Chachapoyas - Kuelap Archaeological Monument - Gotca Waterfall: 24/01 - 26/01

Well despite being touted as ´The Northern Cuzco´, Chachapoyas is small, clean, friendly and relatively gringo-free. Due to being high in the mountains it has a beautiful climate and is surrounded by a vast array of pre-Incan and Incan ruins, hence the comparisons with Cuzco. The journey there was pleasant enough - I arrived before dawn and waited until light to find my hostel and sleep some more. After waking I explored the town by foot, introducing myself to other travellers and watching the town-wide water balloon fight unfold. I wasn´t too happy when one bombarded me - I wouldn´t have been so grouchy I think if I could have thrown one back¡

The next day I rose at 330am to catch the bus to the Kuelap ruins, ancient home of the pre-Incan Chachapoyans. I arrived at the designated spot at 355am, but the bus had left already. Awesome. Thanks you nangers. Oh well, sleep a little more and tag along with Claire from Melbourne´s group who were leaving at 830am. After the pre-requisite pfaffing two cars headed down into the valley, winding our way on relatively good roads next to a gushing brown river to the steep ascent to Kuelap. We then tested our cars shocks on the rocky and muddy road through several small towns before reaching Maria, a town with hostels & restuarants, at one of which we got out, was offered fish, chicken or vegetarian, chose but then continued on the further 20 minutes to the ruins - lunch was for after.

At approximately 3000m, the Kuelap fortress was strategically placed to ensure panoramic views of potential siege routes, and as such gave awesome views of the surrounding mountains which were clad in light green cloud forest & checkered with crops like potato and bananas. We hiked a little up to the fortress - the 6 hectare site is protected by a 20m high stone wall, much of which is the original unrestored wall that between 800 and 1300 AD took the Chachapoyan nation hundreds of years to build with the stone being carried from hundreds of kilometres away. Inside were round stone houses, ceremonial ritual and burial sites and shamanic sectors dedicated to different sacred animals such as puma, jaguar, condor and snake. These ruins are in varying states, with entire sections standing in their original state and others being rebuilt with mortar and other unauthentic materials. 40 llamas were introduced `for touristic purposes` by the government but also serve to maintain a trim lawn :) A lot of the native vegetation growing out of the fortress has been retained creating a misty jungle ambience. Our guide explained fake platforms that fell away to the abyss for encroaching enemies, described the shamanic rituals and furtively showed us the bones of Chachpoyan royalty hidden in the stonework because `you are a special group of tourists`. Wow! I knew I was special. A great place to visit, beautiful and peaceful and very interesting. Our guide also informed us we were a few of 4500 visitors to Kuelap each year. Macchu Picchu receives 4000 a day.

The next day we rose early to get to Gotca Waterfall, which makes the claim of being the 3rd highest waterfall in the world. With our friends from the day before including Paul from Norway we journeyed again some 2hrs to a small village whereby we hired a guide to walk us to the falls. The trek wound out through the wooded farmland on the side of the mountains and steadily into more solid cloud forest - at this altitude the temperature was beautiful. On our beautiful hour-long trek we were fortunate enough to spot 3 gorgeous Andean Cocks-of-the-Rock - I took several photos of the orange and black birds but none were very good - see above. Pretty cool, I did find it necessary to use the phrase "Rock out with your cock out", though.

Upon reaching the spectacular (even in low water season) Gotca, Paul and I both agreed we didn`t think it was the height it claimed to be, 768m. Norwegians are notorious for poo-pooing the Gotca claim to its height as Paul found out by reading a newspaper prior to going there, and he stayed true to form. Nonetheless it was insanely high, and we frolicked a little in the spray underneath, ate some lunch and returned to the peaceful village. From there we departed immediately for our connecting bus to Tarapoto from Pedro Ruiz, a small town 1 hr away. The journey passes through an amazingly scenic river valley with steep cliffs immediately above. Paul and I were left in Pedro Ruiz while the others returned to Chachapoyas.

The few days in peaceful Chachapoyas and its surrounds had calmed my inner rage about Peru - I definitely experienced Peru differently in those small towns.

Lima - Chiclayo - Chachapoyas: 22/01 - 24/01

The supposed best bus company in Peru, Cruz del Sur´s seats push your head forward making it very uncomfortable to sit in any way upright - you need to lean your chair right back to be comfortable. Still the journey north to large town/small city Chiclayo passed soundly enough. Upon getting there I quickly transferred my big backpack to the next bus company for my onward journey that night and headed to Lambayeque, home of Museum Tumbas Reales de Sipan.

This Museum houses amazing artefacts, pottery, jewelry and human remains from a culture around 1300 years old, the Mochicas. The aethestic style of their art is quintessially Peruvian and for me very evocative of damn pagan dirt-worshippers. The feature, the tomb of the Lord of Sipan was discovered in 1987, but the museum has been many years in the creation, and immerses visitors gradually into the spectacular and intriguing journey to the afterlife the Mochicas created for their dead Lord. They used gold, silver and copper to form almost prohibitively large and ornate jewelry for his decoration, and buried 8 people, a few llamas and a dog with him. Of course they incorporated their multi-deity religion and worship of nature in these works. These pieces would be worth millions, considering only the human remains and final crypt diorama are reproductions. It was indeed impressive; of course no photos sorry¡

I was not intending to write this next rant into this blog, but after having one last dishonest and despicable experience where two robbers attempted to take my bag by distracting me in Chiclayo, I will. On a side note they weren`t very smart or good - they tried it on when i had an open knife in my hand and weren´t particular fast once i gave chase, dropping the bag.

I did not know it was possible to hate a place so much as Peru. Which is interesting, considering the romantic ideals one might have of it sitting comfortably in Australia reading a coffee table book. The place is a festering wound that exudes the filth of failed capitalism. Essentially everyone`s life revolves around money, and from my perspective it seems the idea of community building is non-existent. To be fair there is community here and in many ways people are closer and more accepting of each other than in Australia - people help each other in their daily lives and families are very close. Well, they have to be as most families live under one roof, even in Lima.

But the crux of the situation is $, and the Peruvian view of gringos as having an inexaustible supply of it. I have never been approached and/or solicited by so many people or by such a variety of people. Taxi drivers, shoe shiners, beggars, trinket and junk food vendors, tour operators, pimps, prostitutes, money changers, restaurant and nightclub operators and many who were combinations of the above.

But what pisses me off the most is that many don`t think twice before lying through their teeth to you. The other part that disgusts me is the role of men in society and how they sleaze themselves onoto women, particularly Western women. Again lying is perfectly acceptable in their view, but it doesn`t stop there. Direct sexual harassment and stalking is also normail behaviour. This would not be quite as bad if the same privileges were afforded to the women also. Shy, quiet and intended to be seen and not heard, women also are expected to perform the most menial jobs without complaint. In the streets their men hold them protectively, showing others that `this one´s taken`. Many guide books warn travellers about this `machismo` and advise women to ignore it - this seems like a cop out to me, considering the amount of money Peru makes from tourism I think some more direct pressure should be put upon the government to educate people on some more acceptable global norms regarding this and the general harassment I mentioned before. Yes, I just sent this rant to the Peruvian government aswell. It certainly has put me off coming back to Peru if I can help it (except that I have to to get to Buenos Aires :)

So after almost being robbed I got on the overnight bus to Chachapoyas, or ´The northern Cuzco´.

Inti Fest, Playa Asia - Lima: 16/01 - 22/01

So Katie and I were going to Inti Fest. We caught the local bus to the official ´Inti Bus´not far from Miraflores, but soon discovered that organisation was not one of the things included in the price of the ticket. There was no one there, and we chased some wild geese around the block for a while until someone finally came and brought us to the bus which wasn´t where it was supposed to be. There we waited for another 2hrs over time for more people for the bus, playing hackey-sack to the staring uni-crowd at Ricardo Palma Universidad. Alfredo Benavides is a very busy road, yet we saw this guy pushing his load along in the traffic; top job son. Three wheels good, four wheels bad.

The trip to Playa Asia went well enough, but to get there we had to stop and ask for directions multiple times - remember this is the official festival bus¡ When we arrived we soon discovered that we couldn´t get in... why¿ Security didn´t know, of course, but I soon deduced that it was because the (dis)organisers had not yet put up their VIP vs. general admission exclusion zones. So we had to wait until 7pm to get in - the flyer advertised a 1pm start. In the meantime we set a tent, swum in the cool sea and watched the sunset.

