PERU, Cusco, Puerto Maldonado & Jungle, Saturday 27th October

We arrived in Cusco after the 6 hour drive from Puno through valleys banked steeply by ridged and terraced hillsides, alongside meandering rivers and through small farming villages accompanied by a leaking rain cloud which finally dumped its load on us as we checked into our hotel. Cusco is a beautiful town with steep, narrow, cobbled streets still lined with huge, sturdy Inca stones, with numerous churches and a grand Plaza de Armas where the Cathedral and Jesuit church battle for attention at right angles to each other. Elegant alpaca and countless silver jewelers line the streets alongside bars, cafes, pubs and restaurants that overlook the many plazas offering views of the surrounding mountains. I was quickly captivated and resolved to stay on once the tour moved on to Arequipa.
Members of the tour had tested my patience considerably and by the time I wrote the last blog I was talking loudly about desertion.
The performance of some of them over their food at dinner, rudely dismissing food, wrinkling their noses at the poor waiter, ostentatiously coughing flapping their hands in the admittedly smoky environment of the world’s highest Irish Pub was too much for Carla and me. We exchanged glances and did not attempt to dissuade them when they left early, leaving her, Daniel and me free to go clubbing.
I danced on the bar with the owner of the club dressed as some kind of monster (he was, not me) in anticipation of the Halloween we’ll be missing and then retired reasonably early to bed.

The next morning Carla dropped us at the airport and we flew the half hour flight to Puerto Maldonado and the Amazon Jungle. I stepped from the plane sighing with relief as the familiar wave of warm heat that I had grown so used to in Asia enveloped me. My muscles relaxed, my pace slowed and my demeanor brightened.
We all gathered around a man holding a Tucan Tours sign, who introduced himself as Pedro and met our 3 final additions to our group: A vigorous-looking Canadian couple in their 40s called Dwain and Laurie and an Australian girl called Melissa.
We made a quick trip to the market, full of tropical fruit and vegetables. Cute, bare foot children slumped against doorways chewing thoughtfully on the hems of their T shirts and broke into broad grins as we passed waving. People sipped Inca Kola perched on stools at make-shift bars and fake Havaianas flip-flops were on display everywhere. We were close to Brazil.
We were then all herded into a long boat, handed hot, oversized life jackets and ferried the 30kms down stream to Amazonia Eco Lodge, where we were given passion fruit juice, sat down and briefed.

It is in a beautiful spot on the Rio Madre del Dios in the twittering and chirping Amazon Jungle. Our rooms were rather smart wooden bungalows on stilts with roofs of palm leaf set amongst gardens that attracted macaws loud in both colour and audibility.
We were given 45 minutes with which to settle and eat lunch at long, allocated tables amongst other tour groups (gah!) before it was time to visit Monkey Island. There we fed bananas to several different species of monkey and oooohed and aaaahed en masse at their antics.

Back at the lodge we had a few drinks, dinner and were obediently in bed by 10.00, Laurie and I unified under our natural aversion to Group Tours.

At 5.00am we were awoken by a cheery Pedro and at 6.00 we set off on a trek through the jungle. We tramped along, stopping to examine termite’s nests, smell fruits and listen to birds, we sat high on an observation platform and floated about a waterlilly paved lake watching turtles and searching fruitlessly for anacondas. We were back at the lodge by late morning.

As the afternoon heat claimed to sedation level we dozed in hammocks strung up on a balcony over looking the river, lulled by the melodious clicking of the yellow-tailed weaver birds as they dived in and out of their nests suspended like earrings from the trees.
Affected, perhaps, by the omnipresence of mysticism and ancient folk-lore that surrounds places like this, a stout American woman was attempting to convince a stouter American man that she was able to occupy 2 realms of existence at once. John and Daniel sipped beer and played pool while others swam and Karina, the pet Tapir, waddled about the flower bushes absorbed by some secret errand. Amongst this peculiar but harmonious scene I slunk, half awake and in vain hope of a glass of water, savoring the moment of solitude and tranquility before the lunch bell would ding, the spell would be broken and people would stream from their individual preoccupations to sit obediently in their allocated seats to partake of the midday feed.

After lunch I left the Canadians enthusing about golf and returned to my isolation spot before we were all rounded up again and taken piranha fishing.
John had been drinking beer ever since we’d returned from our morning walk and, urged on by the receptive audience of Laurie and Dwain (also Calgary dwellers) he was putting on quite a performance, made more excruciating by his deafness which seriously impaired his volume control. “Give me a hand grenade!” he kept yelling, peering into the water and leaping about the boat causing it to rock fiercely. Fishing did little to subdue him and the jungle sounds were punctured by his exclamations of “Oh! A bite!” and “Where’s the barman? I want a cerveca.”
We spent a few pleasant hours fruitlessly fishing and returned for showers ad the bar while John went to bed.
Lights out once again at 10.00 and a dramatic storm rocked the jungle mercifully not tearing through the bungalows and morning arrive without any of us being struck by lightening.

Yesterday we flew back to Cusco and were reunited with Carla.
From the Sacred Valley Tour we were to finish in Limatambo 80kms from Machu Picchu and the start of the Inca Trail so we had a few hours to sort ourselves out before it was time for dinner.
Jo is leaving us as of tomorrow and so this was her last night with us all. Carla took us out to Fallen Angels, an amazing place where you eat off tables that are old fashioned baths full of fish covered with a glass table cloth and sit on leopard-print stools. It is possible to get hitched up on all the barbed wire (used to imitate a rose bush) in the bathroom and the lights are turned low casting sultry, sexy shadows in the dim light. We had a delicious dinner of their famous steak and were sipping on fresh passion fruit martinis when the Fetish Party started…
Carla had warned us of this but we were not quite prepared for the sights that came flooding in after 10.00pm. Spandex, leather, lace, black tape and PVC were just a few items on the menu of Peruvian elite and their outfits. I was reminded of that scene from the opening of the film ´Blade´ and when the DJ actually played that particular track I just waited for blood to start pouring from the ceiling. We had a great time though, dancing around a huge metallic sculpture of a sinister-looking angel and tore ourselves reluctantly away at around 3.30am in order to be reasonably fit for the Sacred Valley today.

Tonight we enjoy our last night of civilisation in the remote little Inca town Limatambo and tomorrow, bright and early we embark on the beginning of the Inca Trail.
More to report in 4 days…