Travel blog: Arequipa, Colca Canyon and the Sacred Valley
Santa Catalina Monastery in Arequipa
Monday, 11, Aug 2008 11:16
Rhian Nicholson has swapped the bright lights of London for a three month journey across South America from the Pacific to the Atlantic coast. Here is her ninth blog entry:
Travel into the old Inca heartland of central Peru and it's not long before a combination of altitude and more mummies, ruins and penas (traditional Andean evenings of food, music and dance) than you can throw a very large stick at start to do strange things to your brain.
We're talking Inca children sacrificed on Mount Ampato in a last ditch effort to appease the gods; crumbling Inca settlements set high in the stunning Sacred Valley; and indigenous people dressed in elaborate costumes twisting and twirling to the sounds of twangy guitars and panpipes.
Arequipa, Peru's second largest city nestles in the shadows of the three massive peaks of El Misti, Chacani and Pichu Pichu.
It is home to one of the most well-known Inca figures - Juanita the Ice Princess whose world tours in her frozen coffin make her the Madonna of the archaeological world (admittedly without the singing and dancing).
After 500 years buried in an icy grave she made her debut in the modern world in 1995, her face and body almost perfectly preserved by the ice and cold.
Centuries older and looking like grotesque china dolls with long matted hair atop their creamy skulls, the mummies of the Chaucilla cemetery are the stuff of children's bedtime fears.
Dressed in rags and sitting huddled in the foetal position (apparently to facilitate their rebirth in the afterlife) in pits-come-open graves and surrounded by bones, skulls and ceramic objects, they would certainly make an impressive army of extras in any horror film worth its salt.
If you're going to sacrifice yourself to the gods then whiling away your days in the colonial oasis that is the Santa Catalina monastery in Arequipa is a fate far better than death.
Its cobbled streets and spacious terracotta courtyards are more reminiscent of a four star holiday resort than a place of quasi-religious devotion.
Outside, the shops lining the photogenic Plaza des Armas certainly put temptation in your path with enough alpaca wool goods and silver jewellery to give your bank manager a coronary.
Well, a girl can never have too many scarves - even if you've only got one neck and have to fork out for another bag to carry them in...
You'd think therefore that leaving the bright lights of the city for the barren landscape of the Colca Canyon would give your debit card a well earned breather. How wrong can you be?! Driving through the earthy wilderness - where herds of llamas, alpacas and vicunas (all big fluffy sheep-like things with long legs - it's not that easy to tell them apart) indulge their suicidal impulses by darting in front of the tourist buses - it's nigh on impossible not to cast your eye over the local handicrafts sold by indigenous women on the roadside.
And who can really resist stripey alpaca socks (essential for those cold Andean nights), woolly hats with ear flaps in a rather fetching llama pattern (useful for those cold Andean winter days) and intricately stitched woven bags (they're just pretty...) Souvenir shopping should come with a health warning.
Rather disturbingly the locals dress up their small children in traditional clothes and bring along their pet alpacas adorned with brightly coloured earrings and woolly coats for the tourists to photograph for the princely sum of one sol (20p).
And it all works well until they lose their cuteness factor and are shipped off to the local restaurants where they end their days on the menu turisticas (the alpacas not the children that is).
If you're going to get fully into the Peruvian spirit then mastering the art of squelching coca leaves around your mouth (you don't chew apparently) is a must.
A staple of Andean life the locals seem to have a wad permanently wedged into one cheek, savouring the juices that ward off hunger, tiredness and crucially altitude sickness - rather helpful when you're at 4,900 metres!
Unfortunately they also taste like an old dirt-encrusted slipper - drinking the coca tea or simply floating in the local hot springs watching the sunset over the mountains is far more pleasant and does the job just as well.
And why go to all this effort? Well, Colca Canyon is the world's second deepest with tiny houses perching on its jagged rust-coloured sides and shadows blackening the valley floor.
Although a few Andean people have braved the rather barren conditions to make it their home, it's far more popular with the condors who swoop, glide and torment the tourists with the faint possibility of getting a decent photo.
This is great if you're a bird watching fan, otherwise standing round for two hours in the freezing cold offers little reward for a 05:30 start.
Meanwhile in Cuzco, the old heart of the Inca empire, you're unlikely to be in bed before 05:30 whether you're psyching yourself up for the Inca trail or celebrating having made it to the end.
Nowadays the city centre is a frenetic hive of tourist activity with the shops lining the picturesque Plaza des Armas and its surrounding cobbled streets flogging souvenirs, Machu Picchu daytrips, any piece of outdoor equipment you may possibly need for the Inca trail and more restaurants and bars than the average person has liver cells.
And with all the free drink offers on every night of the week you can safely assume that you'll lose a few over the course of a couple of nights appreciating all the city has to offer.
But its biggest draw is its proximity to the Sacred Valley - a breathtaking mesh of snow-capped mountains, terracotta slopes and pale yellow farmland cut through by the turquoise Rio Urubamba and packed with Inca ruins.
Perched above Cuzco is Saqsaywaman - known to non-Quechua speaking tourists as Sexy Woman - once a huge fort that staged one of the bloodiest battles between the Spanish and Manco Inca.
When the Inca Patachutec originally built Cuzco he intended it to be in the shape of a puma (one of the Inca's most sacred animals along with snakes and condors) with Saqsaywaman as its head. Unfortunately with the urban sprawl over the centuries the shape of the city now more closely resembles a squashed badger.
Snaking down the road past more market stalls selling yet more handicrafts made of yet more alpaca wool, the town of Pisac leaps into view on the valley floor, its central plaza groaning under the weight of souvenir stalls.
The highlight, however, is not just getting that silver pendant for half the asking price. A steep climb up from the town lies a group of ruins that offer a spectacular panoramic over the valley below (and which more than justifies the rasping sound coming from your lungs).
Back in its heyday it used to be the administrative centre for the surrounding villages with a functioning water system, religious buildings made of polished stone and rougher rustic style buildings for everyday use. These were definitely rooms with a view...
Last stop en route through the Sacred Valley is the market town of Ollantaytambo. Its llama shaped ruins cover the steep valley sides with rocks still left where they were abandoned centuries ago when the arrival of the Spanish disrupted construction of the fort.
Nowadays it's swarming with tourists making the most of creature comforts before starting the Inca trail at KM82.
And indeed you'll never fully appreciate just how good that final hot shower actually was until you are two days into the trek...
Rhian Nicholson