14 december 2018: Adios Peru.

Shopping in a Mercado central in South America is always quite an experience. It's a mix of amazing colours, different smells (the good ones and the ones that make you want to run away as far as possible), an enormous variety of goods being sold (from cow tongues to AAA batteries that have probably been on display for a few years, as we noticed when we needed them) and people that are trying to convince you they are just the person you need (and the other way around). Nienke went in to buy grinded coffee and came out with fried banana slices and several types of nuts. No coffee!

After the Colca canyon we drove north to Espinar. Beautiful road to start with, until we hit some road improvements. The trucks that supplied materials for the improvements had destroyed the road up the mountain. Since they came from the other side it meant that we had to work our way down in an 'off road' mode. The poor local female hitchhikers we offered a ride were thrown through the car like clothes in a washing machine. We have yet to meet the first South American who knows what a safety belt actually is for. They just do not use them.

We turned out to be the only people with blue eyes in Espinar. We felt like rock stars (not being famous, but being stared at). It wasn't difficult for our Dutch friend to find us. Martijn, a local Dutch entrepreneur, showed us around. We first visited the beautiful Inca ruins of K'anamarca. Quite a contrast with Machu Picchu as there was nobody here.

It was basically still intact after all these years.

Had a nice lunch at the Apurimac river before we visited the amazing ruins of Mauk'allaqta. Again no one there. 

A nice, very defendable spot with houses, chulpa's and temples still intact.

Holes cut out in the rocks where they buried their deceased family.

Even among Peruvians themselves the Tres Canyones are still quite unknown.

Thanks to Martijn, who endlessly tries to promote the region, we ended up staying with a Peruvian family in Suykutambo for originally two, but eventually three days. Of course Nienke fell in love with the baby lama's.

The family also provided all the food and so we ate lots of alpaca, potatoes, chocolo (corn) and soppas (soup with the same ingredients).

On day 2 we visited the Tagrachully ruins (also called Maria Fortaleze for some weird reason), a pre-Inca village on top of the canyons. Very strategic. We saw many remains of the houses, kitchens and like in this picture, carved out bath tub like structures. Who would not like to have a bath high above the river! Just do not lose your piece of soap!

Hundreds of people must have lived (and died) here. Like everywhere where the (pre-) Inca's lived the mountains are covered with tiny lots of agriculturally prepared land. And when I say mountains, I mean practically to the very top.They used lose rocks to create small banks and paddocks where they grew potatoes and quinoa. A lot of it is not used anymore for those purposes, but just looking at it you realise what very hard working people they used to be.

Nowadays it's mainly the women doing all the hard work. You see them doing road works, cleaning up the towns (but not an inch outside the city borders), doing hard work in the fields, etc. All the 'important work' is done by men. They are usually safety guards (doing nothing), police men (doing utterly nothing) or taxi/bus drivers. The last job involves honking their car horns every 10 meter.
In this picture Bryan and I are not being lazy, but waiting for the others after descending the mountain again. I seem to be like a magnet for kids, no sooner had we arrived at the families property or I had to play soccer. Could also have to do with the new football we brought as a gift. Taught him how to score an easy goal ('look, there's a condor flying'), although he didn't really get that it doesn't work anymore after 10 times.

Lunch followed breakfast way too soon. Especially because the meals were big enough for any size wrestler. In the weekend the family ran a restaurant as well.

Bus and truck loads of people, coming from the weekend markets in Espinar, were being transported back to their village and stopped here for lunch. This is a rather strange spectacle. They crawl out of a truck and take their place at a table. Food is brought to the table, about 3-4 minutes later they ask for the food remains to be stuffed in a plastic bag (for the dog?), they steal the remaining toilet paper from the tables and toilets, and disappear. Of course without thanking anyone.

This could not change our mood. Martin and Selso dragged a football table outside and the games began. Brasil - Argentina. Needless to say the rules had to be bend a bit and Bryan and I won.

In the evening the family took us up their sacred hill to make an offering to Pachamama (mama earth) to thank her for the use of the land and make a few wishes. Since it was quite a steep climb Nienke made her first wish before it started (I want to stay alive!!!).

The offering itself is not as easy as you'd think. A package of sweets, herbs, rice, seeds, salt, pepper, presents, beer (not too much), nuts, etc. were carefully put together (in the city you can buy ready made packages, but that's not half the fun). We had collected some dry wood and cow dung to light the fire. Then we had to smoke a cigarette (!!!) and drink the beer (😊).

With the remaining matches we just managed to light the fire and then we had to burn the offerings while speaking out our wishes. It felt quite special and we felt fortunate to have been part of this.

On the last day we climbed the canyon once more to enjoy the weird rock formations carved out by wind and rain.

In the afternoon we were going for lunch, meaning we had to catch our own trout. Here we're standing on top of a small waterfall and the pond at our feet was full of trout (trucha) as we were told. After an heroic fight I managed to catch a small (is 5 cm small?) trout, which was hardly enough even for Bryan. Apparently the trout is a smart fish (!?!?), and therefor hard to catch. I guess anything you do not catch is smarter than you.....