Inti Fest was set up with the sound in mind. Three distinct areas all equipped with face-melting sound systems kept the punter dancing, moving and interested. There were indigenous artisans selling wares, indigenous performers from the Andes and illuminated plastic bottle sculptures. Cleaners also scrounged bottles for recycling. The self-professed ´ecological festival´ was however not so good at promoting other values like responsible drinking, reducing consumerism and a local economy, with large alcohol and energy drink corporations erecting all kinds of advertising and 10 metre-high inflatable Jagermeisters (like that one Thiess young-uns¿). Of course groups of young girls clad in not much advertised things like Listerine and Burn energy drink. We were also not allowed back out to our tent once we entered.

However the music was brilliant. Highlights included Barem from Argentina and Nick Curly from Germany, who along with many other local and international DJs immersed us in thick funky house, bass-driven minimal and trippy deep house. The crowd was young - I saw many young girls there that could not have been 18. We met several locals and a few different international fellow ravers. Katie boogied on until the wee hours, then retired to the tent. My feet were made for dancing however and I sweated it out until 4am. By that stage I was noticing the tell-tale signs of many lost souls in the crowd - people whose drugs have worn off and are now looking to anyone or anything but themselves for salvation.
´Where are my friends¿´ , ´Why don´t I want to dance anymore¿´, ´I´m not really enjoying myself but I just can´t leave´. Hehehe.

The next morning´s return to Lima was predictably not straightforward. Where was the IntiBus we were promised for 10am¿ Rhetorical question, sorry. We caught 3 separate buses to eventually arrived back at our hostel. Great weekend - the dark photo with a bit of blue is a performer suspended 5 or so metres above the ground on a cloth rope in acrobat poses.

So for the next five days I essentially did nothing, wandering listlessly eating mangoes through the familiar streets of Miraflores, enjoying the ambience created by the same multi-variety low-quality car alarms sounding off at every street corner. I passed a day in Barranco, the cool suburb. I saw lots of movies. Lots of people stared at me - I know I´m hot, but hey, come on, even models get sick of being the centre of attention all the time, right¿. Some laughed also, I assume because of my hair - like I said its a very conservative, Catholic society over here, even in the heart of touristy Lima. Glad to be on my way.

La Merced - Lima: 10/01 - 15/01

I caught the night bus to La Merced, along with a bus-full of locals. The first 2 hrs of the trip were essentially spent getting out of Lima. Poor slum-like barrios extend all the way to the Andes with hundreds of people out on the streets trying to make a living late into the night selling whatever junk people will buy, generally processed sweet things. Occasionally absurdly shiny shopping centres punctuated the poverty. I slept through most of the climb through the Andes, waking only to have to catch my breath due to the altitude. In Tarma it was freezing outside with snow,but soon after we began a steep fast descent into the Amazon. We reached La Merced at 6.30am.

From near the bus terminal I called the out-of-town hostel where I wanted to stay. The dueña (owner) spoke to me in very rapid Spanish, but I managed to understand she intended to pick me up from the terminal where I was. There I waited for over 2hrs. Exasperated I called her back to find out she had gone to the wrong bus terminal despite me clearly stating the name twice. She then described the way to get there by taxi, but by that point I was pretty much beaten. I decided not to stay but to go back to Lima that night.

As such I left my bag at the terminal and wandered around La Merced, where taxis had been replaced by mototaxis, which are from what I understand very similar to tuk-tuks, being three-wheeled 2-stroke motorbike with a two-person passenger seat in back. The instruction manual that comes with them obviously stated it was entirely necessary to beep your horn at every intersection, preferably twice.

La Merced sits at about 600m latitude and as such retains a livable temperature and humidity - on this day it was raining lightly. I climbed to the town mirador to a rather unspectacular view of the surrounding mountains, town and gushing brown river. After staying a little I descended the hill, observing a pet monkey in someone´s house and then spending the rest of the day in town. While searching for food I came across a menu with many foreign carnes like peccary and I think tapir, jungle bushmeats brought in to impress the tourists - locals couldn´t afford it generally. The names were in Spanish (or Quechua, I´m not sure) so I couldn´t tell what they all were. I also saw a lady selling roasted quail eggs from a trolley, complete with the quail in a cage underneath.

