Finishing off in Peru…12 - 17th April

We somehow managed to find the energy to hit the tiles with all our Inca friends on the Saturday night, but the rest of the weekend was spent recovering from the trail and copious amounts of locally brewed conconctions.

On Monday morning, it was absolutely time to get out of Cuzco and all its Beatles pan-pipery (for some reason that’s what they think the tourists want to hear!), so we headed off to the Sacred Valley, namely Ollantaytambo (took us a week to figure out to say it!), and Pisaq to explore yet more Inca ruins, many of which took on animal forms and faces - ‘facts’ based on a book written by a couple of Peruvian ‘academics’. One of our guides on the Inca Trail suggested that these forms reflected more their fondness for mind-altering drugs. Although some of their drawings and pictures were somewhat tenuous, there is definitely some truth in their theories, but how far one wants to take it is debatable. (See photos)

We eventually made our way to Puno, which is on Lake Titicaca, and not the most inspiring of towns, but it manages to attract tourists all the same as it is the departing point for the man made reed islands to be found just a few kilometres into the lake. Touristy as it is, the experience is actually very interesting. After explaining how they are made, and everything is made of reeds, you are invited around to speak to the locals and look in their houses, at which point they all come over and fight over you and of course put you under enormous pressure to buy things you don’t need or have room for (giving them money is discouraged to avoid begging). After watching (somewhat cringingly) a little thank you/goodbye song and dance that the islanders perform for you, you are given the opportunity to have a ride in a boat, you guessed it, made of reeds, which is slow but fun, and also historically relevant as it seems the reed boats are very similar to those in which that aforementioned Polynesian islanders crossed the Pacific many thousands of years ago.

Recommended after this visit:
The ruins of Ollantaytambo and Pisaq
Casa del Corregidor Cafe in Puno (opposite the cathedral)
Hostal Corihuasi Cuzco and the flat in lovely colonial house the owners rent out on the other side of town

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