Claes: Sunday morning. We enter the van and begin the six hour trip east to Bagua. About a half hour outside of Chiclayo we make our first stop, to look at ancient Inca Pyramids.Jon: This image of the 'pyramid' doesn't really do it justice, since it is more or less 'melted' mud construction, now nearly a millennia old. The area is strewn with trash, and sitting rather ingloriously in the tough little town of Tucume, on the flatlands leading up to the Andes crossing. Still, if you stand quietly for a few seconds, and ignore the trash, the nearby traffic, and the incessant dust, you can imagine Incas walking these streets in one of the busiest and most important provinces of the pre-Pizarro Inca empire.
The trip over the Andes is breath taking. Along the twisting highway there are tiny adobe houses clinging to the hillsides, seemingly perched in mid-air, with thousand-foot drops steps away from the front door. The highway rises and rises, and rises some more - to the point where it seems like either the mountains continue to grow, or you are hallucinating.
Then, the cloud-whipped peaks cool off dramatically, with little spits of rain, and an occasional clap of thunder.
One small tragedy of this part of the trip was that my little Samsung digital camera (which I bought in Malaysia last year), with which I was capturing this spectacular view, was either lost or stolen shortly after arriving in Bagua. I got a lot of this imagery on my back-up flip camera, and on digital video, but that will have to wait until I can do some more editing.
Claes: Up in the Andes, I believe the highest peak was at about 2,500 meters. Just before reaching the peak we stop at a small restaurant for a quick meal. I was cra
ving coffee. And since Peru grows coffee and some people we met claimed that the Peruvian coffee was THE BEST, I was typically disappointed to find that most restaurants only served freeze-dried instant coffee from a jar they put forward on the table.
Claes: It's a beautiful trip up and down the mountain. It's getting rather hot and humid. In the early evening, we finally reach Bagua. And all of a sudden our local producer Jacob shows up on a motorcycle just next to our van. He has made arrangements for us to stay at a lo
cal hotel. WiFi or any kind of Internet connection is no option. The rooms are simple, which is fine. But... I think it was when I saw the "electric" shower head in the bathroom that had some interesting green things coming out of it that I got a little concerned. The photo is from my hotel window (trust me, you don't want to see the interior)
Claes: Up in the Andes, I believe the highest peak was at about 2,500 meters. Just before reaching the peak we stop at a small restaurant for a quick meal. I was cra
ving coffee. And since Peru grows coffee and some people we met claimed that the Peruvian coffee was THE BEST, I was typically disappointed to find that most restaurants only served freeze-dried instant coffee from a jar they put forward on the table.Claes: It's a beautiful trip up and down the mountain. It's getting rather hot and humid. In the early evening, we finally reach Bagua. And all of a sudden our local producer Jacob shows up on a motorcycle just next to our van. He has made arrangements for us to stay at a lo
cal hotel. WiFi or any kind of Internet connection is no option. The rooms are simple, which is fine. But... I think it was when I saw the "electric" shower head in the bathroom that had some interesting green things coming out of it that I got a little concerned. The photo is from my hotel window (trust me, you don't want to see the interior)
No comments:
Post a Comment