OneWayTicket

Day 83: A wild introduction to the other South Africa

2008-07-20T10:46:00Z

I don't know what we were expecting but it certainly wasn't an Afrikaner with a Tom Selleck moustache, a blond ponytail and a tatoo high on his left thigh that doubled up as his visiting card: Master Tracker it read, like the pieces on a scrabble board, one word vertical, one horozontal with the "a" common to both and the face of a tiger thrown in for good measure.

My eyes were drawn magnetically to Willem Peterson's damsel white thighs every time I sat up front with him in the van that would be our home for the next four days as we scoured Kruger National Park for the Big Five and all the small creatures that are, often, more fascinating. I couldn't help but notice how his light khaki short shorts rode up dangerously when he sat behind the wheel.

He said he was a few years older than the husband, but he looked at least a decade older. We figured out why in the first conversation as the inappropriately dressed Willem drove out of Joberg after declaring that it was cold. By the time he was 17 he was a policeman in Soweto's riot police unit 2. After my recent history trip through Soweto, I knew exactly what that meant. He was on the side that had to crush all rebellion. Stop the car, I wanted to yell but I could see the husband thought this would be a fascinating view of the other South Africa.

I wanted to know how he had justified Apartheid. "We were brought up to think it's the right way, the only way. Even in church they taught us that," he said. Besides, he added later in the conversation, "they were given a chance to chose you know. They could have governed themselves." He was even a tracker during the infamous Bush Wars. I nearly asked him how many people he had killed but I never did.

Instead, I asked what it was like in those days and he actually thought I was asking about him. He said his job was relatively safe -- after all his side was backed by tear gas, live ammo and armoured vehicles. Back then, private factory owners could call on Willem's unit to "control" their striking workers. And sanctions? Ah there were so many neat ways to avoid them. The steel firm that Willem's father worked for, for instance, would export to Israel and then onward to other nations.

As we drove out of Jo'berg, the maize fields on either side of the highway triggered a change in conversation. Soon, Willem was telling us about the amazing Pap Tart his sister makes with layer after layer of cheese and pap topped with mushrooms. Surreal is the descriptor that has come to mind most often this holiday.

South Africa's Kruger National Park is the size of Wales; a diverse expanse of all kinds of landscapes from rolling granite plains to densely wooded riverines that stretches into Mozambique and Zambia. Most imporantly, it's home to some 150 mammal species.

This park is very different from, say, the Masai Mara experience. For one, there are several well-appointed camps within the park run super efficiently by the South African National Parks. Smooth tar roads connect these camps and often, our best animal sightings were on these main roads where you can even spot park officials stop vehicles to hand over a speeding ticket! Some might say it's too commercialized, but we thought it was brilliant and we plan to take the parents back next year.

Even the animals have learned to take advantage of this urbanized atmosphere. So predators often drive their prey to the tar roads where they know their hooves will slip; one lion pride up north has mastered the art of chasing its prey against the electric fences that surround the park.

It's confusing to figure out which camp you should begin from, so we didn't book until two days before. Since it was school holiday time, all the camps in Kruger were full and we ended up staying just outside the park. Over the next few days Willem told us his favourite camps were Lower Sabie, Olifants, Satara and Shingwedzi and I would go with these recommendations if you ever decide to go to Kruger (www.sanparks.org).

Willem was in ecstacy as we drove towards Kruger through the foothills of the Drakensberg range and past picture perfect getaways with names like Misty Mountain Chalets and Hops Hollow Brewery. He was full of stories about early settlers, mining, the Boers and what was once the Transvaal Republic. His South Africa, in other words.

And then the day got wilder.

We were nearly there, driving towards Numbi Gate, from where we planned to enter the Park, when Willem suddenly started behaving oddly at the wheel. He said he's feeling dizzy, and that it must be the pie he ate for lunch. He stopped, rested his head against the wheel, then got out of the vehicle, walked about. The husband jumped out too, to see if he was okay. Then Willem got in again, started the car, said he's perfect, asked the husband to jump back in and then promptly collapsed against the wheel...

The car started moving ahead, I can't drive, and Samar was still on the road, struggling to hit the brake through Willem's open door. Ohmygod have my evil thoughts killed him? is what I'm thinking as the husband finally managed to hit the brake. Now we're stopped in the middle of the road with our guide unconscious on his steering wheel. Just as we were thinking the worst he revived, couldn't recognize us and then slowly came to his senses.

"I'm fine now, let's go," he announced.

Samar and me were aghast. Finally, Samar took the wheel and Willem insisted we continue to drive towards the park. We're not that desperate to see animals, we said but he eventually got his way and that's how we entered Kruger.

Those first couple of hours in Kruger are really a blur as we spent most of the time looking at him, rather than for any animals. We saw some lion dung, impalas, a herd of hippos on the far side of a watering hole and our first Glossy Starling, a shiny indigo blue bird with an orange eye that we later learned was Kruger's crow. We caught up with and drove through a baboon herd walking on the road in front of us; there were drongos, hornbills, a Brown Hooded Kingfisher eating an insect, the stunning Kuru -- an antelope that is the emblem of the South Africa Parks. All we wanted was to take Willem to a doctor and, a couple of hours later, we finally got our way.

The doctor said it was probably the pie, and gave our guide a bagful of medicines.

Finally we checked in to our hotel, showered and had a brilliant meal with a bottle of South African wine. Willem seemed fine and couldn't understand what had happened to him. We may not have seen the Big Five yet, but Day One at Kruger was wild enough for us.

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Day 81: Tales of liberation--and the best mutton curry--in Soweto

2008-07-05T14:28:00Z

Remember 1976?

India was in the midst of a long vacation from democracy - we were trapped in the Emergency - but for South Africa this year marked the first real landmark in the struggle against Apartheid. The uprising that started in Soweto in 1976 gathered momentum and spread all over the country for the next 10 years or so.

We're spending the day in Soweto, the township that was born more than 100 years ago when living in the city became out of bounds for black workers who powered the mines and other industries. It was the hub of segregation and it later became the place where the people first said they had had enough.

Our hosts Noel and Sylise's kids, Mika and Khensani, have already wandered vaguely through the disturbing Apartheid Museum with us (there's even a scary recreation of the gallows and of bare rooms where prisoners were placed in solitary confinement) and they can't understand why we are scheduled to go to another museum today. "Hey this is South Africa," Noel tells his daughter Khensani.

Noel grew up in Soweto so he's full of gripping facts on the drive there. It's the most densely populated area in South Africa, he says. And as we enter he points out how the area is ringed by the newer, more affluent homes; some even have swimming pools. If you're a tourist you might actually drive by and wonder what the fuss is all about.

Believe it or not Soweto is a tourist hotspot now. There are B&Bs for all those tourists, mainly African American, who want to experience history for a night or two. There's even a Holiday Inn perched above the Soweto Freedom Square where the people congregated to sign the freedom charter all those years ago.

As you drive further into the 10-15 km long township, you see more of the original, four room, brick with corrugated roof structures. Of course, in the midst of these squat houses you spot the occasional three storey palace - one even had a white limo parked up front.

Notice how there are no trees in Soweto, Noel says, just as I'm trying to put my finger on what's missing from the landscape. Electricity came here only 10 years or so ago; before that, trees equaled firewood.

We drive up to Winnie Mandela's high walled mansion, across the road from lots of modest houses. Noel's been inside in the days when he was a journalist and he assures us it's as ostentatious as it looks.

Then there's the street where Archbishop Tutu and Nelson Mandela have their houses-the only street in the world where you can find two Nobel laureates. There's a restaurant just outside the archbishop's house. Soweto is firmly on the tourist trail you know.

Our next stop is the Hector Pieterson museum. Hector was a 13-year-old boy who was shot dead on 13 July, 1976, when the students of Soweto threw their textbooks out of the windows and marched to Miram Makeba freedom songs to protest the use of Afrikaans as a teaching medium.

