Living in Peru : your everyday companion

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The emperor addresses his people in triumph as Inti Raymi draws to an end.

© JEREMY FERGUSON PHOTO

Inti Raymi - the annual Festival of the Sun - is a spectacular way of saying Happy New Year

Jeremy Ferguson
Special to the Star

Every June 24, Peru's pre-Columbian past springs to life for Inti Raymi, Inca Festival of the Sun. It's the most spectacular historical pageant in South America. Ask Bill Gates or actress Cameron Diaz, who were among last year's throng of international guests.

Inti Raymi recreates the celebration of the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, the beginning of the Sun God's new cycle: Happy Inca New Year.

The Guardian
By Rory Carroll

The headlines from Peru look bleak. Tourist hordes overwhelming Inca sites. Huge new hotels endangering Machu Picchu. A wonder of the world cracking at the seams.

The news is not as bad as it looks. Globalisation has not scalped another victim, not yet anyway, and concealed in these tidings of woe are reasons to cheer.

Gadling.com
By Jeremy Kressmann

World travelers just can't get enough of Peru's famous Inca Trail. But has the Inca Trail had enough of them? It may come as surprise to anyone still planning summer travel to Peru, but the world-famous path to Machu Picchu is completely sold out for the 2008 summer travel season, with the next available opening in September 2008.

As veteran Peru trekkers might know, the Peruvian government began imposing restrictions in 2005 on the number of hikers who could take the path each day to no more than 500.

I've never been so apprehensive about getting off a plane. After spending most of the flight from Lima to Cusco reading about symptoms of altitude sickness, I am convinced I'm going to faint the second the door is opened.

I venture nervously out and take my first breath of oxygen-starved Cusco air. Then a second. And a third. The relief is palpable. I'm going to survive.

Even if you don't share my morbid addiction to the Lonely Planet's environmental hazards section, the spectacular descent through cloud-shrouded mountains into Cusco will leave you in little doubt that you're now at a serious altitude - 3326m above sea level.

Bob Thomas, Ag-Venture Tours
Farms.com

The Inca ruins defy description. Of Peru’s 30 million inhabitants, there is only one remote community, Queros, where 300 inhabitants remain of pure Inca blood. The rest of the population is now mostly Mestizo, which describes those with part Inca and part Spanish blood. While the Spanish conquistadors claimed military victory, it was actually diseases like smallpox and yellow fever introduced from Europe which weakened and destroyed the 17 million original Incas who dominated a vast territory stretching from Central America to Chile for 500 years from 1100 to 1600 AD.

By Aurore Jouanin
TravelBite.co.uk

The South American country of Peru is every trekker's dream come true and often figures at the top of travellers' wish lists. Every year, the world famous Inca trail attracts millions of visitors from around the world who come to walk in the steps of the people who built the sacred city of Machu Picchu. However, people who spent time in the area will tell you the Salkantay trail is a rewarding alternative to the busy Inca trail.

The world famous trek can remind you of Saturday shopping on London's Oxford Street, whereas the Salkantay trail will offer nothing but pure wilderness, peace and physical challenge.

By Richard Nisbet

I first came to Peru in 1975. I was brought here by a mystery. How could people who were supposedly primitive, Bronze-age people…. have made walls that look like this?
 
Later I read Thor Heyerdahl’s books on Easter Island and discovered that there was one remaining wall (and evidence of others that had fallen into the ocean) like those in and around Cusco.   And there were other commonalities between Easter Island and the Andean highlands. They both had the totora reed, the bottle gourd and the sweet potato.

by Venetia Rainey
Nouse - York University


Unable to reach Machu Picchu by the conventional route, Venetia Rainey explores the former Inca capital of Cusco, where history fuses with South American vibrancy

One of the world’s most spectacular treks is the Peru’s Capaq Nan trail, otherwise known as the Inca trail. The classic route covers 70km and reaches heights of over 4,200m above sea. It takes about four days to reach the legendary lost Inca city of Machu Picchu, officially named one of the Seven Wonders of the World last year. The sense of victory after such a hike makes for a once in a lifetime (and fairly costly) experience. At least, so I have been told.

I had the misfortune of suffering what all travellers must endure at one point or another: food poisoning. After drinking impure water whilst staying on an island in Lake Titicaca, I was crippled by the illness and utterly unable to keep food or water down. On the third day, I found myself being roughly pulled out of bed, and my pyjamas swapped for hiking boots, shorts and a t-shirt. Three hours from the starting point of the trail, I had to admit defeat. My family went on without me, and a rather put-out porter travelled back the five hour journey with me to the nearest town, Cusco.

Kelly Hearn
National Geographic News


Ruins recently discovered in southern Peru could be the ancient "lost city" of Paititi, according to claims that are drawing serious but cautious response from experts.

The presumptive lost city, described in written records as a stone settlement adorned with gold statues, has long been a grail for explorers—as well as a lure for local tourism businesses.

A commonly cited legend claims that Paititi was built by the Inca hero Inkarri, who founded the city of Cusco before retreating into the jungle after Spanish conquerors arrived.

Flags representing Peru and the Tahuantinsuyo flutter at the head of hordes of pilgrims who have flocked from the Cuzco highlands to the Sinakara Valley near Mount Ausangate, to take part in one of the largest religious festivals in South America: the Festival of the Lord of Qoyllur Rit’i or the Snowstar.

We press on at dawn. The track rises and falls, a bone-jarring hike that has us sweating despite temperatures hovering below 5°C. The trail runs for a stiff 8 km, four hours of exhausting trudging from the village of Mahuayani to Qolquepunco, near Mount Ausangate.

It is the land of soaring peaks, biting winds and glacial highland plains dotted with the odd clump of spiky ichu grass. The trail winds past wayside crosses and stone cairns, until we reach the natural basin of Sinakara, at 4,800 meters. Our hearts are pounding. Time for one last sip of coca tea, and it’s up to the top.