The Land of a Thousand Marvels

The sounds of Peru > Ducking out into the city street I would always first hear the rumbling of semi-broken down collectivos. Then came the street vendors, several mumbled “Dollars-Euros” others often blared “Mandarinas!” into a megaphone. Oddly, shops would sometimes have an English Language learning tape broadcasting on a stereo system into the street for reasons I have yet to understand. The city markets had more sights and smells than sounds. It was surprising to hear Quechua, the ancient language of the Incas, when one stall owner would translate our garlic request to another who didn't speak Spanish.

To sum up Peru is like trying to explain your first thoughts approaching Machu Picchu – a little overwhelming to say the least. This country showed us it's rich history, friendly people, tasty and elaborate food, and the enormous blessing of natural beauty from mountains down to sweeping shorelines. On top of all this it was not too expensive, not preventing one from visiting as much of Peru as you want. This country just seemed to tick all the boxes for adventurous travellers.

Machu Picchu and Cusco enchanted us so much that I wrote down a lot of those impressions there and then in the moleskine and online.

One mistake we made was defaulting to the tourist catered Cruz del Sur bus company which charged double price for similar service to that of the dozen or so competitors.

We took some amazing overland journeys by bus in Peru and Bolivia. Often these were the times when we saw the most – both outside and inside the bus. The Inka Express in particular saw us through the sacred valley and all the way to Lake Tikaka, which at 4321 meters looked more like a sea to me. Amazingly, a guide was included on that particular bus and also in almost all of the museums and sights we visited. Sometimes they were state employees. Other times the most they would encourage was a small tip. Each guide was extremely helpful and friendly as we visited places that were steeped in history.

There were two tiny regrets I can think of (very rare in Peru). One was spending time in Ica desert and the other was running out of time to see Nazca. The journey along the desert coast itself was more inspiring than the tourist trap at the Huacachina oasis. Darwin didn't particularly like it (rare) and nor did I. Yes it is a unique place but maybe it just paled in comparison to more inspirational parts of India that we had already seen. Unfortunately we later had to make a tough decision about seeing these mystical lines of Nazca. Apparently the flights overhead are unreliable due to weather and we couldn't afford to gamble our remaining days away. The closest we got to them was when our night bus bisected the monkey's tail on the Panamerican highway late into the night and without us even noticing.

One benefit from visiting Ica was a chat we had with an old man on a bench in the town square. He warned us that Peru was full of mystery, from the lines of Nazca and well beyond. This was true. We did indeed tour the country with many questions unanswered. Like why the heck do electronics stores have motorbikes as their centrepiece with a guy in a panda bear costume dancing to techno blasting on huge speakers? Why did women offer cell phone calls from a dozen mobiles chained to their belts, just standing there waiting for customers outside train stations etc? This gave new meaning to pay-as-you-go. Women who did have their own cell phones also seemed to yell down them as loud as possible as if to speak more clearly and audibly. This was odd. Yet it was nice to see a record amount of women police officers enforcing the law on the streets. I don't understand why, but I rarely ever saw policemen.

These chats were too infrequent with Peruvians. I wish on our entire trip I had had the chance to put all these questions and observations to the people – the greatest source of amazement of all.

Central to a kitchen was the large brick oven, underneath this sometimes were the dens for Cui who, along with chickens often roamed around the kitchen floor freely. Here a guide shows us how Cui have lived in the kitchen since Pre-Incan times.

I've learned here that just like New York City, Lima is completely unrepresentative of the rest of the country. The gap between the country’s rich and poor remains very clear when you travel around. Three out of 10 Peruvians live in poverty as a whole. But in the potato farming terraces of the Andes that number jumps to 7 out of 10. The economic divide is one challenge. What to do with the country’s vast store of mineral resources is another. The mines are polluting the rivers, mountains and jungles thus causing, to me, what seems like a natural contradiction to the Andean respect for mother earth that runs so deep into the culture. Yet Peru is experiencing booming growth, as much as Brazil, while grabbing far fewer headlines and with that comes prosperity, and a rapidly emerging lower middle class. Peru is now the world’s leading producer of silver, and among the top-five producers of gold, zinc and copper. Meanwhile the large ethnic population continues to grow too. When hunting in Chinatown for wool we relied on the helpfullness of many Peruvians from other ethnicities. Today the country prides itself on a rich multi-ethnic population. Peruvians cheerfully greet friends with racial nicknames like negro or chino (not always accurately). Even the former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, who was of Japanese descent, was known as 'El Chino'.

The Sights of Peru > Most towns we visited would have Spanish colonial architecture towards the center and Plaza de Armas. Looking down these streets one can often admire the dark wooden bay windows jutting out. Approaching the market, miracle doctors would entertain me with their tonics. I also enjoyed guessing whether the brightly coloured blanket sacks on women's backs contained potatoes from the market, corn or their little child.

The festive Peruvian people were my favourite to observe in the markets, towns and mountain roadsides. One image really stuck in my mind on a bus journey when I saw a smartly dressed band playing outside a bright blue village church, with smiles on their faces almost as big as their sombreros. In the blink of an eye they were gone.

We did capture many other images on film. The town of Chupaca (as well as Cabanaconde) provided some of the most 'authentic' explorations. This market day was one of those truly local explorations that had Steph and I feeling like we were REALLY travelling. The university parade the next day was one of the 400 festivals that the people from Huancayo put on each year. Steph has already described how in awe we were at moments like these. This particular festival had each of the college professions marching (doctors, lawyers, nurses) while the other half of the town residents watched. Perhaps the handful of festivals we stumbled upon were what really summed up Peru for me. They say that in Peru you don't have to go looking for adventure, it will come to find you. And I don't think you can capture it on film or even in stories. You must go visit Peru for yourself.