The passage back to Lima passed similarly to the journey there, and I arrived back in Lima early at a new hostel. There I met Joe the Dutch anarchist, who had just travelled 4500km around South America in a mototaxi to raise money for poor children in Bolivia. This included crossing the Andes and some very dodgy roads. I also met Alex the Frenchman, who had bike toured through South Africa and Namibia, where there is little but desert, and also Ricardo the Columbian, who appeared to be travelling in my direction north to Columbia.

The next day we explored the historical centre including the Plaza de Armas and the San Franciscan Church. Dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi, the church was contructed in 1533, and has been restored and renovated over the centuries due to such factors as thieves, the elements and earthquakes. Interior designs take influence from Islamic culture and of course the Spanish and Italian renaissance period. Many local Peruvian artists have contributed frescos and paintings of Jesus, Francis and other important figures, again during the 19th and 18th centuries. My highlight was the fantastically gothic library on two levels complete with ornate spiral staircases and 400-year old tomes. We then explored the catacombs under the cathedral, including the skeletons of an estimated 25,000 people - the bones were on display for us to see. Exploring the maze-like tunnels (with 500 year old dust) revealed dry wells with skulls and femurs laid out in arrangement and a myriad of secret entrances. Apparently there is a network of catacombs under the historic centre linking the Presendential palace and other churches. Present-day San Fransiscan monks are still buried in the crypts.

My new hostel was not to my liking and I transferred the next day to yet another. There I met some Swedish students on exchange studies studying NGO´s in Lima and Peru, like Oxfam and Conacami, an organisation against the mining and logging industry. I also met Katie from New Zealand. Katie and I soon discovered we both had a long time to kill in Lima - she waiting for her flight home and I for my credit card. Together we explored other tourist attractions like the 2700-year old pyramid ruins of the Lima culture where we learnt much about this ancient culture and saw some hairless Peruvian dogs. Made from adobe bricks, these ruins were privately owned until 1974 - before that over 60% was lost to surrounding housing development... absolutely criminal. We also explored bohemian Barranco on the sea and Parque de la Reserva, a park filled with locals and tourists experiencing thoroughly modern computer controlled water fountains, jetting water up in various forms, shapes, directions and speeds.

The next day while showing Katie the San Fransiscan Church we saw a protest near the Presidential palace. There riot police were harassing and pushing 2 or 3 older, unarmed people all the way out of the square while they protested about what seemed to be a missing person situation. This epitomised Peru for me - a barely masked police state repressing dissent, freedom of speech and the health of the majority of the population, and helped to solidify the dislike I was feeling for the country, particularly Lima.

Lima: 05/01 - 09/01

Lima is beautiful... but insane - not retarded hot, but crazy hot. Actually it´s not that hot at all considering the latitude - an almost permanent cloud layer hovers above the city at this time of year which, combined with a sea breeze, makes for excellent temperatures and livability. After messy Buenos Aires I certainly didn´t expect it to be so rich or clean in Miraflores where I stayed, with all the modern services a consumer could need like gigantic department stores and supermarkets. Their perfectly manicured parklands are best enjoyed on the cliffs next to the ocean with beautiful vistas to the sea. Strolling through the safe streets reveals fine European architechture combined with a swanky yuppie and backpacker scene. It is definitely a city of contrasts. My way into town from the south passed dusty ramshackle slums the like of which house the vast majority of the seven million inhabitants while the elite live it up at shopping centres like Larcomar, built into the cliffside, complete with cinema, nightclubs, expensive cafes and restaurants overlooking the Pacific.

The roads are very dangerous here, drivers push their way into lanes, beep their horns at every second breath and WILL run you over on the street. There is essentially no train system and the busses are randomly-shaped and styled, poorly and incorrectly marked and almost as crazy as the taxis (which make up literally 50% of the traffic in the inner city).

