of distinctive whitish stone called sillar.

Our hotel has a tortoise in the garden named Lolo. He is surprisingly entertaining.

In the background here is the El Misti volcano. The linked article gives way more information than any normal person would want to know, but what we find interesting are the Inca mummies they have found on the top. Human sacrifices, experts reckon, of children to the mountain. The Gods everywhere and in all times demand blood.

Of literary interest is the birthplace of Mario Vargas Llosa, a Nobel Prize-winning Peruvian novelist. The museum contains very well-done multimedia presentations of different epochs of the writer’s career. (All in Spanish.)

I remember in about, oh, 1980 I was in New Zealand and met a well-read South American. I asked if he could recommend a few Latin American authors. He provided the names Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia), Jorge Amado (Brazil), and Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru).

We do a day trip to the Colca Canyon. There are some really high mountains along the way.

This area is popular with climbers and hikers. This time, we opt for the one-day bus tour.

A brief stop in the village of Maca.

There are the usual ladies trying to thrust their baby alpacas into your arms. They don’t seem to have a problem if you simply take a photo of them holding the alpaca.

We stop in a place called the Mirador del Condor, where you might catch a glimpse of a condor, if you’re lucky.

It’s a long day trip that begins in the middle of the night. We are happy to be heading back to town.

Next stop is Nazca. Our go-to bus line in Peru is Cruz del Sur. They are super-safe and comfortable.

It takes about ten hours to get to Nazca, on the Pan-American Highway. There’s a lot of magnificent scenery along the way.

Much of the trip features the Pacific Ocean on one side and sheer, rocky outcrops on the other.

The photos are blurry because they were taken through a bus window. Sorry.

It’s a great shame that this marvelous scenery is marred by truly staggering amounts of garbage on the side of the road.

Late that evening, we arrive in Nazca. Nazca is the home of the famous Nazca Lines.

The only way to appreciate these is to fly over them in a small plane.

One of the more, um, original people on our flight is Peter, from the Czech Republic. He doesn’t speak a word of Spanish or English, but we manage to communicate using a combination of mime skills and Google Translate.

And so we take off. At least half of the clients suffer from air sickness.

Everybody manages to suffer without any actual vomiting, so that’s OK. The problem is, the aircraft has to do a lot of maneuvering so that both sides get to see the lines. (Or ‘geoglyphs‘, as they are known in Institutes of Higher Larnin’.)

I’ve been fascinated by these even from the ridiculous Erich von Däniken days.

They are unique and quite incredible. Who came up with the idea of making these creations, and why?

The truth is, nobody knows, although I’m sure many academic careers have been founded on theories and speculation.

To quote Wikipedia: ‘Determining how they were made has been easier than determining why they were made.’

There are over 700: we manage to see 23. No wonder for some people, studying these is their life’s work.

Pretty amazing stuff. We hope they can survive the – seemingly impossible-to-stop – onslaught of overpopulation that is beginning to encroach on the area of the lines

An overnight bus takes us to Lima.

Our accommodation is in the Miraflores neighbourhood of Lima. Both visitors and inhabitants flock to Miraflores rather than risk their lives in the increasingly run down, dangerous and impoverished historical centro.

There is civilized life in abundance here. In a park, people from all walks of life pair up and dance, just for fun.

Now this is the very height of civilization: Miraflores has a parque de gatos.

Scores of kitties are well looked after by volunteers.

We have our own resident cat in the hotel.

One day, we visit the Museo de Oro. Less famous than its namesake in Bogotá, it still has nifty stuff.

Besides its admirable collection of pre-Columbian artifacts, it also has thousands of weapons, armour, and military uniforms, unfortunately in a state of neglect and decay. That’s what happens when you bequeath your collection to the Peruvian government. (In comparison, see the magnificent Larco Museum below. We’re certain that the dead hand of government has no part in its excellence.)

Another day, we venture into the centro.

It’s safer in the daytime, with lots of people around.

There is some kind of fiesta going on, with groups representing, we guess, different barrios in town on parade.

We come across a Casa de la Literatura Peruana in a transformed train station. Very impressive. We should have one of these in Canada.

Another museum we visit is the Museo de Arte de Lima (MALI for short). It is surprising well-curated, popular, and well-run, unlike the dysfunctional snake pit that is the National Gallery of Canada.

Sight or Insight of the Day

In Lima, we visit the incomparable Larco Museum. This museum is, at the very least, on par with the one in Santiago. Descriptions are given in half a dozen languages. The English is perfect. It’s obvious that there are powers beyond the Government of Peru at work here.

By far the largest number of exhibits are pre-Inca. Maybe it’s something in the water, but Peru had many cultures that had cities, surplus produce, and highly skilled specialists centuries – even millennia – before the Incas. Especially in ceramics and textiles, we’re talking about ancient Egyptian levels of perfection here.

For instance, the wrinkly guy portrayed here even has a nose that’s slightly askew for verisimilitude.

These ceramics are thought to be authentic portraits of the subjects.

Most of the items were found intact in graves. Fortunate that the Spanish never found them, otherwise it’s probable they would not have survived.

Other material goods are just as impressive. In comparison, the products of the indigenous people in North America often resemble the output of a pre-school art project. Maybe it’s the rarified atmosphere up here.

The Cusco area is home to one of the great wonders of the world: the fabled citadel of Machu Picchu.

Yeah, no – we didn’t go there.

In this day and age, you have to plan your visit to Machu Picchu weeks – if not months – in advance, such is its popularity. The only way to make an impromptu visit (we are told) is to wake up in the middle of the night, take a bus to a train to a bus and try to finely coordinate this with a pre-purchased visit timeslot. We don’t make plans that far in advance because our rambles are – Ta-dah! – random rambles.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter much for a couple of reasons. There is now a Machu Picchu Museum in Cusco itself. When Hiram Bingham first brought the world’s attention to Machu Picchu in 1911, he hauled a lot of artifacts back to Yale University. A century later, they have been returned to Peru.

Secondly, we have both been to Machu Picchu before, 40 years ago. (Separately, but who knows, we might have crossed paths at that time.) If a visit here is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, we’ve had ours.

There is plenty to see in Cusco itself.

Our hotel is in a colonial-era building. It supports a charity that benefits street children in Cusco.

There are lots of cobblestone lanes to wander around in.

We marvel at the ingenious Inca stonework that we see throughout the centro. You can’t slip a piece of paper between the joints.

Being such a tourist town, this means someone is always shoving a restaurant menu or a tour brochure in your face. And they don’t stop after you politely say ‘No, thanks.’

It’s a small price to pay for access to people-watching opportunities in town.

The Convent of Santo Domingo is built on the ruins of the Inca treasury temple of Coriconcha.

The Incas didn’t get to enjoy their empire for very long. From its founding to the Spanish conquest (1438 to 1533), they had less than a century of lording it over subject peoples before becoming subjects of conquerors even more empire-hungry than themselves.

The weather is coolish. For a change, we wear the heavier items in our limited wardrobe.

A common sight is the Inca Kola delivery truck.

Almost every street corner has women offering to let you have your photo taken with their pompom-bedecked alpacas. It’s hard to resist.

Cusco Cathedral is the most prominent edifice on the main square. It’s built atop the ruins of an Inca temple, like most churches in Cusco.

The Convent of Santa Catalina is now a museum of the monastic life. A few nuns still live here.

Not surprisingly, we see a lot of religious stuff in heavily-catholic Peru. This symbol appears above many doors. According to some, ‘IHS’ stands for ‘Iesus Hominum Salvator’, that is, ‘Jesus, saviour of mankind’ in Latin. According to others, the name Jesus, spelt ΙΗΣΟΥΣ in Greek capitals, has the abbreviations IHS (also written JHS, IHC, or ΙΗΣ).

Por qué no los dos?

Some kind of hubbub agitates a crowd of indigenous women in town.

A coffee break turns into indulgence in a fancy dessert, complete with edible flowers.

One day, we join a full-day tour of the Sacred Valley. It looks a bit like Austria from afar.

An instant improvement is to include ourselves in the photo.

The first stop is Pisac.

Pisac, like many Inca towns, is built on top of a mountain, surrounded by intensely-cultivated terraces.

You still see traces of these terraces all over the Andean region (that is, the former Inca empire.) Most of them are no longer used.

There was an extensive cemetery here that was looted by the Spanish. No great surprise there.

After lunch, we visit Ollantaytambo. It’s another steep climb. Our guide incentivizes us by telling us part of a story, then promising to reveal the result at the next level. It works.

When I was here last, we joined the Inca Trail here. I vaguely remember hiking up these steps with a full backpack.

These enormous slabs are said to be a ‘temple of the sun’. Our guide tells us that this is in doubt. That’s the problem with pre-literate cultures: without a written language to record things, all history is legend, old wive’s tales, and ‘oral tradition’ usually involving talking animals – nothing is concrete.

We read somewhere that each of these slabs weighs 50 tons.

Next stop is Chinchero, which like many places in Peru still has an active textile-weaving culture.

I’m personally fascinated by the Tom Mix hats that so many local ladies wear.

We get a demo on the production of textiles in the area. For more information on what looks like a dollhouse in the background, see the ‘Sight or Insight of the Day’.

There are also Inca ruins in Chinchero. As usual, a church has been built on top of the demolished Inca structure.