They carried boards scrawled with "To Hell with Afrikaans" and "We're not fighting don't shoot"-the museum actually has some of these original placards and they send a shiver down your spine. It was meant to be a peaceful march but the police released tear gas and fired live ammunition. Hector was one of the 200 plus victims of the 13 July massacre.

You may remember the iconic photograph shot by Sam Nzima in which Soweto resident Mbuyisa Makhubo has scooped up Hector's body and his walking down the road with him in shock, with Hector's sister Antionette is wailing as she runs alongside him.

The museum has a record of all sorts of horror stories from the past. Of how people used the metal dustbin covers as shields to block bullets and so the authorities changed them to rubber. Of the 3800 Green Chevy that everyone in Soweto lived in fear of because of its sniper who took out anyone he saw on the streets.

It may be a neighbourhood museum but it's totally world class. There's even some brilliant footage of the Saturday night subculture called Swanking. Ordinary workers saved their money, spent it on suits and other fancy outfits and walked the ramp in a 10pm to 4am show every Saturday night.

Noel has already announced he cannot bring himself to take us to the ultra touristy Wandies restaurant. We are scheduled to have lunch at his mother's house, where he grew up and where his brother James and his wife Maureen now stay. But the museum was gripping and by the time we walk out we notice it's now nearing 4pm. Suddenly Noel announces that we are possibly getting a little late. We were expected for lunch at around 1pm!

When we get there, his family has understandably eaten. But they are still super warm - Noel apparently has a reputation in these parts.

For the next two hours, like in any old fashioned Indian home, Maureen doesn't come out of the kitchen. After eating the mutton curry - the BEST he has ever eaten -- the husband has to go in to befriend the chef and snag the recipe.

Maureen says she just threw in a bit of rosemary, some Indian spices and garlic. Later, when she realizes the husband is not going to give up until she hands it over, she goes into the bedroom and comes out with a long list of ingredients and a box of Rajah masala, a mysterious mix of spices roasted and ground somewhere in South Africa.

And even though Maureen didn't know I was vegetarian, there is a huge spread with several vegetarian dishes.

James, a television addict, introduces us to David Kau, a young stand up comedian who makes fun of Zulus, Afrikaaners and, yes, Indians too. Indians in South Africa, we gather, are perceived as the ultimate hagglers who can negotiate birth, death and everything in between. It's the original "bania" stereotype.

Later in the kitchen we hug and kiss Maureen and thank her for the wonderful hospitality. "We love you. Please come back," she says.

We're definitely coming back Maureen. And next time we'll be there on time (Noel please note).

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Day 78: South Africa, home away from home

2008-06-30T18:19:00Z

It's been three days since we crossed the Atlantic. We're pros now at three-hour nights: grab whatever little sleep you can on board, somehow stay awake the entire day after you land, and finally sink into a long, exhausted sleep.

It was a nine-hour flight from Brazil to South Africa. The wife was particularly happy because she finally got an Asian vegetarian (no fish or eggs) meal, after being rebuffed in South America ("Sorry, we have discontinued vegetarian meals," was the frosty response from a TACA, Trans American Airlines, flight attendant last month).

So, here we are in Johannesburg, reputedly one of the world's most dangerous cities. Hmmm. Just the other day we were in Sao Paulo, vying with Jo'burg for that title. And you know how we enjoyed big Sao.

"You're going to Jo'burg?" The question is normally followed by a look of barely restrained consternation. We faced it from quite a few fellow travellers from US and the UK. I, too, had read a lot about how the downtown area of South Africa's capital had been abandoned by businesses and had been taken over by thugs. I pictured gunmen at street corners.

Instead, we found a home away from home, a vibrant, diverse city, a melting pot of many cultures: African, India, European and Chinese (and 11 official languages, not far behind our 22, but only 48 million to our one billion odd). We also found ourselves in one of the greenest cities we've ever seen. We've been travelling for a while now, and after seeing Jo'Burg we promptly struck Cape Town off our list. Sure, it's pretty, Table Mountain, wine trail, swimming with sharks/dolphins and all -- but we did all that in New Zealand, right?

We're staying in a peaceful suburb called Mondeor, just outside the famous township of Soweto, epicentre of the anti-apartheid struggle that grabbed the world's imagination. For the last two nights, I've slept till 11 am, something I haven't done since I was a teenager. It's dead quiet at night, and the winter chill (about 5 deg C) helps of course.

We're staying with my old friend Noel Ndhlovu and his wife Sylise and their two rambunctious kids, Khensani -- one of the most expressive and smartest seven-year-olds we've ever met -- and her younger brother by 18 months, Mika, a car expert who can identify passing cars by their logos but is otherwise the most well behaved little boy I've seen (though his mother doesn't seem to agree).

The family has put its life on hold (Noel and Sylise run a marketing company from home, apart from some wonderful work producing newsletters that make the disadvantaged aware of their rights) and are driving us around every nook and cranny of this wonderful city. We've already done the Apartheid Museum (make sure you allocate an entire day if you ever visit); spent a day at Soweto (the wife will write more about that later, she's being lazy); spent an evening Braai-ing; watched Mandela's 90th birthday celebrations in London live on telly; and eaten out at a variety of interesting places right from Moyo, one of the best African restaurants in town, to Golden Peacock at the Oriental Plaza, a largely Indian run shopping complex which attracts shoppers from all parts of Africa (and even some diplomats) where the menu included an iconic dish called Bunny Chow.

Noel and I went to graduate school in the U.S. together, and there have clearly much has changed ever since we said goodbye nearly 15 years ago. Not just in his life.

South Africa -- once heralded as the world's rainbow nation because of its diversities and promise -- appears to be on the cusp of what some here call its "second transition" (the first being the passing of apartheid and the euphoric birth of the rainbow nation in 1994). We find around us a period of leadership change, the autumn of Nelson Mandela's life, fear of the road ahead, and, as Noel interprets it, a strange and strong streak of negativism.

The newspapers are certainly more pessimistic than any media back home. There are no stories of hope and change, no delving into the lives of ordinary South Africans. Instead, there is a daily soul searching about decisions and declarations: the courts have just declared that the Chinese should be regarded as black for purposes of affirmative employment; the aide of the man who will likely be the next president has declared he will kill for him; the presidential hopeful, Jacob Zuma, is accused of everything from corruption to sexual impropriety. And so, much -- admittedly well written and engrossing - soul-searching goes on.

But South Africans -- despite an unemployment rate close to 40 per cent , violent crime and transitional angst -- have much to be thankful for, as we've found. Infrastructure is much better than back home. The roads are smooth, the pavements are intact, and traffic -- despite what the locals say -- is orderly. On our visits to malls we found cars flowing smoothly around roundabouts, unregulated, waiting politely for each other. Boss, these places would have been jammed within five minutes back home. And the literacy rate is about 75 per cent, leaves us in the dust at 60 odd. Sure, their soccer team -- the quaintly named Bafana Bafana -- have embarrassed them by losing to Nigeria and Sierra Leone, but there is much to be positive about.

South Africans of Indian origin, we find, have a reputation: Keeping to themselves, staying loyal to India, squeezing bargains out of every deal, and being industrious. Not too surprising that most Indians, both Hindu and Muslim, are of Gujarati origin, with a smattering of Naidus from Andhra. Some Indians were deeply involved in the anti-apartheid movement and some are strong nationalists but the general stereotype is strong and true – certainly during cricket matches -- to form.

But there's much good-natured ribbing of Indians, and their influences are strong. Noel, Sylise and the kids like Indian food, so I had promised to cook some. Sylise took me to a wonderful spice store, but when I did start cooking some kheema, I found she well stocked with spices, from garam masala to cloves. It's not just the food and the feeling that home is just one flight away that makes us feel that makes us feel at home. South Africans are like us: warm and welcoming.

