The Screaming Slugs came to South America too, and were alarmed by most things they saw there.
A cactus on an island in the Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia
In the middle of the Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia
At Machu Picchu, Peru
In a Richard Serra installation at Toronto Airport, Canada
After a Winter-extending sojourn in South America (bizarre in hindsight – the seven months of Winter I’d had already wasn’t enough?), I was back in the Rockies – and it was warm! We jumped in the car and drove down to Fernie in British Columbia, cruising down along through the green foothills of the Rockies. We even passed a fence that had a truckers hat on every pole – nearly as impressive as New Zealand’s toothbrush fence (Imagine that, a whole fence made out of toothbrushes!).
But then there was the wedding – a friend getting married on a mountain-top in the Canadian Rockies.
Riding the chairlift to the summit
And despite the threatening rain, the weather stayed mostly clear, and it was a beautiful day.
The bride and groom
Just to prove that you’re never too old to get excited about dinosaurs, we went to the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto, and gazed awestruck at all of the dinosaur skeletons they had. I’m pretty sure there were other things we looked at too (in fact there were probably even some real live Galapagos tortoises there as part of a display about the life of Charles Darwin), but the dinosaurs are all I really remember. Even if they had changed the diplodocus so it doesn’t put it’s head up any more, and had a label explaining how scientists now believe that they wouldn’t have had neck muscles strong enough to hold their head up above the level of their back (and back in my day, Pluto was a planet!).
Toronoto: City of many bicycles, Tim Horton’s, and dinosaurs.
RAWR!
After all of the encouraging words we’d read about Lima, we weren’t particularly looking forward to spending any time there. A guidebook I’d read before leaving basically suggested: “If you spend only a couple of days there, and see the main sites, you might not hate it.”
Armoured vehicles with sub machine guns by Plaza de Armas, the main square in downtown Lima
And maybe there’s not much there to see if you’re keen on going to museums and art galleries and general tourist attractions. But it’s not that bad. The main thing that tipped it into favour for me was the food – we ate so much fantastic cheap food there.
But also the Museum of the Inquisition.
Museo de la Inquisicion (Museum of the Inquisition)
It had excellent mannequins on display. I’m sure it was probably educational too, but with all the plaques in Spanish, and us too impatient to wait for an English tour, we just wandered round on our own at managed to get a rough idea what the plaques were talking about with our rudimentary Spanish skills. And admired the mannequins.
Museo de la Inquisicion (Museum of the Inquisition)
The San Francison Church and Monastery is also worth visiting, mainly for the Catacombs beneath. According to the Internets: “Originally constructed in 1546, it is one of the oldest churches in South America. It also served as the first official Catholic cemetery in Lima, at a time when the dead were laid to rest in catacombs beneath the church, itself an echo of an old Roman custom… Bodies were brought here, covered in quicklime, and soon reduced to skeletons. It was a quick and sanitary way to dispose of the bodies. Over 25,000 people were buried in this tomb.”
As such there were huge piles of bones artistically arranged in the Catacombs – mainly thigh bones and skulls, as they last longest.
And the clouds cleared, and as they descended from Inti Punku there was light! And sun!
To beat the crowds to the gate we were up at 4am and queueing to get stamped onwards. Light was already appearing in the sky as we walked towards Inti Punku, and soon headlamps were discarded as I managed to find a quiet section of trail with noone infront of behind, and could pretend I was meandering along on my own. From Inti Punku we caught our first glimpse of Machu Picchu as the sun rose. Well, that was the idea. The sunrise was a bit unspectacular with all the clouds around, but at least we could see Machu Picchu.
Structures built around the natural rock – a common theme in Incan building
As more and more people started arriving at Inti Punku from both directions, we started our descent down to Machu Picchu. We pass people who had caught the train and bus to Machu Picchu, and were wandering up to see the view – including one teenage girl who is complaining vehemently about the fact she doesn’t want to hike up “another thousand feet”.
Lurking llamas
Arriving at Machu Picchu is a bit surreal, it’s an image that I’ve seen so many times before, it really does feel like wandering around in a postcard. After dropping off our packs we get a tour around, and then spend a few hours wandering round on our own as the day gets warmer and sunnier. I can smell the soap on the people who came here from Cusco that morning. And there really are llamas wandering round acting as lawn mowers.
Views of Machu Picchu and the neighbouring mountains
Finally all the people get too much for us, and we escape down to Aguas Calientes, and spend an afternoon in this tourist village that hugs the train tracks, lamenting the loss of our cook. The journey back to Cusco that night is all a haze, as the train and then coach rock us back and forth in our sleepiness, before spitting us out in Plaza de Armas to catch a taxi to our hostel.