This method of stone construction proved to be good protection against earthquakes, which this part of the world has a lot of.

Sight or Insight of the Day

A lot of people don’t know this*, but in Peru, Guinea pigs are food, not pets.

*I’m borrowing this phrase favoured by Donald Trump. He uses it whenever he learns something new that he assumes nobody else knows either, even if it’s commonly known or obvious. There are many, many things that Donald Trump doesn’t know. Because he’s an idiot. Or should I say ‘A lot of people don’t know this, but Donald Trump is an idiot’?

This is true throughout the Andean region. Guinea pig, or cuy, is served up piping hot in cuyerias everywhere. We can’t help but see them as cuddly pets. Such is the strength of food prejudices the world over.

At one time, when much younger, if someone dared me to sample this, I would say ‘Here, hold my beer’. Being much older and a little wiser, that’s now a hard ‘nope’.

Lake Titicaca is the ‘highest navigable lake in the world’, according to some. (Have we mentioned our wry distrust of superlatives?) It’s shared between Bolivia and Peru.

We take a bus from La Paz to the Bolivian lakeside port of Copacabana.

At San Pedro de Tiquina, we disembark while our bus is ferried across a channel on the way to Copacabana.

We eventually arrive in Copacabana. What is the connection between this Copacabana and the more glamorous beach in Rio de Janeiro?

I’m glad you asked. After a bit of research, it turns out that this is the original Copacabana, involving statues of the Virgin rather than beachgoers in skimpy clothing. Huh. You learn something every day.

This is the Basilica of Our Lady of Copacabana, where the good lady resides.

Stalls outside the church sell items asking Our Lady for relief from many ailments.

We take a two-hour boat ride to the Isla del Sol.

At the landing point on the island are some Inca ruins.

As soon as you step off the boat, you’re faced with a daunting climb up a seemingly never-ending set of steps. It’s been like this since we entered the Andean zone: puffing away like geriatrics, shuffling slowly uphill while trying to breathe the thinnest of air. (Isla del Sol sits at 3976 metres above sea level.)

Once you’re on top, you get good views of the lake.

This is Teodora, the host of our homestay.

I try to make friends with the local animals.

We walk to the Temple of the Sun, also known as Pilkokaina.

As usual, the learned guesses about the history and usage of this place are just that; guesses.

We see the boat we came in on heading back towards Copacabana.

When we return to town, we board a bus for Puno, in Peru.

Puno is a small city with a pleasant colonial plaza and surrounding streets.

Everyone in town is preparing for the Candelaria, which is apparently big thing in Puno.

Our plan is to visit the island of Taquile. Maria came here with her sister Lucia 40 years ago, when they were young and adventurous. (They still are, in many ways.) It was pretty rugged then, and is still relatively unvisited.

On the way, we stop off at the Uros Islands. These don’t strike us as some kind of cultural achievement.

We just find the floating island life to be poor and squalid. It doesn’t look like a good life, even from their viewpoint. We can’t wait to leave.

The most interesting thing: a floating general store arrives, and the locals line up to make their purchases.

After climbing yet another Hellishly steep set of steps, we are met by our homestay hostess, Dinah, who spins wool while walking and talking to us. Taquilenos are famous for their skill in textiles, and have some kind of UNESCO cultural certification to prove it.

We succumb to the magnetic pull of the local craft market.

People here speak Quechuan – the language of the Incas – and Spanish.

There are no cars on the island. Picturesque adobe houses line the pedestrian alleys.

The main square is the red-hot centre of the village.

There are Inca ruins at the highest point of the island. Of course, we have to go. So we plod ever higher until the trail runs out, wheezing and panting.

As usual, we’re rewarded with a spectacular view.

Plus, we get to take a long break.

On our final day, we find the beach. It looks like a fine beach, and Maria is eager to take a dip in Lake Titicaca, but we have to make it back to the other side of the island for the boat back to Puno.

The departing boats leave from a different location than the arriving boats.

Finally, the route to the departure dock is all downhill.

To ensure we don’t get lost, we are accompanied by our ten-year-old guide, Elisabet (Dinah’s daughter).

Sight or Insight of the Day

While departing from and arriving to the docks at Puno, we notice a large ship berthed nearby.

This is, like, an ocean-going vessel. We wonder how it got here, since there are no ship-building establishments on the lake. We can make out her name, ‘Ollanta’.

It turns out she was made in England – Hull, to be exact – in 1931. According to Wikipedia:

 “…they assembled her in their shipyard with bolts and nuts, marked each part with a number, and then disassembled her into many hundreds of pieces and sent her to Peru in kit form.” 

The pieces were brought to the lake by rail and re-assembled. She appears to be in pretty good shape for a ship that’s nearly a century old.