The Further Adventures of Paddington

Sao Paulo in the morning light, a pale crust of houses and spiky skyscrapers washing up against green forested hills

A night sky so black and cold the stars blazed down brightly, each constellation strange and unknown

Distant volcanoes reflected on a mirror plain of turquoise water

Crystalline magic twinkling in the palm of my hand

Dunes towering over a dusty city full of crumbling, fallen bricks

Water falling so far and fast you can feel it with your whole body

A single toucan winging it’s way over tall jungle trees

Mists restlessly wreathing a ruined mountaintop Inca city

Hillsides of green terraces like giant’s steps

Streets filled with mad unpredictable anarchic traffic, pavements jammed with fruit hawkers, air choked with diesel fumes, houses rising like stacked blocks clinging to the steep sided valley

Pyramids made from millions of mud bricks

The smiling, welcoming, wrinkled old face of Peru

White shining peaks sharp against a bright blue sky

The sun breaking over far mountains in a river of lemon light across a vast lake

Wind whipping up dust and rubbish at the edge of town, train tracks converging in a hazy distance

Condors gliding past only yards above me, silently

Fresh guacamole and tortillas appearing from a tent in the Andean highlands – and a birthday cake

A chicken with no feathers

A glacier’s cold breath filling a high pass

A rock like a giant toad

People somehow still living at the edge of a stony wasteland, their possessions stacked under bamboo shades

The lined and worn face of old age and poverty

Grins of triumph at the end of a hard day’s trek

Butterflies painting the air with pulsing colour

An entire country seemingly covered in dust

Villages shining like jewels in the dark jungle

Boulders the size of a house

Unconcerned penguins

Silver glittering in the hot depths of a mine

An island carpeted with seabirds

The edge of the world, or so it seemed

Many, many guns – their metalwork pitted and polished with daily use

Friends met in unexpected places

Jungle valleys filled with flowers, streams and banana palms

Pacific rollers endlessly marching to attack the shore

Park guards whistling warnings to laughing children

The happy look that appears when chatting with someone far away on the phone

Lizards on a hot path

A herd of shaggy llamas and alpacas grazing their way across a high, cold grassy mountainside

Apachetas everywhere

A happy toddler in a basket on a mule on a mountain path in the early morning

A deep red sun setting over the crest of the dunes, the sand crunching under my boots

Here’s the first batch of pictures we took at the end of the Salkantay trek. Unfortunately, at the time of this post most of the actual trek pictures are still on their way by post from Colombia, so I’ll be posting them well out of sequence …

Here’s some atmospheric shots of the site emerging from the swirling clouds and mists, just after sunrise:

Lastly, a close up of the stonework near the temple of the Sun. This shows the rough placement of stones for ‘standard’ buildings, the better (but slightly wavy) stonework of important buildings and the smooth, straight stones of the temple:

More soon!

At last. With a pint of good English ale. Cheers!

Finally leaving Peru and South America. What a trip it’s been. Highs (literally 4650m) and lows (Bolivian buses with no loos). Wonderful to share it all with Katy, and all the travelling friends we’ve met on the way (hi there superhikers!). I know I’ll return one day, there’s still so much more to explore.

So it’s goodbye Peru, for now.

P.S. I never did spot a bear, I’ll look harder next time.

Getting places in Lima should be quite straightforward. At least it would be if it wasn’t for the sheer number of buses, collectivos, mototaxis and cabs that clog the streets. For a non-resident it’s quite hard to work out which bus to catch from where. There are bus stops, but most buses stop just about anywhere, the conductors hanging out the doors shouting unintelligible destinations in some local code. Some helpfully have the destination streets painted on the side of the bus so you can tell where you might have gone as it rattles past you at speed (drivers will be either aggressively accelerating or standing on the brakes, sometimes both).
The horn is also used expressively as follows:
a) Out of the way, I’m a bus!
b) Hey, I’m going through this red light anyway.
c) Do you want to get on this bus? If so I’ll immediately swerve across 2 lanes of traffic.
d) I’m overtaking you, rival slower bus, so watch out (accompanied by conductor making obscure hand gestures from the open door)
e) I haven’t used the horn in the last 19 seconds, so I better check it’s still working.
f) Everyone else is honking so I better join in too (optional: also flash headlights repeatedly)
g) I’m not going any further until at least one passenger gets on. Come on, there’s loads of you standing there, someone must want a ride???

As you can see, bus travel is always an exciting adventure in Peru.

Arrived in Lima at the end of a 21 hour bus ride from Cusco. Over the Andes during the night, with sunrise at Nasca, revealing the lines stretching straight across the stony plain. North along the Pan-American highway through the arid coastal desert – long Pacific breakers on one side, empty, sandy plain on the other backed by hazy mountains beyond.
Lima (well, Miraflores) is a suprise??? wide avenues, tall buildings and parks make it seem quite mediterranean. We visit the mud brick temple of Huaca Pucllana surviving amid the urban hi-rise landscape, then walk to the cliffs to watch the sunset over distant islands. A good day, I think.

Normal service was disrupted some days ago when we left for a 5 day trek,
which finished today when we arrived at Macchu Picchu to see a
cloud-swathed mountain-top Inca city revealed as the sun rose over the
surrounding peaks.
Wow.
That is all.

It’s been several days since we arrived in Cuso and it’s a very likeable city. Mostly compact and quite bustling. There’s a fair amount of gringo-tourist shops around of course, but it’s easy to walk and see beyond that. Small streets, narrow alleys between stone walls built from stolen inca masonry blocks, shadowy cafes, unexpected views across to the green mountains all around.

We laboured up the hill at the edge of town to see the ruined Sacsayhuaman complex, created with enormous hand hewn stonework and still standing despite being built with no mortar.

After Uyuni, we travelled across frankly terrible (but thankfully hidden in darkness) roads in buses of uncertain vintage to the mining town of Potosi, home to Cerro Ricco – the rich mountain. Unfortunately there are no photos of our visit into the mine, so we jump straight, via another rattling bus ride) to the city of Sucre in the central valleys of Bolivia.

Here are some photos of / from the mirador which looks out over the valley and city.

That’s nearly all from the Bolivia set, as our next stop was La Paz (already posted those) and then Copacabana and the Islas del Sol. I’ll post those if time allows.

Here, out of sequence are some photos of our very brief stay in La Paz. One night in fact but we packed a lot in.

First, a view from one of the main streets in La Paz up towards the shacks plastered on every slope of the hills surrounding the city.