We decided not to drive to Cusco to do the Choquequirao track as the prospect of climbing over 2000 m in a single day did not appeal to us,  with or without the aid of donkeys. So, not having seen enough canyons yet, we drove westward to the Cotahuasi canyon. Passing some beautiful snow capped volcanoes on our way.

Of course you have to share the road at times. Sometimes with celebrating lamas.

After deciding to go for a 'shortcut' we had to pass through a mine. Filling in forms again of course. Promising not to take anything from the German owners (I could swear I saw my grandfathers bike standing against a shed) and to drive there at our own risk. We survived, the guard on the other side was hardly interested in our form as the game on his phone was far more appealing.

We drove through an amazing volcano and found ourselves suddenly at 5060 m. high. Our beast the 4Runner was still purring like it just came out of the shop.

Lunch on the top and then we drove into a deserted valley. OK, not completely deserted, but we did not see people.

Crossing nice little streams, watching wild viscatchas (a kind of ugly rabbit), lamas, alpacas, vicunas, the odd sheep and donkey. All so very peaceful.

And all set amongst volcanoes and  multi coloured mountains.

Time for another short cut. Maps.me showed a tiny line connecting the road we were on with the road we wanted to be on. We'd already completely baffled Google maps (it showed a dot somewhere on the moon). Our TomTom had been ditched in Santiago after it directed us straight into oncoming traffic a few times).

That small Maps.me line turned out to be no more than a donkey track along the tops of a canyon. A bit to narrow for Nienkes liking. I have to say, if the corners of a hairpin bend can't be taken in one go with our car.... it's narrow. Luckily no idiots driving up from the other side, and eventually we reached the north side of the Cotahuasi canyon. Still pretty hopeful we would reach our hotel in time (although we'd already discovered any ETA of our GPS systems were not to be trusted) we were mesmerised by this nice stream full of trout. That is, until an American fishing for trout in this very river told us he actually lived in Cotahuasi (must really hate Trump) and that it was still a 3 hour drive. 'Not to worry' he said, 'the road will eventually get better'! Thanks Google maps and Maps.me....

This lama was peaking over the edge to see who was complaining so loudly.

Anyway, we had no choice and jumped back in 'The Beast' to complete the final km's. My brave co-driver had to open many gates (we guessed to keep animals in and not us out) but to our relief and surprise the road or track kept going on. Suddenly our path was blocked by trees. Locals were illegally cutting trees down on the mountain above us. To our surprise about 10 people appeared from between the trees, clearly astonished to see a car coming from the north. With Chilean plates (Chileans are the Germans of South America, not very popular at all)! While Nienke tried to explain our Dutch/Kiwi background in Quechua/Spanish, I helped to clear the road. About 5 km down the track it happened once more, this time they were cutting up the tree in the middle of the road. When the sun finally disappeared we passed a few tiny villages and a few minutes later a strange sound filled the cabin. 'Sounds like the flat tyre I once had with my Highlander' Nienke said. We parked the car next to an old deserted cow shed. Did I mention it was dark? I decided we should try and change the tyre anyway. Got some stuff out of the car, located the torture tools necessary to change a car tyre. Crawled under the car to unlock the lock of our spare wheel. @$#%!^%$;#!#@#$%@;^;@!#@ the ^%@#*%^@#$*^$ key of the spare wheel lock did not fit. Endless layers of dust had filled the ^$*@!#@;^*!$*^ keyhole. Luckily (?!?!?) at that point we found out that the other rear tyre had picked up a free nail from the darned village as well, which was still proudly sticking out. With just one spare wheel and one jack this was not a  fair game. At first we kind of gave in, grabbed the sleeping bags, a bit of food and a bottle of wine, to settle in the front seats. When we could not get the cork out of the bottle we decided to get our most valuable stuff out of the car and started walking in the hope we'd see anything helpful at all. After a few minutes a faint swaying light revealed an approaching scooter with a toothless local at the wheel. In half Quetchua half Spanish the friendly local told us the next village was nearby and there was a man there, named Gil, who patched up tyres. 'Is there a hostel there?' asked Nienke 'Si, Gil has a hostel too'. The local reassured us that our car was totally safe....... Gil turned out to also have a shop, a restaurant and some kind of administration office. I'm pretty sure he would have arranged a swimming pool or a jungle tour at our request too.

Early in the morning I walked back to the car, hoping we'd still have 4 wheels (even though 2 of them were flat) and the original amount of windows. One of the warning triangels was stolen, but the car was in the same deplorable state we left it in. After a while Nienke turned up with breakfast and a guy called Jose to take the wheels to the workshop as Gil did not do house calls. I stayed behind, defending the remains of our brave 'Beast', while reading another book.

Gil quickly found the culprits in the tyres and soon after proudly presented Nienke with the repaired tyres in front of his workplace. About 1 1/2 hour later we were on the road again "Beast' driving like nothing had happened. Costs for the repaired tyres: NZ$ 8!