So, staying with Noel and Sylise has been exactly like staying at home. You can take them for granted and there are no awkward first-world formalities, no ceaseless thank yous, pleases and the like. We are so comfortable and relaxed after more than two months of keeping ourselves on the move that we now really need to get galvanised and make bookings for Kruger National Park, a magical, sprawling small-country-sized refuge for the continent's wildlife -- from lions to zebra.

With this peaceful, easy feeling, it's easy to smile at awkward jokes about, well, ourselves, from a white South African after a brilliant morning of walking around in a sprawling nature reserve behind the comfortable home of our hosts yesterday. "Ah, Indians, so we'll charge you 8,000 rand," the woman joked, "but you'll get me to give it for much cheaper eh?" After she found we were journalists, she asked what language we wrote in. English? Her eyebrows rose. “Not in all those dialects you have?”

Ah well, I never claimed my English was very good.

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Day 75: Blame it on Sao -- 48 hours, a new friend, a light head

2008-06-28T18:35:00Z

I paid 50 times as much as I normally do for the haircut. But, I also had my hair washed four times and had an attractive - if somewhat stressed - Brazilian woman fuss over it for an hour, holding it between her fingers and snipping it off strand by strand.

Ah, the pleasures of a haircut in an alien land.

Between the woman who washed my hair, the hairdresser herself and the fashionable owner who emerged to chat and help interpret what I wanted - nothing more than a standard army buzz cut - I had three women involved in my long overdue haircut. This was a far cry from the Bandra taporis (rough translation: local heroes) who put an electric razor to my head and for Rs 50 send me on my way within 15 minutes.

We weren't really looking forward to our two-night transit halt in Sao Paulo, our only way out of South America to South Africa. What, after all, do you do in a mega, mega city that dwarfs even Mumbai, 18 million to 14 million. What do you do when you hear of the bulletproof cars, endless traffic jams and the general air of menace that hangs over Sao, where even the language, Portugese, is completely alien?

We called Melissa Sabella.

We couldn't help but call her. When we landed at our hotel on a grey, cold after the longest (one hour) immigration line we've faced thus far, and a $50 cab ride, we had a fax waiting for us in the hotel that we had booked from India. "Dear Priya and Samar," it said, "Welcome to Sao Paulo. This is Melissa Sabella. I'm Pritam Roy's friend. Please call me when you check in. I'd love to take out out somewhere nice..."

We don't know Pritam Roy, really. We only know he reads this blog from Mumbai, that he was once a resident of Sao Paulo, that he was brave enough to put us in touch with his friends here. We never really thought this would really happen. But Pritam - if you're reading this, a million thanks - delivered on his promise to help and within two hours of landing in Sao, we watched a pretty Brazilian with a big, beaming smile walk towards us.

Now, we're used to exploring new cities on our own. Our wander through Lima yesterday was memorable. But nothing, obviously, can beat the local perspective. Especially since that perspective began with a sprawling Brazilian buffet that we could never have found or negotiated on our own. In a large hall full of a salad banquet, robust Brazilians - many breaking into song - roving drinks trolleys (see photo below) and roaming waiters armed with swords skewered with a variety of meats, we began our whirlwind 48 hours in Sao Paulo.

Every table had a little device, a little wheel that you could rotate, depending on your hungry you were. You could rotate it to display either "Sim, por favor (yes please)," or "Nao obrigado (no thank you)". But even if you said no thanks, the roving waiters tended not to see it. So, I ended up eating three varieties of beef, chicken hearts and sausages. I had two caipirinhas (the wife immediately had the local beer, the salad and the dessert) and after a boozy, happy night of getting to know Melissa, we ended our first few hours in Brazil.

The next day, we realised why it is never a good idea to believe all that you hear about a city. Draw your own conclusions based on your own ramblings. No Lonely Planet or Fodor's or whatever can help you reach a conclusion.

As you can tell, we loved Sao.

Like all big cities, it has big problems: Slums (though not as untidy or bedraggled as the ones back home), traffic jams (bad, but totally exaggerated, bring a Brazilian to Mumbai and then let's talk) and crime (well, it has more robberies than any other city in the world).

But take some basic precautions and you will be just fine. Here's what Sao also has going for it:

A great transport system. It has first-rate Toyota and Chevrolet taxis, an extensive bus-based mass transit system, with some articulated Volvos so long that they have 18 wheels and our four times as long as an average Mumbai BEST bus. It has a 20-year-old metro with five lines, spotless and wonderfully maintained.
It has some of the most diverse people I have ever seen - Japanese, Lebanese, Greek, Italian, black, white and every shade and mixture of these.
Consequently, it has wonderful food: both Costa Rica and Peru, our previous stops, seemed like so limited in their varieties of cuisine.
It also has a sprawling park with lakes bang in the city's heart.

(Photo, above: Ibirapuera Park in the heart of Sao)

It was in Ibirapuera Park, then, that we began our only full day in Sao. Melissa called to say she was taking the day off, a wonderful gesture and something that is hard to come by in the western world, or, increasingly, even back home. It was particularly touching considering she works 7 am to 10 pm five days a week (she works for British Petroluem, looking after health and safety issues with jurisdiction over Asia and South America).

We rambled, we roamed, we learned. At the museum of Afro-Brazilian history, we learned of a delightful icon of African Brazil: Saci (pronounced Sachi), a mythical black boy with one leg, a pipe in his mouth and an eternal smile. For nearly a century, he has been rumoured to look after the plantations of the country's vast interior, his caricature and image now a part of Brazil's iconography. Look him up on the net if you can.

By afternoon, we had reached Paulista Avenue, Sao's business heart. Immaculately dressed men and women hurried busily along the broad pavements, and by lunch time, the restaurants were packed. Melissa, who is of Italian ancestry, took us to the best Italian buffet lunch we've ever had: endless varieties of cheese, salads and cold meats; piping hot pastas made to order, desserts, juices and coffees. Over lunch, we realised how Melissa's ancestry was directly related to her generosity. Like many of us, she was ultra-close to her family - her father was one of 17 children - and was used to taking them for granted.

After changing two subway trains, we found ourselves at a cosy neighbourhood mall, where I was relieved to finally have a haircut after two months. I've never had so much attention directed at me during a hair-chop operation, and I have to admit I enjoyed every bit of it. "Your friends are from Brazil?" the owner asked as my grand operation came to a close, gesturing to Melissa and the wife. After I assured her than the curly haired one was my wife, she ended up giving me her email and said her website was under construction. When I told the pretty, young hairdresser this was the best haircut I ever had - and the first time I'd ever let a woman cut my hair - she lit up and asked if I could tell her boss that. I did, and so a pleasant afternoon for all ended, though I ended up spending Rs 2,500 for my pleasure. Ah, but it was all worth the warmth and the lightness I felt.

We wound our way to the mall cinemas, saw "Sex and the City" and after more rambling through Sao, wound up after 9 pm at a speciality soup and sandwich café - packed of course - near our hotel. We weren't in any great hurry. Our flight to our next stop, Johannesburg, South Africa, was tomorrow at 6 pm. But didn't Melissa have enough of us, and didn't she have to get to office early tomorrow?

Melissa, as she had been doing through the day, only beamed in response, and disclosed she was now going to visit her mother. Tomorrow, she had a 7 am flight to Brazil's capital, Brasilia. Whew!

She's coming to Mumbai in January, so if anyone wants to meet her, let us know.

All we can say to Melissa is a big, big thank you and a Sao-sized kiss. Within 48 hours, our apprehension had turned to a warm glow, a complete stranger had become a friend.

Blame it on Sao.

P.S. Sorry, bandwidth was too narrow today for photos. I'll try again tomorrow.

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Ah Peru! Scenes from a far country

2008-06-25T14:41:00Z

As we exit the land of the Incas and all those other Indians, I dredged up some photos from my camera. They were previously missed or all those shaky cybercafes in remote towns didn´t let me upload them. Here they are. Also, four posts have gone up today, so please take a look at the One-Way Ticket home page.