My primary mission for coming to Lima was to get the rain jacket I had ordered from a US website. The shipping company and Peruvian customs decided I had to pay them $125US for the privelige of... nothing, really. The shipping was already paid for. So it was a ´import tax´and ´warehousing fee´. Great. Of course I became rather upset and subsequently the warehousing fee was dropped, so after a day of fretting and blaspheming I eventually paid the $75 to get it. I also spent the rest of my first few days what felt like pissing into the wind trying to cancel my credit card, order a new one and organise some emergency funds.

I finally got to play some basketball over here, defintely not a very commonly played sport - you see lots of hoops but not many hoopers. Considering my talent, it wasn´t a surprise that I beat the 11-year old boy... convincingly. He then asked me if I was from the NBA - not surprising either. Thanks for the game, Nicolas.

During this time while staying at my hostel I discovered a very cool looking beach rave party was going to happen on the 16th south of the city, with an eco-bent and many European and American tech-house DJ´s I knew and liked. http://intifest.com.pe/ So I decided to go. This meant either a long stay in Lima or a side trip, so I decided to head to the rainforest for the first time, in La Merced, about an 8-hour Andes crossing away. Windy roads, 4000m+ altitudes, oh joy.

Santiago - Arica - Tacna - Lima: 01/01 - 05/01

After a relatively quiet NYE I jumped on the next bus outta town to the north. Again I had a very comfortable trip listening to music and watching the landscape turn to desert. The Atacama is the driest desert on Earth, receiving an average of just 1mm of rain per year with some parts having never recorded rainfall.

" Bloody drought¡ That´s what it is. I remember when I was a boy it used to rain all day, every day. And now¿ Nothin´ Yeah, we´ve been in this drought for 30 years mate¡ "

So I´m glad I decided not to stop in northern Chile, because I don´t really like the desert. On the bus trip I luckily got to watch ´What Happens In Vegas´ again. This time though, it wasn´t a pirated copy of a Russian overdub in hilariously off-the-mark voices subtitled in Spanish, like on the journey from Puerto Madryn to Rio Gallegos. As such the 32 hour marathon journey passed relatively quickly. Towards the end we passed through gigantic desert valleys - there is nothing like this in Australia. There is literally no vegetation on huge steep hills dropping to a wide swathe of sand and rock within a trickle of green in the middle. The road snaked precariously in and out of these spectacular valleys, and at times I needed to pray to Veng-juho to ensure our safe arrival.

Upon arrival in dirt-poor (but certainly not dust-poor) Arica I quickly transferred to my hostel and hit the beach. Arica is one of Chile´s best surf spots, and I soon saw why. Even on the popular beach in town beautiful curlers came in all afternoon and I washed away my cares body-boarding in the seaweed-choked water with thousands of other international and Chilean holiday-makers. It was fantastic, and I soon decided to stay some more time.

Back at the hostel I challenged and lost to the resident table-tennis champ Roberto, a lovely guy, who has been made famous in his own hostel by the hundreds of graffitied thank-you notes on the walls. Most of them make liberal use of the words ´gay´and ´fuck´, for some reason. Indeed, the included breakfast is advertised as having ´no fucking schedule´. The next day I made full use of the beach morning and afternoon and the following day prepared to cross in Peru for Lima. This was not exactly straight forward.

OK - taxi to the bus terminal, find a collective taxi going to Tacna, check the price, get told I have to buy a ´boarding ticket´, whatever, wait 20min while the driver takes our ID´s to check in before we leave, drive to the Chilean exit, wait in line then get grilled for not having the exit ticket that the caribinero at El Bolson didn´t give me, passport stamped, drive to the Peruvian side, wait again, passport stamped, bags checked and scanned, wait, drive to Tacna, pay the cabbie, organise my bus to Lima that day, take out money, pay, pass time in Tacna (including yummy crepes), check passport again, get my bag and person metal detected before getting on the bus¡¡, hand over my pen-knife (for security... "Security¡¡"), drive a bit out of Tacna into Peru to get out again, get bags searched and scanned again, drive a bit more, stop, cop gets on bus, takes all our IDs, checks and returns them, finish the rest of the journey rather uncomfortably through more insanely dry desert complete with insane people actually living and working there, get pen-knife back, get off, eat, catch cab to hostel in Lima and lose my credit card somewhere along the way.