Tuesday 21st September
Far, far too much happened today to put into words. Very long day – up at 06h00 and back at 18h00. Took some great pictures.
Our Belgium tour guide, Pierre, was a great chap. He had some crazy plan for kayaking down the irrigation cannel that links Lima to Ayacucho and if successful turning this into a tourist activity He’d even talked to the engineering company behind the cannel to see if it would be feasible. He showed us the cannel – looks like fun. Good luck to him – Seamus and I would definitely come back if he gets this off the ground.
Anyway, Pierre picked us up at 06h30 and we drove for miles into the mountains – the ash felt road ran out long ago. I can’t help but think that the taxi is not the correct type of vehicle for this rough terrain. Think extreme Italian Job roads (the original). My altimeter clocks us over 4000 meters above sea level – the air is thin and the sun is hot.
First stop is a field of John Windom style flowers. By all accounts we got very lucky and saw these flowers in bloom. Seamus will tell you more about this elsewhere.
We then moved on to this great lake with Incan remains along its shores. Climbed up to an Incan temple then down to “the house of the white virgins” – the Incan king was a lucky man. Trekked around here for a while – Seamus lost his shades.
Next up we moved onto a village that had the remains of an Incan castle. Sorry details here are somewhat flaky. Seamus will fill in all the details.
Finally we faced the very long drive back to Ayacucho. Tomorrow we have to be up and at the bus station by 06h00. Another long day ahead.
BTW, Pierre can be found in the lonely planet guide but it says nothing of the useful fact that he speaks English. Most tour guides only speak Spanish in Ayacucho.