Photo, above: I´ve rarely seen more carefree children than in Peru. Many, as young as three, walk around unsupervised, dwadling on their way home. This lot was older and were prancing along through a town square.

Photo, above: A Hamara Bajaj moment. Somewhere on a dusty lane in the high Andes we met William, all alone in this Bajaj autorickshaw. Whose auto was it? Mine, said William. Do you drive it, we asked? Yes, he said, and then paused, realising this may be pushing it. No, he confessed, I am watching it for my father, who´s inside that house ...

Photo, above: Delighted wife with delighted Quechua woman. The llama couldn´t care less. The wife doesn´t like her picture going up. But I´m a free man and this is my blog too, right?

Photo, above: A high-altitude lake we passed on our way from Lima to Cusco. Breathing was hard after a steep ascent of four vertical km within five hours, but such scenes took our breath away in any case.

Photo, above: Those poignant reminders of the dangers on Peru´s roads. Many more die on our roads, but the Peruvians create little memorials for victims of road accidents at the spots where they died. That makes it particularly poignant. This one really made me wonder: Who was Pilar? How did she die? Who did she leave behind?

Photo, above: the wife takes a break on the edge of the Inca Trail above Machu Picchu. Scary. I persuaded her to sit here, her feet dangling over the unguarded rocky path, the next stop a few thousands of feet below (look closely). I wouldn´t do it.

(Photo, above: These policemen and their muzzled guard dogs were outside a church in Lima. We´re not sure why. But when the wife asked them for a photo -- un foto por favor? -- they readily agreed)

(Photo, above: "Gandhi", whom we met improbably in Lima´s Chinatown -- wild world eh? -- was posing for a photo with me when a passerby decided to join the scene)

(Photo, above: Unlikey reminder of home, a closed petrol station called New Delhi on the road to Lake Titikaka)

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Day 73: Meeting Gandhi in Lima

2008-06-25T13:33:00Z

Considering this is the city where middle aged women zip around in Bajaj autorickshaws labelled The Tigers of San Miguel and curvy bikini-clad women on signboards exhort you to drink Brahma beer, it shouldn´t have surprised us that we bumped into Gandhi (see the man himself above) at Lima´s Chinatown, right?

Oh well, it was one of those perfect holiday days.

When we landed in Lima two weeks ago, our launch pad for a whirlwind tour of Peru, we thought it looked like East Delhi. Perhaps it was because it had been raining. This time round, with one day to go before we left for Sao Paolo, it looked decidedly brighter. We´re going to spend the day exploring, I informed the weary husband who had visions of lying in front of the telly and watching some trashy Peruvian music channel.

What do you do when you´re in a city for a day, you´re stuck with a crap guidebook and the TimeOut is not written in English? I usually log on to The New York Times´ 36 Hours in XYZ City series. Obviously it´s just a starting point--I know if I had 36 hours in Bombay I would do more than go to Dome and Bombay Electric.

Peru is tough, but it´s been my favourite country so far. If ever there was a country that deserved a Mere desh ki dharti song, this is it.

In many ways it´s like home. Some neighbourhoods in Lima seem even more out of synch with Peru than, say, Mumbai´s Malabar Hill is with the real India. At least in Malabar Hill the real India is just outside your doorstep. In Lima, the bubble is much less porus, and the high-altitude dust of the rugged Andes just a distant puff.

We walked down a well-maintained street of Miraflores (where we were staying) to Larcomar--Marine Drive on steroids ie a seaside walkway clinging to a cliff above the Pacific Ocean where you can spot surfers even in winter. I wanted to pop in to the H. Stern at the JW Marriot to see if I could pick up some Inca-design jewellery for my mum. The store was closed (and the next day at the airport I found it was totally overpriced anyway--stick to India or Dubai for gold) so we wandered through the streets of Miraflores.

NYT had suggested a route and we took it--past the parks with marigolds in the heart of the neighbourhood, the street artists (see photo below), the street food vendors (Peru is big on street food--fried guinea pig skins anyone?), and past Cafe Haiti, an old world coffee shop. We found ourselves at the steps of a movie theatre where they were screening M Night Shyamalan´s The Happening (or El Fin De Los Tiempos) in English. The show was at 4.30 so we decided to come back then (read my two bit review below).

(Photo, above: painters sell their work on a Lima main street)

We hopped on to a micro headed downtown. The tiny buses with full blast music are Lima´s only real means of public transport and it was fun to watch the conductor try to convince any large group of people he spotted on the sidewalk to hop on. Eventually we got off and continued the trek on foot. Our plan was to walk hand in hand through the Plaza San Martin and get to Plaza Major (see photo below), the restored colonial heart of Lima; then lunch at Chinatown and head back for The Happening.

It was a loong walk but after all those tourist buses, wandering through neighbourhoods with beautifully maintained colonial buildings was brilliant. Like in India, there´s always something to look at in Central America -- we walked past a church with two muzzled, hefty doberman on guard (see photo below); a policeman blew a furious whistle at a little girl who plucked a flower at the Plaza Major and ran away swiftly as half the square laughed; a lady selling "zero cholestrol" quail eggs laughed disbelievingly when I informed her I was a vegetarian.

At Chinatown, NYT had recommended Salon Capon, but all the restaurants looked equally good. Since the newspaper recommends Trishna in Bombay, the husband rebelled and picked his own favourite. I got a plate of stir fried veggies with rice and non-alcoholic Chicha and the husband feasted on a lunch buffet of all kinds of unmentionables.

We saw very few Chinese in the restaurant (which actually looked like a large wedding hall and reminded me of the breakfast places in Hong Kong) the husband says it´s just a sign of their diminishing population in Peru. The first Chinese arrived in Peru more than 150 years old--their names are still carved into the flagstones of Lima´s Chinatown.

(Photo below: Peruvian Chinese food tastes exactly like Indian Chinese!)

After we had overeaten, we walked back out to the crowded street. I glanced at a kurta-clad man disbelievingly and nudged the husband: "Doesn´t that guy look just like Gandhi?" Now we were both staring and hey, it wasn't the Mahatma's long lost twin. This man was carrying placards that had Gandhi's picture on them and was talking loudly in Spanish about the Indian icon and karma.

"Are you Indian?" I asked. "Nope, Peruvian." We couldn´t understand each other so we smiled vigorously and decided to take pictures instead. First, Gandhi alone. Then Gandhi asked if we wanted to take a picture with him. So I photographed the husband and Gandhi, and a crazy tourist who insisted on piling on to the picture. Next, Gandhi wanted to know if he could pose with his arm around me. No thanks, I said as he handed me a pamphlet. Later, when a friend translated, we learned this guy wasn't exactly into a turn-the-other-cheek philosophy. And yes, he´s on http://gandhiperu.hi5.com/ if you don't believe me.

Our day was almost stranger than a Night Shyamalan film, I thought as we headed back to the movie theatre in a cab. This man is one of my favourite directors (yes, I loved Lady in the Water) but even I'm beginning to worry now. Cinematographer Tak Fujimoto was the only saving grace, I thought.

Still, as we walked into the park outside the theatre enroute to our hotel, I couldn't help but shiver as the trees rustled.

In the park, a jalebi-shaped pit was full of oldies cheering a young, suited teenager who was belting out romantic numbers. Soon, the oldies got up and began dancing vigorously to the songs (Photo, below: Dancing the park).

We stayed there for a while, and I tried to ignore the rustling trees.

The husband thought my tour had ended, but after a couple of Pisco Sours back at the hotel I dragged him to the bohemian neighbourhood of Barranco. It was quite dead but we found a lovely Italian-Peruvian restaurant where one wall was plastered with vintage family photographs. On our way out, the husband, using his rapidly improving Spanish, told the smiling, elegant doorman that it was our last night in Peru and that we had just enjoyed the perfect last meal. The doorman shook hands with him and blew me a kiss.

