So my last day with my group involved White Water Rafting... I loved the rafting, the bit where our guide decided to topple as many of us as possible into the river right in the middle of a rapid, not so much. Picture 4 of us flying down the river with the currents shouting backwards for someone to get us back in the raft, elegant we weren´t, pretty funny it was.
The others left for Lima on Weds and I took a day for a bit of a breather, to regain energy and get rid of some more tummy fun, I´m lucky like that. I flew to Arequipa on the Thurs and spent all of Fri looking around. It´s bigger than Cusco, with a beautiful backdrop of the El Misti volcano towering behind it. It´s all made of white sillar stone and has many religious buildings, including the most important in Peru, the Monasterio Santa Catalina. Spent some good hours wandering around this colourful and serene citadel, v impressive. I had forgotten that Arequipa is the home of Mario Vargas Llosa, one of my favourite S.American authors, whose latest book I have signed by him. He is quite a guy, having stood to be president of Peru, he got beaten sadly by the murderous dictator Fujimori but there we go.
The other highlight of Arequipa was seeing Juanita. She was a body discovered at the top of one of the nearby mountains, frozen in the glacier. She is important because she was one of 4 bodies found which show that the Incas used to smack young pure noble girls over the head with a 5 pronged mace and bury them along with offerings to the Mountain gods called Apus. These girls had also marched for days from Cusco to these mountains in a big festival and had voluntarily given their lives, it was a great honour.
Juanita was a bit freaky really, she still had her hair and teeth. It´s going to take me a while to shake off her image but she was fascinating nonetheless. Have grown quite fond of these Incas in the last 6 weeks. They were amazingly advanced and had an interesting set of beliefs, worshipping PachaMama (Mother Earth) and the God Inti Sol (the Sun God) and the Apu mountain gods too. The ruins left behind are incredible and it makes me sad to think how much the Spaniards destroyed...
Am currently, after a 6 hour bus trip, in Puno which is the town by the side of Lake Titicaca the highest lake in the world. Tomorrow am doing a trip to see the Uros islands made of Tortora reeds. The locals make the island they live on and each time it rots away they replace the reeds. Am intrigued to see them before I take another long bus trip to La Paz and my first steps into Bolivia.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment