PROLOGUE

Why do we travel? What is behind the apparent insanity of leaving a comfortable home and life, pack clothes and necessities in a bag, and spend large amounts of money to travel to a distant part of the planet to do nothing but wander around, gawk at people and buildings and landscape, eat strange food and drink unusual drinks, trying to avoid sickness and unpleasant people?

If you look at it starkly, in purely logical terms, travel makes no sense. There is no vital or important reason for Lou or I to go to South America. We've never been before, and South America was perfectly able to go about its existence before us. And it will certainly not change because we were there. We don't NEED to be there, and they don't NEED us to be there either. Why do we do it?

There's no easy answer. I can only speak for myself, but, if I am to be completely honest, I say that I travel because I want to. I'm curious by nature, and have a tendency to get slightly crazy if I stay in one place too long. I'm not one to pull up stakes and move permanently to other places, but I do like to look over the fence to see what's going on in the next area. I've found it to be strangely enlightening to see, first hand, that people in other places survive quite well and do things quite successfully in completely different ways than we do. Sometimes, I think, we can learn from other people and bring new ideas back home to try.

But, more importantly, when I travel, I begin to get a greater appreciation for how things are and how people act at home. That's not to say that I develop any sense of superiority about my home. But, on the whole, when I travel, I inevitably start comparing how the new place stacks up to Canada, and, more often than not, Canada comes out pretty well. I doubt if I'd gain that insight if I just sat at home and navel-gazed all the time.

No, the curiousity gets the better of me all the time. And, I suspect, other travellers get the "itch" too. The itch to see what's going on on the other side of the fence. Voyeurism? Maybe, although it's completely legal and harmless. I prefer to think of it as "neighbourliness" ... seeing how the other guy is getting on and what's new with him. Leaning over that fence post and having a chat, comparing notes and complaints. Kind of like a community message centre, but with aircraft, hotels, other forms of transportation, and bureaucracy.

So, in that spirit of friendly nosiness, we have packed our bags, gotten our shots, updated the paperwork, and signed on the dotted line to travel to a new and completely unfamiliar place: South America. Wish us luck!

DAY 1 SUN. SEPT. 30 TORONTO - ATLANTA - LIMA

It is constantly amazing how air travel knocks the stuffing out of people. All you do is sit, wait, sit some more, eat, watch people or bad movies, sit, doze, sit and finally get to a hotel and sleep. How can this exhaust a person?

So, we arrive in Lima, Peru. Our first time in South America. Sounds exotic, no ? Well, it was a groggy, chaotic arrival at the airport just around midnight. Instant immersion in Latin America. People everywhere, hustling taxis or "information". Finally after an uncertain hour milling around the arrivals area like a guppy among sharks, we found our tour rep. Then, a drive though dark, busy streets: heavy, heavy police presence everywhere: bright neon casinos, palm trees .... and damp cold.

We are safe, sleepy and comfortable in our hotel. We meet our tour leader tomorrow, and the people with whom we will share many experiences. What great adventures lie ahead? That is the true thrill of being at the start of a lengthy journey: the anticipation. We haven't done a trip like this in a long time, not since our trip to Australia in 2003. Are we ready? Can we do it ? Right now, time is our friend because we are relatively fresh and rested. Let's find out .....

DAY 2 MON. OCT 1 LIMA ( MIRAFLORES )

A short sleep, followed by a good breakfast, and a long siesta gave us a chance to catch up on energy. We got moving around noon and walked around Miraflores, one of the more affluent and touristy neighbourhoods of Lima.

Trendy yuppies and well-heeled tourists wander this part of town. We tried our best to fit in and walked to the sea front at Larcomas, past restaurants, and bars on wide busy streets. Taxis honked constantly, looking for business. The sea front features a trendy promenade of cool places full of beautiful people sipping coffees and eating fashionable snacks while marvelling at the cliffs plunging to the misty Pacific Ocean. A walk up the road led back to Park Kennedy with more shops, casinos, backpackers' hostels and cat-filled greenspaces.