And we were off to Sao Paolo.

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Day 71: Trout at the world's highest "sea" view

2008-06-25T13:26:00Z

Let me use what I hate to, an adjective.

Incredible.

That was the view at lunch today -- facing the azure waters of the world´s highest inland sea. As I ate my freshly fried trout, I could see snow-clad peaks about 22,000 feet high (Everest is just under 30,000). I could see ferries coming and going over the cliffs, creating triangles of wake, looking from this height like those insects that skim water. Where we had huffed, the local men walked easily, knitting as they strolled over the rocky mountain paths. Yes, the men of Taquile island -- the largest inhabitation in Lake Titikaka on Peru´s southern flanks -- are avid knitters.

The homesickness I wrote about last time was as strong when the morning began with that 5:30 am buzz that we have so grown to loath. Groggy breakfast. Icy morning. Grey sky. Hotel pickup. Transfer to boat packed with tourists. Listen to guide. The wife had popped her motion-sickness pill but looked distinctly under the weather.

Our first stop after a half hour of chugging along is one of the floating islands of Uros, about 42 of them harbouring a remarkable people leading highly unusual lives. Can you imagine living on water all your life? On islands -- most no bigger than a basketball court -- that are not really islands but just beds of straw (see photo, below)? That´s essentially what the islanders of Uros do.

(Photo, above: the women of the Uros Islands. I got a big kiss from one of them, deputed to give me a prize, when I correctly guessed the depth of the lake)

Many islanders don´t take too kindly to tourists, but given their unusual living style, they are tourist magnets. So, they´ve evolved a profitable peace. Some of the islanders -- who speak a language called Ayamara, distinct from the Quechua that dominates the Indian highlands -- have welcomed tourism. So, they are ready for us as we stumbled off the boat onto the spongy reed straw of their watery home. Feels strange, like walking on a trampoline.

As we relax on the reeds on straw bolsters, the guide spends an hour explaining how the people of Uros live, how the island are built and so on. There is no money exchanged, but, later, we browse the handicrats and weaves made by the islanders, we understand the system: buy what you want instead of leaving tips. I think it´s quite a sensible system.

The real trip of the day lies ahead. Two hours -- two hours? isn´t this supposed to be a lake? -- or 35 km until we reach Taquile Island. So, let´s get this out of the way. Lake Titikaka -- south America´s biggest -- isn´t a lake despite the technical definitions. It´s 190 km long and 80 km wide and at its deepest, 300 metres! It´s an inland sea to me.

(Photo, above: The glory of Lake Titikaka. Takes your breath away? It should. It´s more than 12,000 feet above sea level)

By the time we pull into the little jetty, we are still travel fatigued. But once we stepp onto Taquile, we realise why travel is always worth the effort. As we struggle up the steep slope of a hill -- feeling a little ashamed when we see people in their 60s and 70s doing the same -- the sprawling vistas and clear air of Taquile and Titikaka take our breath away (literally too, of course, remember, we are at more than 12,000 feet above sea level).

There are no hotels on the island, but some islanders have taken to letting out little rooms with the most atmospheric views (see photo, below).

There is no electricity, but we see solar panels. A family of four from the United States, our travel companions, is staying with a local family tonight. We should have done this. But these are things you figure out when you get to a place. That´s why you should use guide books as, well, guides. Take your own decision and factor in enough flexibility in your schedule to change your mind. We couldn´t since we were part of a conducted tour. Thankfully, today is the last day.

After an hour of climbing, we arrive at the village square, full of tourists from all over the world and silent locals, some smiling in amusement, others knitting away furiously (see photo, below).

Hey, there´s one of those signposts that tell you how far you are from the world´s big cities. No Bombay? No, but, wait a minute. There´s Nueva Delhi (see photo, below). So, we´re more than 16,000 km from home.

The travel fatigue is long gone as the wonder -- something we feel frequently -- of being at a place like this wholly occupies our mind and spirit. We are fortunate to be where we are.

We meet our guide -- he abandoned us after we got off the boat -- in the village square and with rumbling stomachs we struggle off along more rocky paths to our lunch. We didn´t expect the view. Everything is cooked by locals. My fish is fresh and crisp, but the wife has run out of all luck. Vegetarian is too much for the islanders. Helpfully, they give her white rice, grated carrots. I give her one of my potatoes. But she doesn´t care. The soup is hot and fresh, the sun is warm -- pretty hot actually -- on our backs, and our world is at peace.

We spend 15 minutes watching, what is to us, a scary sight. On a cliff below us, two women are knitting. There is a rock on the cliff edge. As we watch with horror, a baby -- no more than 18 months or so, obviously just having learnt to walk -- staggers to the edge, swaying drunkenly as he stands there, interestedly surveying the domain of his people. No one eats. I am too frozen to take a photo. The mother is unconcerned. This happens three times before the baby realises there might be better things to do than scare the daylights of the strange tourists.

We go back to gazing at the snowy peaks, which are not in Peru but Bolivia. There´s lots of trade across the lake, a lot of it illegal. We hear whispers of drug hauls and other contraband from our guide but we are not privy to those realities.

By the time we get on the boat for the long journey back to shore, we have made friends with our fellow travellers. The greyness from the morning and our souls have vanished, replaced by a cheery bonhomie. It´s fascinating to meet so many new people, to talk about so many things. There is the 60-something Dutch retiree who is travelling around the world, the methodist minister and his wife from Colorado, USA, the couple from Brazil who listen to the Spanish commentaries -- as close as they can get -- the family from Colombia, the Dutch couple who have seen more of Rajasthan than we have.

Three hours pass quickly as we discuss everything from Barak Obama, food habits, terrorism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Peru, the wonders of travel and the experiences that we have still not had.

Homesickness? Show me the way to the next airport.

Tomorrow, our 10-day road journey across the Andes will be wiped out in the roar of jet engines as a plane takes us back to Lima within two hours. We have a free day in Lima, a city we remember as being grey and with strong shades of East Delhi. But with the end of our guided tour, we feel relief, like we´ve passed an examination.

Somehow, we think Lima is going to surprise us.

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Day 70: Alpaca curry and some travel fatigue

2008-06-22T13:30:00Z

Take a look at the furry little fellow above with his good-luck garland. He's a baby alpaca. I had him for lunch.

Well, not him literally, but a bigger, tougher, less fortunate cousin, or brother, or whatever. I met this furball at a rest stop for lunch on another long, mountain road journey in the high Andes, this time on a bus service called -- what else -- the Inka Express, just under 400 km from Cusco to Puno, a grey city that is the base for Lake Titikaka, the highest navigable lake in the world.

This is the start of something we've never done before: the guided tour. You know, herded into a bus with a guide, accosted by vendors when you get off, conversations with others on the bus -- good, bad and indifferent -- and, this is the worst, early morning starts. The waking up at 5:30 am in the cold and at high altitude has been rough on our bodies and minds.

At least the lunch was good, if not the best we´ve had in Peru. The alpaca curry was made with onion, pepper, salt. Pretty basic but tasty. Much like beef. With it came the biggest selection of vegetarian food we've seen: a palak (spinach) like vegetable, a white curry of unidentifiable veggies, potatoes shredded to look like noodles. Hearty and invigorating. Particularly so because I ignored the altitude and had a strong pisco sour, the local cocktail that has sustained me well.

The lunch halt itself was a tourist trap, like so many we've been herded into over the last two days. There were handicraft sellers, an Andean band equipped inevitably with pan pipes -- and playing incongruous tunes like the Beatles' Ob-la-di-ob-la-da, sigh -- and of course the garlanded baby alpacas. I've always wondered how those western tourists emerging with a shaky expression from Indian tour buses really feel. Now, I know.

The bus itself was very comfortable and even had a toilet on board. "For urination only," said our guide, an earnest young local whose English left the wife dazed and confused. Actually, I struggled too to understand him. Finally, I solved the problem by listening to his Spanish commentaries and translating them for the wife. My understanding of Spanish has grown remarkably over this month. But it's always an effort trying to string together sentences in a new language and after doing this through the day I'm ready to switch to English, Hindi, Marathi, whatever.

As you can tell, we`re undergoing some travel fatigue. Homesickness is easy at altitude and within a guided tour. We've enjoyed the food and the people and the sights, but I am dying for some spicy kheema and the wife wants chapati and bharta. We've been waking up groggily the last three days wondering where we are. New Zealand? Costa Rica? Ah, Peru ... and we are headed today for Puno, right?

Breakfast is the same every day: scrambled eggs, local bread, cheese and papaya. The wife must make do with bread, cheese, fruit and yogurt.

The road to Puno shoves aside the homesickness (see photo, above). We are travelling on a high-altitude plain, snow-capped peaks above us, a rail line beside us. The plains are covered by brown grasslands, grazed by llama, alpaca, and some cows and sheep. There are lonely hamlets or sometimes just houses made of local mud bricks and tin roofs. We pull into towns now and then to see Inca ruins and of course peruse handicrafts. Each town has a little town square and a church.

(Photo, below: rest stop on the high plains)

(Photo, above: The loo keeper at a toilet outside an Inca ruin)

The toilets are indifferent, but at least they are there, usually run by locals. You can have a piss for 1 sol, or about Rs 20. The people -- their faces burnt and leathery by the strong mountain sun -- are noticeably poorer than anywhere we've been before, but yet we've never been harrassed.

Oh, here in the south of Peru, Bajaj autorickshaws have finally disappeared. Funny looking Honda autos reign supreme (see photo, below).

We pass through Juliaca, the biggest town in this region, and our air gateway back to Lima the day after. The buildings are made of brick but nothing is painted. Our guide mutters something about local taxes on finished buildings that persuades people to leave everything unfinished. Cycle rickshaws abound, though unlike ours the driver sits behind the passengers. We pass a petrol station called "Nueva Delhi", New Delhi. How did that happen?

The sky is darkening when Puno finally arrives, as unfinished looking as Juliaca. The same tax, mutters the guide again. The main occupations in this town of 120,000 people are contraband -- smuggling electronics and other stuff in and out of neighbouring Bolivia -- tourism (thanks to Lake Titikaka, whose banks we can now see), and driving cycle rickshaws. Our guide claims there are 40,000 rickshaws in town. We doubt it.

The streets are incredibly narrow, like so many Andean towns, but clean. And there are pavements so no one seems to be getting run over despite buses and taxis tearing down with blaring horns. The hotel pops up in the middle of one such street. As usual, it´s very clean and very comfortable. We shake off our fatigue and slip out for dinner. Trout from the lake, fried without spices and white rice. The wife has boiled veggies and rice.

We eat quickly -- well, not that quickly, since food usually comes only after about half an hour of the order -- and grab the usual bedtime tv: we watch Daffy duck speaking in Spanish, some Latino women wriggling their booty to some really good music and finally settle on the Warner channel, in English. CNN is there too, in English and Spanish. It seems the world is being flooded as we flit through the dry Andes. Tomorrow, Lake Titikaka. Before I stop, there was some concern from family about some slips I had on the Inca trail. I`m fine folks (see proof, below), only my camera was damaged.

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NEW PHOTOS! Take a look

2008-06-21T16:37:00Z

Folks, we have finally solved our photo upload problems. Lots of new photos have gone up in our blogs. Take a look at all posts from Day 63 onwards. And to those of you who protested the lack of photos -- thanks. It forced us to find a solution. We suspect Durga Raghunath, the chief of Livemint, increased space on the database. Except more blogs and photos from Peru by tomorrow ...

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Day 68: Crazy Peruvians on the train or why we love Peru

2008-06-19T00:17:00Z

This is probably how an advertisement for Peru Rail would read: Wanted cabin attendants. Must have experience in service industry. Must be well-groomed. Must know folk dances and have previous ramp experience.

Today, on the train back from Machu Picchu, after the three employees of Peru Rail had finished serving us weary travellers an airplane-style evening snack, one of them slipped into a regional costume and did a folk dance up and down the aisle. Once the song and dance was over, recorded commentary explained its origin. Then the female attendant hopped into the toilet, slipped out of her prim navy waistcoat and jacket (see photo, above), shook loose her tightly pulled back waves, came out in a gorgeous deep red Alpaca poncho and proceeded to walk the aisle to fashion show music (sorry the camera battery was dead and we couldn´t find a point to recharge it) . While the briefly stunned passengers hooted and cheered, her male colleague did his own quick change operation. And thus began a fashion show on the railcar.

(Photo, below: the railcar to Machu Picchu just before we boarded at a town called Ollantaytambo)

This is just another example of the cheerful, go-with-the-flow attitude of most Peruvians. Despite or maybe because of the harsh, bare terrain Peruvians grow up in, nothing seems to faze them easily. They rarely leave their smiles at home. They love their beer, whether it´s the lovely branded golden lager Cusqueña or the home-fermented corn beer Chicha (those Pisco Sours are for tourists). If you´re ever driving through the Andes, look for the houses with red flags. It means they brew Chicha and will be happy to pour you a giant glass of it. When we stopped at one house, we encountered a nursing mother and a grandmother drinking king-size glasses of the strong country stuff.

Peruvians party at the drop of a hat and you´re more than likely to encounter a fiesta in one of the towns you pass through. Be warned, a fiesta usually involves active high-altitude dancing to tunes that never end along with shots of some lethal drink. One tourist told us about the party she encountered at a village that was celebrating the coming of electricity.

They have music in their blood. Maybe that´s because they learnt to dance and singalong to their folk songs at an early age. In Cusco we´ve seen hordes of children practising their dances, probably for the Festival of the Sun two days from now. They´re proud of their local traditions and culture and are happy to display them at the slightest move of the sun/moon. The Peruvian guides we´ve encountered have been of uniformly high quality, well read and acutely aware of what they lost when the Spaniards attacked the existing Inca culture and religion in the 1500s.

But most of the hard-working locals are remarkably free of any rancour against the Spanish. Some part of that may be their lack of written history. Whatever, they don´t dwell too much on past glory and how it disappeared. What happens, happens. We found one answer in a translated folk song in Aguas Calientes.

Where did the Incas go?

When their time came to an end, they came to an end.

That´s how it must have been then,

so that they would come to an end,

in the time of judgement

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Day 67: Machu Picchu or the Taj Mahal? Who got your vote?

2008-06-18T15:33:00Z

I already know the answer to that question. In last year´s frenzied email polling, you voted for the Taj Mahal as the seventh wonder of the world. Why? Well, because it was Indian of course. India is great. The Taj is amazing. India´s best monuments are as good as any other country´s right? So what if you hadn´t seen Machu Picchu. As an Indian, the Taj seemed the obvious choice.

Now that I´ve been there, done that, I can say this: I´m glad Machu Picchu won.

(Photo, above: We spent seven hours at Machu Picchu, we got this photo as the sun started going down. I think that´s me in the left corner)

Don´t get me wrong, I love the Taj. I even went for the godawful Yanni concert just so I could see the Taj lit up in the background. But getting to the Taj is a nightmare. Horrible railway stations, a ghastly city, no real choice of good accomodation if you don´t want to go five star, touts at every step of the way, people thrusting ugly miniatures of the real thing in your face, and, to make things worse, they always mistake me for an NRI at these places.

And Machu Picchu? Sure it´s expensive and toursity. And yes, the Machu Picchu Sanctuary Lodge (which still gets real Inca water) controls all food and beverages once you get there. The cafe they run sells $5 miniature water bottles. Lunch is a rip off. But the experience of getting to Machu Picchu is beautiful.

