Peru & Bolivia: into the Inca heartland

After Nelson finished his semester in Santiago, we headed north to Peru and Bolivia for one last hurrah before returning to Canada. In doing so, we learned a lot about Inca culture like what kind of cola they drank, what they wore under those robes, their extensive use of aquaducts, and how they told time. They used the shadow of these perfectly carved little stone pillars to not just tell time each day, but also to determine exactly when to plant their crops each year.

Unfortunately, after suriving 500 years longer than the last Inca, the one at Machu Picchu was damaged recently during the filming of a beer commercial.

The Incas loved the mountains, and were in great shape from hiking very steep trails between their cities located in extremely inaccesible, but really beautiful, locations. We did a 7-day hike that took us first to one ancient city - Choquequirao, thought to be where the Incas in Cusco fled when under attack by the Spanish - past some other ruins that were being restored, some modern little mountain villages, and finally to Machu Picchu. Many parts of the trail included ancient rock steps created by the Inca, and we went over two high passes at 4200m and 4650 - the photo of me with the big snowy mountain behind is now, officially, the highest I've ever been. As we sat at the pass eating lunch, condors flew by below us.

Nearing Machu Picchu, we hiked through a lot of coffee growing beside the trail. We also saw the cement structures where they dry the coffee pods, the little machine they use to husk them, and the raw white beans drying further in the sun.

Machu Picchu itself wasn't necessarily the highlight of the trip, but it was icing on the cake after such a wonderful week of hiking. The stone work is really impressive. It is not for those with bad knees or vertigo, though!

Modern Peruvian culture has retained some aspects from the Incan epoch. A lot of the house construction is mud brick and they use the Inca Kola bottles to make pipes to transport water. I don't think the Incas wore bowler hats and had bicycle taxis, though. And how long have people in that area been eating guinea pigs? Despite seeing a picture of a guinea pig with the caption "look into my eyes, do you really want to eat me?", Nelson tried this traditional dish. We also learned to play a Peruvian game called "sapo" where you try to toss gold coins in the mouth of a gold frog. To round out the experience, we tried coca leaves - in both tea and jam form. My favourite Peruvian food experience, though, was the women in the market in Cusco who make you a blender full of juice from whichever combination of fruits you pick out. I drank two blenders full in one sitting.

We visited Bolivia, as well, taking a boat out to the Isla del Sol on Lake Titicaca as well as visiting La Paz, and a cute little mountain town called Sorata. We felt like we didn't have enough time to see everything we wanted, and almost moved our flights back a few weeks. Then we realized that we would probably never feel like we had seen everything we wanted and that we should leave while we were still having fun.

It was a good decision. It's great to be back home.