Mark Rochefort

Cusco, Peru

after nearly two weeks in quito, which was far too long but spanish lessons were invaluable, we visited otovalo in the north. a chilled little town set high in the andes, with a colourful market and friendly little people to boot (sounds like a tourist brochure this, doesn’t it). all in their various indo garb of felt hats and ponchos and other weirdness. to be honest the stuff they were selling was tourist tat but claire liked it all the same. went back to quito to store said acquired tat. from quito we bused to banos – a little town nicely nestled under an active volcano. we arrived in the evening to see a sky of rather heavy cloud. and it wasn’t rain. that night we watched the red ash gushing out – the whole town was out by the road side watching. like bonfire night, with guys selling stuff and so on. weird though – everyone waiting for the big one but not really wanting it to happen, seeing as they’re sat directly under it. all the windows were taped up and it looked like people were expecting it to blow. the place is on orange alert and was evacuated last year but everyone got fed up waiting around and went back. needless to say the night was spent wondering if every car horn or church bell was the final fateful evacuation signal.

so all the dust from this night of bubbling started to drift onto the surrounding fields and wildlife. the papers the next day were full of photos of rather miffed looking sheep. another effect of all this dust was it literally popped the sky and we spent the next couple of days getting pissed on by the heavens above. our plans to bike down to the rainforest were thus twarted by this sprinkling and we got a bus instead. the bus followed a now gushing and swelling river, along a very deep ravine, going under waterfalls and past some stupidly high vertical drops. the muddy path looking like it might follow along with the rest of the torrents around us. incredible mountain/ rainforest stuff though. our destination – puyo – touted in “the book” as the most important centre in the oriente (ecuador’s rainforest/amazon place) turned out to be little more than an elaborate crossroads. we turned around and got straight on the bus back to banos – along the very same muddy track, clingling onto our seats, looking and then wishing we hadn’t, once again.

getting a little pissed with the rain, we decided to head for the beach. several death defying buses later, we reached hippy happa (spelt jippijappa but we had hours of fun with that one). festival there – hmm. more like a night market and fun fair (with a token procession behind a plastic christ holding a fly swat – honestly).
next – puerto lopez. relaxed town in a national park and by a spot in the pacific where whales come to get it on. pretty cool – huge whales strutting their funky thing in this pacific pick up joint. also went to “the poor man’s galapagos” – saw lots of blue footed boobies basically.

then a massive bus journey on to a town called cuenca. some sort of festival going on. that night we watched paper hot air balloons being sent up into the stars – really rather nice. propelled by their own little fires in mini baskets they glow away – disappearing into the sky. next day i somehow got called from the crowd to take part in this game that involved bashing clay pots with a stick, blindfolded. being the only gringo in the crowd (asides from claire) they must have seen me as an obvious target for taking the piss. there i am with a blindfold on trying to hit this clay pot strung up above me – except they kept moving it didn�t they. so that i kept stumbling around with this stick in the air, poking around the darkness like a fool. of course, they all thought it was hilarious. moving swiftly on – the churches here were particularly fantastic. red neon crosses and plastic flowers, decorated with mirrors and tinsel. nice.
next – on to vilcabamba, which means sacred valley apparently. this place achieved its fame when national geographic did a report on the people who lived here. loads of them are over 100 – something in the water, according to the scientists. so people came flocking here to taste this magical acua vida. very pleasant place to be honest. the climate is permanently around 24 degrees c. loads of wildlife and lush plantage. we stayed in this eco-health-lodge-spa-drinkthewater type place. had the obligatory full body massage and spa and so on. well worth it. chilled for two days before catching a bus across the peruvian border. unfortunately, the health place didn’t make claire to healthy and two hours into our 13 hour bus ride she pukes out the window. the first thing claire does as we touch peruvian soil, having walked across the river bridge that spans the border, is to bless the land with her bile. so another 8 hours passed like this, with claire wretching her guts out, while the rest of the bus try and sleep – watching the patterns of vomit streaking down their windows. she got better once we got off the bus and the whole little episode only lasted 24 hours. anyway – by this point we had been starting to realise how much ground we had to cover in so few days. a plane was our only option. the airport was classic – not much chance of us getting the terminals confused here. plane to lima. night in a hole. plane to cusco and viola – a weeks worth of buses done in less than a day. so we are now in cusco. its old and cold (3500m high). altitude got us yesterday but back on track today (coca leaves supposed to help – not too sure myself). sunset last night was amazing. booked ourselves into a 7 day jungle trip for thursday. manu biosphere reserve – tents and stuff. look up manu on the net – most bio-diverse place on earth. roughly translated as “watch where you tread”.