We reached our hotel and the staff was very happy we made it, 2 days later than planned. When we prepared for a walking tour one of the staffers asked if she could come along as she had never done that walk. Well, why not. Saves us making lots of selfies.... We took about a 100 hairpin bends to find a small village called Pampamarca. There we asked the only person on the main square where the famous walk to the Oskune waterfall started. Of course she had never heard of it???? We managed to find it anyway.

After that we walked/climbed/ staggered/dragged ourselves to the Bosque de piedras de Huito. Not a long walk as it was only 3 km, but we did have to climb up 550 m to a height of nearly 4100 m.

There have been a few moments when swearwords in different languages were heard. Our younger climb companion even had to check her breakfast again (literally), but we managed to get to the top.

A truly amazing place. We could see a glacier high above Cotahuasi village, deep down the canyon. From the ridge we were standing on we could see deep canyons on both sides.

Driving down again we picked up a man who was hitchhiking in a small village. The moment he stepped in the car I saw a truck coming around the corner. Tried to warn him with my lights, but he just drove on and signaled to me that I had to drive (about 500 m.) backwards to let him pass. A Peruvian standoff. He did not want to move and I certainly didn't as he behaved as an idiot. Since I was on a holiday I had all the time in the world and the car stereo was playing great music. So in the end he gave in.

On our last day in the canyon we visited the magnificent Sipia waterfall.

Not completely sure why, but we kept on driving to find the Bosque de cactus Judiopampa and some thermal baths beyond that. We found the cactus after a thrilling (was it Nienke?) ride. As the road had turned into one of the most hazardous tracks of ancient time we left the thermal baths for what they were and turned 'Beast' around.

We were pretty lucky the bus (not kidding you) was late. Having to pass another car here is nearly impossible, meaning somebody has to drive backwards for quite a while. The gravel falling on our roof was also a sign to leave this place asap.

Back at the waterfall it was time to cool of the car and my right foot (used the brake a bit too much).

The town was crawling with officials and police for the referendum (to fight corruption) the next day. Weird to sit in a restaurant where police is eating with a machine gun between their legs. He actually briefly prayed with his head leaning on the barrel.

Leaving the stunning canyon we aimed for Arequipa, the second town of Peru.

Passing some more snow capped volcanoes.

Another weird phenomenon in Peru is the adds for politicians. In most villages/towns half of all houses are painted with screaming slogans for people wanting to become the local or regional 'alcalde' (major). Even driving in the mountains you see many stones tagged with political rubbish. What a shame.

We passed some extremely dry areas,

and suddenly found ourselves amidst rice fields.

In Arequipa our AirBNB turned out to have a deck where you could have breakfast with a view on the volcanoes.

Here a better view, on the left Chachani en on the right Misty. Building a city at the foot of volcanoes, what could possibly go wrong. Well, the Peruvians are not the only ones, Auckland is built on about 50 volcanoes and Wellington on multiple fault lines.

Arequipa was a nice town with beautiful old (Spanish) buildings. Christmas is coming and they have started preparing themselves. Nice cathedral by the way. I was not allowed to enter as I was wearing shorts. If you wear a dress as a man and can't keep your hands of little children you're more than welcome in Chilean churches....

Hundreds of shops with decoration for your own Christmas stall.

And container loads of prezzies from China.

We looked up the quietness of the Santa Catalina monastery.

Nicely restored (was partly destroyed by an earthquake) buildings in pastel colours. As the sunset had started the colours became even more beautiful.

Apparently they were good at baking and every habitation had their own oven. Equality was not something they aimed for as some (rich) nuns had huge rooms and others tiny cells.

There are still some nuns living here, even two 18 year olds apparently.

The monstrously decorated house opposite our Air-BNB added to weirdness of Christmas in this warm weather. We were glad to leave the hypocrisy of this party behind.

Nienke jumped in the air when we reached the Peruvian coast and saw the sea again, for the first time in 3 months.

Thousands of crabs made sure they escaped in time before Nienke danced on their heads.

Could also be that they were afraid of the many Turkey vultures (a smaller version of the condor) hovering around.

Beautiful coastline.

And even some flamingos.

We reached the Peruvian border. That means 2 hours of completely senseless nonsense, just to keep a few people in uniforms busy. I'm pretty sure they have not caught a smuggler here in the last 5 years. First we learned we had to fill in some kind of form they could not provide themselves. We actually had to buy it in the cafeteria (I'm serious, you can see Nienke filling it in on the counter). Of course nothing in English or any other language than Spanish. With this form you pass about 6 other officers from both nationalities who's job is to stare at the form and a computer screen for about 15 minutes before jamming a stamp on the form and handing it back to you. You then have to walk around the building to a window opposite of the man who just stamped your form and hand it to a new guy who is sitting back to back (integrated) with the other guy. Then we had to unpack our car and put everything through a X-ray machine. One officer had a very brief look in the car to see if it was empty (which it was not by far), but as it was nearly siesta time he did not spend more than a second on this task. Haven't seen a single sniffing dog. And so, 2 hours later we left this 'integrated' border post and ended our Peruvian adventure. Chile, here we come again!!!