On the 7.45am railcar to Machu Picchu

We caught a posh railcar (yes it was just one car) from the quaint station of Ollantaytambo, located at the northern end of the Sacred Valley of the Incas. There were windows everywhere and the scenery was stunning: snowcapped mountains on the right, the bare Andes on the left, only hedges of cactii between us and the raging Urubamba river below, lots of Inca ruins including a stunning fortress located in the clouds. We were served a boxed lunch on the painless/exquisite 1.30 hour journey to Aguas Calientes (photo, below: end of the line at Aguas Calientes).

We had wanted to do the Inca Trail, a four day hike through the mountains, but left it too late and couldn´t snag a spot (they only allow 500 hikers a day). As the husband settled into the train, his favourite mode of transport, he grinned: ¨Hike, shyke and all is okay but give me this any day.¨ The rapids in the Urubamba looked far more ferocious than the ones we tackled on our rafting trip yesterday. If you like rafting, Costa Rica is wayy better than Peru. We´ve now set our sights on the month-long Bhrahmaputra rafting trip.

Our guide Darwin (don´t laugh, he was amazing. He first saw MP when he was 7 years old, has been a guide for 28 years and has authored 5 books) met us at the station. We were headed straight for Machu Picchu, so we handed our bag to a random stranger who for a small fee would deposit it at our hotel. Can you imagine utilizing such a service at the Taj? There were zillions of locals selling souvenirs, but nobody looked like they would attack you if you didn´t buy anything.

We stood in a neat line for two minutes, hopped on to one of many airconditioned Mercedes Benz mini buses and headed straight for the monument. Why the hell can´t we do this in Agra?

Location wise too, Machu Picchu wins over the Taj. The Taj is located in one of India´s ugliest cities. MP is located at the start of Peru´s Amazon forest. It´s actually in a cloud forest (avoid coming here from December to April; it rains every day and you won´t see any of the mountains) and the weather and vegetation here is tropical.

Inca romance or Moghul love?

I think it´s cool that king wanted to build a palace for the woman he loved. But I think the story of the Incas is even more romantic than Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal.

It´s amazing that they could build this granite masterpiece from humble stone hammers, bronze chisels, clay and sandstone. Of course it took them nearly 130 years to build the place. And there is sadness in this story too. Machu Picchu was never finished. First, there was the Civil War in 1529. Then the Spanish arrived in 1532 and pretty much deleted all the Inca temples and replaced them with churches. When the Incas in Machu Picchu realized the Spanish were headed their way, they abandoned MP and rushed to Vilcabamba, the last refuge of the Incas, where they were finally destroyed. You can see the Vilcabamba glacier from MP and it´s not difficult to imagine their last journey across the Urubamba canyon.

And talking of rivers--the pristine Urubamba encircles MP; the Taj has to make do with the polluted Yamuna.

(Photo, above: The Urubamba ran beside our rail car all the way to Machu Picchu)

And the actual monuments?

Like most people, I fell in love with the Taj when I first saw it. I was amazed by its beauty and the intricate detailing that had gone into its creation. All those designs, wah Taj!

But Machu Picchu wins for its sheer utilitarian, rugged beauty and the lessons it teaches you. The Incas worshipped nature and lived in harmony with it. As Darwin put it: "They were the first Green Team". There´s tonnes of astronomy here. There´s a representation of the Southern Cross consellation, the only cross the Incas knew, that perfectly points out the NSEW directions. Many guides place their compasses on the stone for confirmation. Two windows of MP´s Sun Temple face north east and south east and are in perfect allignment with the sunrise on the summer and winter solstices. Incidentally, if you want to visit Cusco and Machu Picchu, come during the winter solstice in June. The Sun Festival is Peru´s biggest party.

The Incas also believed in duality. So if Machu Picchu or old mountain is towers over the southern part of this ancient city, Wynapicchu or young mountain dominates the northern view. Darwin says five people died trying to climb Wynapicchu last year. It´s a four hour roundtrip hike.

That´s another thing. Like Everest, this place inspires people to give it their best shot. All kinds of professionals in their 40s and 50s attempt the Inca Trail, said Jeff, a 42-year-old American graduate student of anthropology told us. He was the youngest member of his group. "In your 20s you don´t have enough money and in your 30s you´re busy looking after your kids," he reasoned. Wanda, a 70 something American who has undergone two knee replacement surgeries in the last couple of years, trooped bravely along with us as we did the long walking tour of Machu Picchu.

Inspired by Wanda, I convinced the husband to climb to the Intipunku or the Sun Gate. We huff and puff up the hour long trek but once we´re up we have a spectacular view of the valley below.

(Photo, below: one wrong step on the Inca trail and it´s a long way down. The husband had a couple of heart-stopping slips, one of which damaged his camera)

Of course I´m not saying the Peruvians are all good. Hell, a few years ago they filmed a beer commercial on one of the holy rocks and now there´s a crack in its southern side. Then there was the time in 1978 when the Peruvian army decided to use the holy main square--now a patch of green with grazing llamas--as a helipad to ferry some local bigwings and they hammered the Inca Obelisk that stood in its centre so hard that it now lies buried underground.

But at least they´ve got their act together now. I wonder when we will do the same.

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Day 66: What Cusco can teach Mumbai, Delhi

2008-06-18T15:11:00Z

"Good god, it´s like Simla!" That is our first reaction when we first saw Cusco -- ancient capital of the Inca empire -- from a neighbouring mountaintop on the other side of the world from India. Peru´s third-largest city spreads chaotically in all directions, a result of an influx of rural Quechua Indians. Its population has grown three times over the last 20 years. Sounds familiar?

But after two days of wandering its cobblestone alleyways, dodging its relentless flow of little Daewoo taxis and observing its town planning closely, we´ve realised the method to Cusco´s chaos. It is a lesson for Delhi´s old city, or Mumbai´s Kotachiwadi or Fountain heritage precincts -- how to use tradition to create a first-world attraction in the midst of third-world conditions.

I´m not going to write a thesis on this, however, just run you through a few photographs.

Photo, above: Cusco´s central plaza is a marvel. Colonial Spanish architecture rests atop Inca walls that survived the sacking by the conquerors. The alleyways leading out from the plaza are packed with restaurants, shops, travel agencies, even laundries. There is no trash in sight, and there is always a reassuring police presence. The Inca walls are remarkable: many are stones stunningly fitted into one another -- no mortar, no cement. The Spanish buildings have been damaged during earthquakes, never the Inca walls.

Photo, above: A guide shows us the original Inca layout of Cusco, the entire town created in the shape of a puma, hewn out of rock and sweat. This is town planning like we´ve never seen. Many of the original Inca water systems, now more than 500 years old, still work.

Photo, above: We found this local fest underway on a bright Sunday morning. Organised by the local municipality, it had hundreds of enthusiastic viewers, locals and tourists. It was remarkable how all the locals cheered vociferously when the traditional dancers came on.

Photo, above: At one point, some dancers started throwing boxes of matches. To great excitement, the local section of the crowd tried to catch what they could.

Photo, above: The local police take some time out for socialising. There seemed to be some distinct flirting going on between one of the male and female officers.

Photo, above: Cusco at night, shot from a nearby hill. With an altitude of 3,800 m (about 12,000 feet), the city forces us stop for breath even now, though it´s getting easier.

By the way, in case you´re wondering about why posts worth three or four days appear all at once, that´s because we´re on the move through the day, and when we do want to file, it´s often hard to find internet access in these parts. When we do find an overpriced outlet, connections are slow. It is trying to watch a photo occupy five to 10 minutes and then refuse to load, and it´s common for connections to break -- we´ve often had to retype entire posts. So, kindly adjust.

Of course, I have to say, it´s remarkable there even is net access in many remote towns. We are sitting now at an internet cafe in a village at the base of Machu Picchu. The connection is stable if not fast, but the view is spectacular: The wall is all glass, and there is a little town square with restaurants, the village school and a statue of the great Inca emperor Pachautec. Towering above it all, a granite mountain. Here´s the mountain, shot this morning.