There is a sense of chic prosperity in this district. Yuppies, hipsters, skaters and fashionistas inhabit the place. A summit of Latin American and Arabic ( strange combination ) presidents occupied the Marriott, which explains the over-the-top police presence, but it also gives credence to Miraflores being the best face of Lima.

We finally met our tour leader, Pablo Gonzalez, along with the rest of our group of travellers. Pablo seems well-suited to his job: he is personable, bright and organized. And he possess a wicked sense of humour. I think I'm going to like this man. I don't envy his job, however, because he basically has to nurse-maid 21 people throughout various parts of South America. As for the group, first impressions are good. They are mostly Canadian, most of them from B.C., although there are people from Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and New Brunswick as well. Lou and I are the only ones from Ontario, which surprises us a little. There are even a few Americans in the group: wonder what they will think of all of us crazy Canucks?  At dinner, I had the chance to converse with Jack, a retired teacher from Saskatchewan and Suzy and Glenn, a couple from Vancouver. I'm sure we'll all get to know each other quite well before too many more days go by. We'd better hope we all get along: this trip is going to be a marathon ! But we're off to a good start.

DAY 3 TUES. OCT. 2 LIMA

Lima is a huge city. Our tour included some wonderful colonial neighbourhoods, similar to those we've encountered in Mexica and Cuba. There is money in Lima, so we saw many buildings from the 17th and 18th centuries in rather good shape. But the problem is that there is so much old stuff and only so much money. As a result, much of central Lima is in disrepair or under some degree of construction.

The central square, unfortunately, was cut off from us due to the presidents' summit. Our guides were powerless to gain entry.

But there were 2 highlights: a museum of pre-Inca ceramics, featuring an erotic area ( ! ) and a hacienda called Las Vicas which featured the wonderful Peruvian paseo horses, who put on a lovely equestrian display for us. We enjoyed a fine barbeque dinner at the hacienda, then beat a hasty retreat to hotel to prepare for a 3 am wake up call ... "this so-called vacation will soon be my death", borowing from Spirit of the West.

An additional note: our drive today along the coast out of Lima took us through all the faces of this giant city: incredible affluence, hard-working middle class neighbourhoods, and crushing desolate crowded poverty. It is all here in Lima.

DAY 4 WED. OCT. 3 LIMA - CUSCO - YUKAY

Our early morning flight took us over the magnificent cloud-shrouded Andes. Mountains never get old for us, for they are millions of years in the making, permanent, will never disappear and know everything.

Upon arrival in Cusco, we headed straight into a transit strike that threatened to disrupt our drive. The altitude also insinuated itself upon us: we found ourselves huffing and puffing for no apparent reason, and eagerly chewed coca leaves ( tasted like straw ) and sipped coca tea ( strangely pleasant taste ) seeking relief from the rarified air. 

Pablo introduced us to our local guide, Jackie, a lovely young woman who lived in Cusco. Together with our driver, Fernando, they used persuasive patience to save the day and get us around and through picket lines.

We climbed into the mountains, past more archeological sites concentrated into a smaller area than is humanly possible. The views were stunning and we began to get a sense of the marvellous cultures who lived, grew and thrived here, ultimately consumed by the conquerors, the Inca who were, in turn, conquered by the Spanish. We passed Sacsayhuaman and Urubama and ultimately arrived in sunny and hot Ollyantaytambo, a sacred and thriving Inca fortress and village. We climbed steep steps and beheld the sheer immensity of this Inca administrative centre. How it was built is an ablolute mystery, but it was huely ingenious ( able to withstand earthquakes ) and impressive. but the views of the Sacred Valley, with the ancient terraces carved out of steep mountains, and aqueducts still functioning and the Urubamba River cutting through it all made my sleep-deprived mind wander. This place was both strange and familiar: it reminded me of Hopi and Anastasi cliff dwellings and Roman fortress towns like Housesteads. The Inca have captured us and we will learn more tomorrow at the holiest site: Machu Picchu.

A side note: I tried my first Peruvian beer this evening and it tasted terrible !! But I later learned from fellow travellers Bill and Sandy that the diamox I am taking to help alleviate altitude symptoms has a certain side-effect of making carbonated drinks taste like metal. I'm rather displeased to say that it's true!

