Carnival in Cusco City

We may have missed the actual Carnival event in Rio de Janeiro but we found our single full day in Cusco City, once capital of the Inca Empire, coincided with their own Carnival style event.

Here are images of the day.

All manner of spectators, the man on the right is a policeman

All manner of vantage points

Um, I think they are in the wrong pageant

Side walk food 'stalls'

Queueing for free bottles of a new energy drink

Aside from the formal proceedings there are two traditional 'delights' that the watching crowd engage in. One is throwing water bombs at each other. The second is spraying others with shaving cream.

This masked man approached our group and sprayed shaving cream at...

...this man. He was not amused.

I was sprayed twice but thankfully not to the same extent.

There is one of these and a KFC here too.

Tomorrow we travel to Puno on the Andean Explorer. It is a ten hours long Orient Express train trip. From there we visit Lake Titicaca.

The best laid plans....

...go awry.

Yesterday as we descended Machu Picchu rain set in. Hardly surprising. This is the wet season and the famous Inca Trail is closed in February for that reason. The rain continued through the night and into the next day. Nothing torrential but very steady.

Unbeknown to us whatever rain was falling elsewhere in the region, it was sufficient to cause several landslides on the rail line between Aguas Caliente and Poyo. The stations at those towns service respectively Machu Picchu and Cusco City. We've been told many times that the only way to access/depart Machu Picchu is by the train (apart from the closed Inca Trail, I presume).

We were due to depart at 5.50pm on the Hiram Bingham Orient Express, a luxury train serving a five course dinner on the three and half hours trip to Poyo for our next stop, Cusco City. Our luggage was already at our hotel in Cusco City and we were in possession of only overnight bags for our two days stay at Machu Picchu.

It was a free afternoon for our group of twenty and we were dispersed around Aguas Caliente in the various markets and cafes as well as in our Machu Picchu hotel.

Around 2pm word started to spread about the landslides and then the news that Hiram Bingham Orient Express trip into Aguas Caliente would not operate meaning it was not available for our booked return journey. Hundreds of other tourists were also stranded because the other services were also disrupted.

Our Tour Director did a fabulous job of organising an alternative train to Olantaytambo, the next stop up the line and for a bus to take us from there into Cusco City. Sure, this meant missing out on the Orient Express train experience but at least it kept us on track with our tour. All this simplifies the owrk the Director had to due, not the least rounding up 20 straggling tourists spread across the township in pouring rain, all of us unaware of the unfolding drama.

The train trip had the atmosphere of an evacuation, which in a way it was. We travelled by Peru Rail which provides one of the standard services on the line. The two carriage attendants, one male, one female, have to perform a variety of tasks. Apart from checking passengers onto the carriage, they also serve a simple snack, airline style, serve drinks, model stylish fashions up and down the carriage to the applause of the passengers before trawling a trolley along the carriage attempting to sell said fashions to the passengers.

As if that wasn't enough the male attendant has to don an elaborate costume and perform a series of native style dances including with a couple of female passengers drawn at random. I didn't catch the symbolism of this costumed performance but it certainly enlivened proceedings.

Here is an image;

At Machu Picchu

What extraordinary people were the Incas?

At Machu Picchu in Peru they constructed a complex settlement high in the mountains using granite taken from even higher in the mountain. They created perfect markers for the position of the sun on the longest and shortest days of the years and for both equinoxes. They created markers that perfectly indicated the four major compass points. They created terracing in which the temperature variation between each level was exactly 0.2ºc. So well constructed was the site that it remained undamaged by two major earthquakes.

Here are images from my visit today. (Click on images to enlarge)

Driving up the mountain to Machu Picchu, we started at river level

Sacred Valley

In the Sacred Valley of the Incas in and around Ollantaytambo, Peru.

Market place targeting tourists

Earning money posing for photographs

Climbing hill to visit a school, white roof of our bus just visible mid-photo

Horse and dance show at Peruvian BBQ lunch

Inca ruins with perceived silhouette of Inca king at left edge of mountain

Guinea Pigs (ie future meals) with free reign in an Andean home

Off to Machu Picchu by train tomorrow.