But I can´t show you more because my battery is dead, and my camera lens cap jammed after I fell on the rocky and frightening Inca trail yesterday. I think I might be able to get around the jammed cap by unscrewing the filter that it screws into. No way to recharge my battery though -- I have an adaptor its three pins won´t fit into the two-pin connections common in rural Peru.

Ah, the trials and joys of travelling.

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Day 63/64: Indians meet Indians in the high Andes

2008-06-15T15:57:00Z

"We have only seen Indians before on the Discovery Channel!" exclaims Lorenzo Gonzalez as his sister-in-law (photo, above) laughs in delight. As we talk to them in their little provision-store-restaurant-garage in the Andes -- the second highest mountain chain on earth after the Himalayas -- we truly understand globalisation. Here in this remote Andean outpost, we meet these welcoming, amiable Quechua Indians who, thanks to the quirks of history, share a name with us.

We have run through Peru´s plains and are steadily climbing into the Andes as part of our three-day 1100-km haul from Lima to the ancient capital of the Quechua Indians, Cusco -- the seat of their fabled kings, the Incas. Lorenzo offers us our first real Quechua meal -- well, just me, the wife must settle for home-made bread and home-made cheese -- a broth of country chicken, noodles, a boiled egg in its shell and as an accompaniment, a spicy, heady paste of a local chilly called aji (pronounced akhi). You can see both in the photo below.

"Which part of India are you from?" Lorenzo´s sister-in-law -- whose name we never figured out -- asks the wife. Bombay? That is too much for her. She just smiles and suddenly says to an uncomfortable wife, "You are so beautiful." When I take a photograph of her, she laughs and hides in mock terror, "No, no, I am too ugly." But both are some of the most beautiful people we have met. Our driver Richard (in the first photo), a Quechua himself, finds this a good place to try his rusty Quechua.

We reached Lorenzo´s Ccollpapampa Restaurant, as it´s called, after three hours of steady driving through the bleakest mountain terrain I have seen. Unlike the lush Himalayan foothills of Kumaon and Garwhal, watered by the monsoons, the Andean foothills after climbing out of the desert are devoid of life, except for the ranks of cactus marching up the rocky mountainsides.

The soil is poor, and the wind is strong. Only after crossing 2,000 metres did the first patches of colour appear, purple flowers by the roadside and little bursts of green. The air, as you can see, turned crystal clear, scrubbed clean of desert dust.

We are at Lorenzo´s by chance. We had been pulled over for now-familiar police checks. After the officer asked for all our nationalities and checked papers, he told Richard, "The mountains are beautiful, but drive carefully." That´s when we all saw Lorenzo´s little outpost and decided to see if there was a toilet and perhaps lunch.

(Photo, above: at the police check)

"El baño? The toilet? Yes, sure, across the road," says Lorenzo. We go out and see a ramshackle hut far beyond a stone wall in a meadow. We scramble over the wall and find the toilet unspeakable. The girls go behind instead the hut instead. We are clearly far from any tourist route.

(Photos, above: Scrambling to reach the loo, and the loo itself)

I suddenly spot a strange, furry creature grazing. It´s a giant vicuña, says our guide Annelies. More than cows and sheep, the Andes are full of cameloids -- alpacas, llamas and vicuñas. This specimen seems without a herd, and I excitedly and slowly walk toward it with my camera. I am first watched warily, as the vicuña stops grazing. As I get closer, he gets decidedly testy and starts advancing toward me.

"Come back, come back," yells Richard. I´ve heard that vicuña´s mainly spit nastily, but I hastily retreat. Best not to tangle with a strange creature in an unfamiliar land. Later in the day, we run into herds of wild vicuña in a montane national park. Here´s an interesting approach to letting local communities maintain their traditions without harming conservation. The national park is not off-limits to the villages around. Once a year, the vicuñas are rounded up and sheared with great festivity, as they have been for hundreds of years. The animals are tagged by scientists and return to the wild.

As the day wears on, conversation all but ceases in our trundling Landcruiser. In about five hours, we have climbed steeply from 500 m to 4,500 m. That´s four vertical kilometres, and the effects of altitude are upon us. I have driven often in the Himalayas, but I cannot recall such a rapid ascent. We have reached a high-altitude plateau where the temperature suddenly drops. There is frozen snow by the roadside, and in a few hours it will be five below zero.

Except Richard, a mountain boy, we are all feeling the the altitude. Annelies has a headache and says the first time she went up into the Andes she had to be given oxygen. The wife is in particularly bad shape, the result of altitude, motion sickness and stomach cramps. I am not too bad, except my brain is feeling the urge to burst through my skull.

A breathtaking golden light, signalling the end of day, suddenly transforms the mountains, and we stop to just breathe the air and take a photo (see below).

As we drive on we see mountain lakes, more vicuñas -- and no habitation, save for an occassional hardy Quechua alpaca and llama herder. These are hardy people leading hard lives not too different from our own mountain folk and not different from the 16th century when the Inca kings ruled these lands before the Spanish took over. The Quechua make up a third of Peru´s 28 million people and their language is spoken by other Quechua across Bolivia and Peru as well. Their language has lent some words to English: Condor, puma, llama.

Just before the sun sets, I jump out of the Landcruiser and scramble up an embankment to take a photograph. When I return, I am gasping for breath.

(Photo, above: As the temperature drops to zero, a lone vicuña grazes unconcerned)

It is a long, hard day of driving, and we are feeling quite homesick. The drive continues well into the night. Mountain villages start as we descend. They are grey, hardy places with unpaved roads. Sometimes, cows block our path. There is much poverty, and many villages live by bartering goods. Yet, every village has the basics: electricity and footpaths. And yes, Bajaj autorickshaws continue across the mountains.

We are heading for a small hotel that no one in the Landcruiser has ever been to before. We travel along a river valley and finally reach what we suppose is the hotel (Our directions: watch for it when the river moves to your left, meaning, after we cross a bridge. There are no signs, and the gate is locked. The night is dark and cold. After much shouting and honking, an old man emerges and we are let in. Even in this remote place, the hotel is strong with the basics, as we find all over Peru: spotless white bed sheets, towels, blankets. A cook emerges and I wind up with a magificently grilled mountain trout lashed with aji. I can´t resist a glass of wine. Bad idea. I drag myself to bed. Richard and Annelies somehow muster the energy to head out to a big party in the next village. They report a live local band, lots of dancing, drinking and sloshed old villagers trying to invite Annelies to bed.

The next morning, we find that what seemed like a bleak stop is quite an atmospheric place (see photo below).

But we have nearly 400 km of Andean driving before we reach Cusco, citadel of the Inca kings. It´s just under 3,000 m so things should be better there, but only just. We start bright, early and fresh. Not Annelies, who´s suffering the effects of the local booze at last night´s party. As usual, the hours pile up, and Cusco always seems just over the next range of mountains. We stop for diesel and then lunch in dusty mountain villages. We fit in well, visually. Annelies, who in fluent in Spanish, is frequently stared at.

Richard, whose village is "five hours over those mountains", stops to buy local CDs, bands singing in both Spanish and Quechua. It all sounds startlingly like Nepali. Actually, the people, the men mainly, could pass as Nepalese or Khasi. The music is wonderful -- guitars and drums mingle with Andean harps and those haunting pan pipes (made famous in the west by a Paul Simon song, El Condor Pasa). The Quechua lyrics are hilarious. A man sings to his girl friend:"You have become so fat, what shall I now do with you..." Another sings to his wife who has run away on his horse:"You left me, that´s fine, you liar, but why did you take my horse? Bring back my horse...." Excellent diversions from the effects of our long journey and effects of altitude.

Night is falling again when, after three days on the road, we spot the lights of Cusco, our base for the next four days -- and our launching point for the journey to the legendary city of Machu Pichu. The air is thin, and even bounding up five steps leaves us short of breath. Tomorrow, we start the process of acclimatisation.

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