DAY 5 THURS. OCT. 4 YUKAY - AGUAS CALIENTE ( MACHU PICCHU )

If you ask a person to compile a list of places to see before he or she dies, I'm pretty sure Machu Picchu would be on that list. It's one of those "must see" places we all read about and see pictures of. Right up there with Stonehenge, or the Acropolis, or the Pyramids, or the Great Wall.  Etcetra.

There are no adequate words to describe Machu Picchu, so I won't even try. Suffice to say, it fully deserves all the accolades as one of the world's truly wonderful places.

As for the day itself: it was strange. We had another early wake up call in Yukay and trudged to the bus and then train for Aguas Calientes. The ride, along the Urubamba River, was magical. We saw many snow-capped peaks and green farms, exotic rain forest and a cobalt blue sky. The river was wild with impassable rapids and I found myself imagining the Inca controlling commerce and political power while living harmoniously with nature. They knew how to use the land, and their famous terrace farms are still in use today.

Aguas Calientes  is a wild town, wholly devoted to backpackers and other tourists to Machu Picchu. It is a corrugated roof and adobe brick rabbit warren of pizza joints, bars, hotels and hostels, restaurants of every price range, and Inca souvenir shops. I found it strangely claustrophobic.

Then, the ride and climb up to Machu Picchu itself. Such unbelievable wonder, a masterpiece of man's ability to create, organize, adapt and flourish. It was a brutally hot day and we were all sleep deprived. But we were like giddy school kids as we walked among the stones of the site. Terry, one of group, kept saying "We're in Machu Picchu !" like she could scarcely believe she was there, and her spirit was infectious. And Micheal and Gail got engaged in a private moment at the site: Gail had said to us that she'd wanted to come to Machu Picchu since she was 17.

There are two things that make Machu Picchu special. First is the fact that the Spanish never plundered the site: it remained hidden from them. The only plundering occurred when Hiram Bingham and his colleagues from Yale excavated it in the early 1900's and took most of the valuable things to a museum in the US. Second is the incredible setting. How people managed to build such a site in this location defies the imagination. The Inca were great engineers, no doubt: but they built Machu Picchu without the wheel or large beasts of burden to carry the stones from nearby quarries to the site.



Our group at Machu Picchu



Pablo and our wonderful local guide, Jackie.

It was a great day under difficult conditions. We managed to see most of it before the hordes of people arrived from Cusco. What a place !!

DAY 6 FRI. OCT. 5 AGUAS CALIENTES - CUSCO

An incomparable luxury: we slept in to 7 am today. Our intrepid tour leader, Pablo, took several of us to walk through rain forest to a small museaum featuring artifacts from Macchu Picchu. The walk itself was a delight, tramping through tall green trees protected by towering steep cliffs. I had the opportunity of walking and talking with Carol, one of the members of our travel group, an intersting and knowledgeable lady from Florida, and we compared observations on the Inca, Peru, Canada and the United States. We both agreed that such things as power, politics, and how nations act haven't changed much over the centuries.

The museum, though small, gave more insight into the greatness of the Inca civilization. Displays showed how extensive the empire was, how well connected, well organized and well constructed it was. Pablo informed us that, prior to the Spanish conquest, the Inca themselves were conquerors, sweeping up smaller aboriginal nations into their empire. Then, rivalry between brothers caused a civil war, weakening them. Pizarro arrived at this time with 200 conquistadors and capitalized on the situation. Then, various factions of the Spaniards began to fight among themselves. There was nothing glorious about any of this. Instead of being a glory, the story of the Incas was a curse.

We trained out to Ollyantamba, then bussed through incredible mountain and plateau territory still inhabited by Quechua-speaking descendants of the Inca and arrived at our destination: the ancient Inca capital of Cusco. This is a fascinating place, a narrow, crowded fusion of Spanish and Inca. We are at 11,000 feet and the attitude is playing havoc on our collective selves. Sleep will be most welcome.