LAS GRINGAS a PERU

It is outrageous, but we are not sticking to our Travel plans.
It all went fine. We found ourselves slightly ahead of schedule in Chile.
Pedro de Atacama has the driest desert in the world (or at least that is what they claimed and why there was no water at night) and Arica is not a beautiful town, but it was good. We somehow relax a lot more in the city than in the country side, as there there is so much to see and do; horseback riding, excursions, mountain biking, ruins to see..
But yet again we queued for another stamp in our passports. We find ourselves in Peru this time. What can we say...it was just too close to the border of Chile not to go.

In Arequipa we visited an Inca Mummy. Small, hard to see and ugly, but I found it all pretty exciting. Peru has a lot to offer. It is mainly based on Inca history.
The Inca Empire was the largest empire in Pre-Columbian America, but in truth only lasted about a century, from 1438 to 1533. The Spaniards, with conquistador Francisco Pizarro as its leader ended it all, destroying as much as they could and introducing the Spanish language and the Catholic religion. The language, Quechua and worship of Mother Earth, Pachamama are still in use (which does not seem to stop anyone from throwing rubbish in the streets and nature).

We have visited many ruins already, most of them found high in the mountains.
Which makes me wonder if it is altitude and tiredness, or that I am just unfit, as the walks take us a long time! Most of the ruins are ascribed as ´temples´ or as ´places of worship´. Not that much is known about their daily lives, as they did not have any writing. Most of what is known comes from Spanish journals.
The capital of the Inca Empire was Cuzco, which means ´navel of the earth´. It is named ´the most beautiful city of South America´. And it is in fact beautiful, even if it does not live up to the level of Rome or Amsterdam. All they live of nowadays is tourism. It does drive us crazy at times, as every five minutes there we are approached to buy necklaces, eat in their restaurant, join one of their excursions or pay for a photo of a traditionally dressed lady with a lama , which we have both seen in the wild. It seems to be stamped on our foreheads: Gringas.

We are now in a small town, we got stranded here, waiting all day for a bus. Tomorrow we will resume our journey, on our way to Machu Picchu. Peru is cheap, but excursions are very expensive, so we decided to walk the six hours to Aguas Callientes (Machu Picchu village) and do it ourselves...I will let you know how that will work out!