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motodraconis
Peru and Bolivia were bloody brilliant.
Coca Tea - drink it for altitude sickness, not that I had any as such, just headaches on the first day in Cusco - but that was probably a combination of jet lag, lack of "Brown British" tea and altitude. (I was lucky though, one girl was puking for 24 hours.)
Funny thing the altitude, walk up a single flight of stairs or briskly round the corner of a street and suddenly you'd find your heart was pounding frantically fit to burst out of your chest and you're gasping for breath - a mite disturbing. Luckily you do aclimatize fairly rapidly, good thing too as I had a trek to Machu Picchu booked to do!
(Though I'd not recommend Peru as a holiday destination to anyone who ain't up to doing a heck of a lot of clambering up steps. And steps, and more steps. Loads of steps!)
Local Villagers come to the "big city" (Cusco) to trade at the special Christmas Eve Market.
Christmas Eve.
LLama girls
Woah!
Trekked for a day along the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, (not shown - that's Winay Wayna, a random site on the way.) A couple of years ago I'd mentioned to some of Badasses Rambling chums at a party of hers that I was going to go on a Rambling weekend, but I hadn't got any proper rambling kit or boots. Although it was just a day ambling through the fells near Glossop, they all acted like I WOULD DIE if I dared to attempt such a feat without proper boots. Well, I never did get any boots, or sticks or wotnot, and did the trek as usual in my ordinary semi-dressy trainer things, up many steps and crags, for a full day at high altitude and once again, quite failed to DIE or injure myself or otherwise fail horribly at walking. (Shrug.)
Humming Bird at Macchu Picchu
High Pass Point.
Reed Boats and floating man-made reed islands on Lake Titicaka.
Dried Toads at the Witches Market in La Paz (Bolivia) more pics from the market including dried Llama foetuses and a stuffed wildcat on Flickr.
Cute Guinea Pigs at a rural llama ffarma's home on the plateau.
Cooked Guinea Pig on New Years Eve. Yes, I did eat it - it was delicious! Succulent and tender.
Sillustani lake.
Ballestas Islands.
Fliying over the Nazca Lines. (There's notes on flickr if you find the shapes hard to see.)
More of course on Flickr.
I'll try and catch up with you all, but as usual, I have stacks of work to do.
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Date: 2008-01-07 11:27 pm (UTC)Super photos.
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Date: 2008-01-08 03:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-07 11:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-08 05:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-07 11:54 pm (UTC)hateenvy you so much.no subject
Date: 2008-01-08 05:07 pm (UTC)I dunno if they were having me on, but you should go and take some snaps there!
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Date: 2008-01-08 06:39 pm (UTC)I know, Macchu Picchu is one of my dream destinations. While the high altitude of the place itself probably won't be a problem, getting there will involve bad (for me) climates. How hot/humid is Peru?
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Date: 2008-01-08 10:48 pm (UTC)At high altitude, bright and sunny without being roasting (just right - though you need sunblock due to the thin air) but at night, cold.
No shortage of woollens on sale though! (I bought a Poncho, well it was Peru, I couldn't come away from Peru without a Poncho! And very snuggly warm it is too.)
In the Nazca desert, not so cold. Though still not unbearable (to me anyway.) Lima itself was very agreeable temperaturewise day and night, but photo-wise not worth bothering with.
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Date: 2008-01-08 11:02 pm (UTC)I really don't mind cold at night as long as it doesn't go above 25 during the day.
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Date: 2008-01-08 12:20 am (UTC)hatredenvy :)no subject
Date: 2008-01-08 05:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-08 12:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-08 05:08 pm (UTC)I think this a lot. ;-)
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Date: 2008-01-08 12:34 am (UTC)and it's a surprise that you ate one?????!!!!! never!!!! my ickle carnivore.
oooh I wanna go now... but Richard is slightly scared of heights :S
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Date: 2008-01-08 12:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-08 11:24 am (UTC)Richard would threaten to eat it at every given minute, maybe the rabbit would be off the hook then though *ponders*, probably not...
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Date: 2008-01-08 05:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-08 01:04 am (UTC)Those are amazing photos, and I bet far better to experience for real. I'm so jealous. I think once my health is a bit better, and N a little older, I'd really enjoy a hol out there.
The Nazca lines have always fascinated me, they must have been amazing to look at from the sky.
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Date: 2008-01-08 01:32 am (UTC)that first pic looks more like a videogame than real life to me!
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Date: 2008-01-08 05:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-08 05:36 pm (UTC)I was told that the best Alpaca wool comes from high altitude when the Alpacas can eat a particular type of grass ie, in Peru - but that might just be the Peruvians boasting!
Hot during the day, freezing cold at night though!
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Date: 2008-01-08 09:08 am (UTC)Quality photos.
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Date: 2008-01-08 05:17 pm (UTC)(Yeah, I ate llama and alpaca too.)
Have a Guanaco!
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Date: 2008-01-08 06:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-08 07:42 pm (UTC)I'm mystified by the Nazca Lines. I don't know if you ever saw it, but there was a French/Japanese anime called 'The Mysterious Cities of Gold' about conquistadors etc. that was on when I was a kid. I was obsessed with it, and they had the Nazca lines in that as a kind of landing area for a flying golden condor. I didn't realise that they were real until I was about 15, but they amaze me.
Hmmm, in typing that and going down nostalgia lane I actually forgot my point. But it was really relevant and important.
Honest...
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Date: 2008-01-08 11:02 pm (UTC)Curse you! I'm almost weeping with nostalgia at that clip, not to mention recogising one of the ruins they featured in the intro as the recently visited Tiwanaku in Bolivia.
I may have to buy the sodding DVD now, that and Ulysses 31 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ4c1X5ene8)
EDIT
OMG! Look what I've found. (http://movie-plus.com/projects/movie/gold.html)
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Date: 2008-01-08 11:32 pm (UTC)And Ulysses 31! I'd forgotten that existed! Beautiful, beautiful nostaligia...
Incidentally, if you do want to see the original Cities of Gold again I have a copy. I had to befriend some rather strange Americans I found through an internet fansite (there's some bad memories to counteract the nostalgia right there), but I got a copy of the entire series. I don't think that you can get hold of it easily.
You're welcome to borrow it anyway, provided that you're good. And promise to handle the dvds in a vacuum. And never expose them to natural light. :oP
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Date: 2008-01-11 09:50 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2008-01-08 05:24 pm (UTC)This place (Winay Wayna) was an unlooked for gem on the way to Machu Picchu... perched halfway up the mountain and seeming like to slide off it! Accessable onlt by foot along the narrow trail.
Many, many steps though!
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Date: 2008-01-08 10:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-08 05:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-08 02:47 pm (UTC)I'm glad you had a stunning time.
I wish I had a dried toad...
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Date: 2008-01-08 05:13 pm (UTC)People always feel compelled to praise a present, imagine the face you could get out of someone as they unwrapped their pressy. "Ooooh, just what I've always wanted, er... a dried llama foetus! I'll look lovely on the mantlepiece next to gran's china shepherdess."
Perfect!
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Date: 2008-01-08 04:51 pm (UTC)Paula x
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Date: 2008-01-08 05:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-08 09:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-08 11:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-09 11:33 am (UTC);P
i look forward to hearing all about the trip it sounds like it was amazing the picks are cool :)
c u on fri
all the best Richard
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Date: 2008-01-11 09:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-09 12:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-11 09:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-09 10:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-11 09:55 am (UTC)Really cool.
Sounds (and Looks) Fantastic
Date: 2008-01-15 10:46 pm (UTC)Now this topic has quietened down, can I ask for your railway photos? The only way up Macchu Picchu is by train, through a switchback... I really would like to go! ;-)
Re: Sounds (and Looks) Fantastic
Date: 2008-01-17 07:38 pm (UTC)This taken while sitting outside our hotel drinking beer, (the hotel in the village below Macchu Picchu) there was no road outside the hotel, just train tracks, so we watched the trains chug by while drinking beer and eating lunch.
There are 2 ways to Picchu... train and walking.
I don't recall being on the train very long, we boarded at the last stop then got off to trek.
Took the train to Km104 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/motodraconis/2175405725/in/set-72157603662722801/) which isn't really a station, more a dumping onto the traintrack. But on the way back we went all the way back from Picchu to Cusco. They did a fashion show on the train (to try and get us to buy woollens) and frightened small children (http://www.flickr.com/photos/motodraconis/2175418779/in/set-72157603662722801/) with masked freaks. (http://www.flickr.com/photos/motodraconis/2175419031/in/set-72157603662722801/)
Otherwise, the train hugs the mountainside and follows the river through cloud forest. A good view so long as you're on the river side.
Very slow moving train!