At altitude

We have flown into Cusco, the capital of the old Inca empire. I think our guide says we are at 4,400 metres above sea level. From there we have been taken into the Sacred Valley of the Incas and are spending two nights at Urubamba.

Unsurprisingly internet access is slow and I'm not certain what I can download and despatch but I'll try to send some images here.

Cusco City

Locals and Alpaca

Cleaning the Alpaca wool

Dyeing Cochineal

We tour the Valley tomorrow then to Machu Picchu the following day. Will post when possible.

In Lima

We went straight from the airport to lunch at what seems to be a fashionable restaurant in Lima then straight to city tour including the original town square dating back four hundred years or so.

A corner in the square

Further around the square

Wooden ceiling in a nearby monastery

Monastery library with books dating back more than 400 years

Then we were taken to our hotel for the evening. We are checking out of it at 5.45am to catch an early flight to Cusko. Here are some images of my room and facilities provided without comment.

I haven't posted photos of the bathroom which actually comprises three rooms of its own.

Sunrise over the Andes

The sun rises over the Andes as we arrive at Santiago Airport (Chile) for our flight to Lima (Peru).

Rio to Santiago

Last afternoon at Rio, we had a casual lunch at the Forte de Copacabana alongside the beach before our 4 hours and 20 minutes flight to Santiago.

Arriving at Santiago just on midnight, we were delayed on board the flight waiting for buses to collect us to take us to the terminal. There had been a rush of arriving flights and the airport was not handling it well.

I missed the first bus and was just at the plane's door with this view waiting for the next bus.

I reached my hotel room around 1.45am.

Heights and sights in Rio

We visited the statue of Christ the Redeemer yesterday and also experienced some of the sights of Rio. The first few images are from Corcovado where the statue is located and the others are of preparations for Carnival which which occurs in a week's time. Local communities are alive with activity.

Breakfast at the hotel in Rio

Overlooking Copacabana

Two faces of Rio

A Favela looks upon a downtown Rio street

Copacabana Beach night market, daily 7pm to 7am

Favelas

We visited two Favelas in Rio de Janeiro this morning. The Favelas are communities, mostly on the hillsides, where the poorer members of the community reside. Although by reputation the Favelas harbour the criminal and the indolent the reality, we have been told by our various guides, is quite different. Perhaps 90% of the population of these shanty towns is in employment including in all likelihood providing many of the smartly uniformed staff attending to us in our luxury beachside hotels. We were told there is high level of school attendance by the children. However there is up to fifth generation residents of Favelas nowadays and the best, perhaps only, escape to a richer environment is through the luck of achieving fame and fortune as a footballer or entertainer.

These tours of the Favelas are officially sanctioned as a means for bringing the reality of their character as well as lifestyle to a wider audience and for improving their reputation. That's what we were told and  there was nothing in the lack of interest or curiosity to our presence to suggest otherwise. There clearly are numerous daily tours and apart from those who gave us wide smiles or wished us a good morning there was no indication of hostility or any other negative response to our traipsing around their world.

The population of greater Rio is about 9 million and about 20%  (or a total of 1,800,000 people) resides in a Favela. There are 950 Favelas in Rio and we visited two of them. One is the largest in the city with a community that ranges from 80,000 to 250,000 depending upon what figures are used. It is the only one in the city with roads running through it and therefore with access to the public bus system. The other Favela is far smaller with a community of about 2,800.

It is extraordinary how the Favelas sit side by side with very wealthy elements in the city.

Here are several images.

Commerce looked to be thriving in this Favela

Narrow lane ways, twists and turns

Battle of the beaches and the bulge

We arrived in Rio de Janeiro this morning. Ahead of a trip to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain by cable cars and then a Portuguese BBQ scheduled for later in the day Hn and I had a quick wander around the precinct of our hotel.

The hotel fronts right on to Copacabana Beach and is also just two blocks to Ipanema Beach.

Here are a couple of images.

Copacabana Beach viewed from in front of our hotel

Ipanema Beach

One thing quickly obvious is that for lovers of budgie smugglers - or rather...lovers of viewing budgie smuggler wearers - this is a little piece of heaven. I have rarely seen such a display of...ahem...over-ample bulges. I scarcely knew where to look. I also felt somewhat faint, although the heat and humidity might have contributed to that.