Wie jede Blüte welkt und jede Jugend
Dem Alter weicht, blüht jede Lebensstufe,
Blüht jede Weisheit auch und jede Tugend
Zu ihrer Zeit und darf nicht ewig dauern.
Es muß das Herz bei jedem Lebensrufe
Bereit zum Abschied sein und Neubeginne,
Um sich in Tapferkeit und ohne Trauern
In andre, neue Bindungen zu geben
Und jedem Anfang wohnt ein Zauber inne,
Der uns beschützt und der uns hilft, zu leben.

Wir sollen heiter Raum um Raum durchschreiten,
An keinem wie an einer Heimat hängen,
Der Weltgeist will nicht fesseln uns und engen,
Er will uns Stuf' um Stufe heben, weiten.
Kaum sind wir heimisch einem Lebenskreise
Und traulich eingewohnt, so droht Erschlaffen,
Nur wer bereit zu Aufbruch ist und Reise,
Mag lähmender Gewöhnung sich entraffen.

Es wird vielleicht auch noch die Todesstunde
Uns neuen Räumen jung entgegen senden,
Des Lebens Ruf an uns wird niemals enden...
Wohlan denn, Herz, nimm Abschied und gesunde!
(Hermann Hesse)

Well, it felt a bit like running from Cusco or running out of money, but I could hardly leave without having seen Machu Picchu, could I? I got myself on a Sacred Valley tour, maybe a bit too much of a tourist shock after returning from the remote ManuNationalPark. The first place we stopped at was a town called Pisac-althrough it was sunday, there was not much left of the traditional market- the tourist market had taken over completely many years ago...well from Cusco I've been used to people dressed up in traditional clothing with lamas behind them, their first word not being "Hola", but "Do you want a picture with a lama?" - but here on the market  I saw a mother dressing up her little girl- ohh sooo cute in traditional clothing with a nice hat - , then putting a lama baby up to the girls chest, slapping the lama to get it in the right position - the expression on the girls face certainly put me off taking pictures of any of those kids. And while the kid was send off for tourist snapshots ( she was barely around the corner when the first tourists couldn't resist), the mother was dressing up her second, even younger daughter. Another woman asked me if I want to take a pic of her baby - I just felt the urge to run from this place......the Inka- ruins were impressive though, even more the ones at the beautyful town of Ollantaytambo, although the weather started to get nasty, and when I got off the train in Aqua Caliente ( the place near MachuPicchu ) that evening, all that I could do was put up my wet clothes to dry and hope for better weather for the next day. I made it to the bus station shortly before 4:30 the next morning and got one of the last seats on the first bus up to MachuPicchu at 5:30 - getting up that windy zig-zag-road revealed the stunning surrounding with every turn of the road, finally I arrived at MachuPicchu, and as there were only about 40 people who hiked up to the entrance that morning, it wasn't a problem to get one of those 400 stamps that allow you to climb Huaynapicchu, the mountain you see in the typical MachuPicchu-snapshot. Beeing at the ruins quite early, I enjoyed the view before the huge touristgroups arrived - and I can't say anything but that it's a magnificent, stunning, impressive, magic place, also I was lucky with the weather- blue skies and pure sunshine. Around noon I hiked up that mountain to enjoy the breathtaking view down on the town that indeed has the shape of a condor. I returned to Cusco and went on to Puno at the Lake Titicaca, I explored some of the islands on the lake, like the floating islands of the Uros people, the Taquile Island and the "Isla de la sol" on the bolivian side of the lake. Obviously I made it to Bolivia, from Lake Titicaca I went on to LaPaz, didn't stay tooo long in that big city before I went on to the town of Cochabamba.

From Arequipa I went on to Cusco, also a beautyful place, althrough the most touristy city in the whole of Peru. You can't walk 5 steps on the main square without at least 10 people jumping at you to offer massages or paintings. There are lovely small cobblestone streets to walk up to some higher points where you can have a good view over the city and down to the "Plaza de Armas". I was lucky to find a group to go to Manu National Park for a 8-day trip, making sure that we really get into the reserved zone instead of just lingering around the "buffer zone", as I wanted to get my share of primary rainforest. So the 3 of us + guide, cook and driver set out for a bit of a jungle adventure. First we passed through cloudforest and saw the "Cock of the Rock", the red male birds of that species seemed to dance with each other. The next day we continued to "Port Atalaya", where we boarded a little ship to continue down the "Madre de Dios"- River, spotting capybaras ( giant guinea pigs) and lots of birds on the way. After arriving to the lodge for the day, we set out to explore the surrounding rainforest, first thing we discovered was a jaguar and a tapir trace. We walked to a clay place that is known for tapirs to show up eventually, but we didn't have any luck that night with spotting one, all we saw was a oppossum that made us all jump, taking it for a rat that passed right in front of our heads. The next morning we got on our boat before sunset and went to the MACAW CLAY LICK, where hundreds of birds stop to lick the clay to help them digest the seeds they eat. It's just not possible to capture with my camera what I saw there ( with the help of my binoculars and a good telescope) -lots of macaws, parrots, parakeets, hawks and a yellowheaded vulture. On the way back to the lodge we spotted lots of different monkeys far up in the high trees. In the evening we gave the Tapir clay lick another go, and we were rewarded by even spotting two tapirs. The next day we got ourselfes back on our boat, we left the "Madre de Dios"-River, and sailed up the Manu River to get into the Reserved Zone to our tented camp where more fauna and flora waited to be discovered: one day we set out on a little wooden catamaran on the salvatore lake to watch an otter-family having breakfast, a caiman was swimming along, and of course loads of colourful birds were passing by ( tucans,hoatzens). We did a lot of walks in the rainforest, had showers with the brown water of the river and on one day got our share of what the rainforest is named after. It was really a brilliant trip, I already miss the sounds of the jungle and the silhouetts of the macaws-birds passing over our heads.

 

 

I continued to Nasca, went to the Maria-Reiche-Planetarium to hear a lecture about the Nasca-lines in the evening and was all set for a flight over the lines the next day...but it just didn't happen....I spend several hours at the small airport, hoping for a flight, but due to the recent planecrash there was just one company doing flights, which was of course booked for several days, and the other companys were waiting for permission to fly from Lima, but obviously didn`t get it for more flights that day... I went to the "Mirador" instead to get at least a glimpse of the lines and had a funny busride back to town, sitting up with the driver like a figurehead behind the windscreen. I went on to Arequipa, probably one of the most beautiful cities in Peru, with glistening white buildings made of sillar (volcanic stone). I did a 3 day- trekking through the nearby Canyon de Colca. First, we went to a viewingpoint called Cruz del Condor. When we got there, loads of people were already there in hope of spotting a Condor....and after a while people started moving... a huge Condor was doing rounds above our heads, just as to make sure that everyone got a good picture of him, I swear I heard him chuckle up there at the sight of all those people "OOhhing" and "AAhhing" at the sight of him. We started to hike down into the canyon near a village called "Cabanaconde", spotted another condor on the way down,crossed the river at the bottom, stayed with a local family for a night, went on to learn about different plants and the local clothing, passing through small villages on the way and finally arrived at the oasis San Galle, where we lingered in the pool for the rest of the day. On the last day we left before sunrise to hike out of the canyon- a 3 hour hike up- (we resisted the temptation of getting our bums on a mule for the way up, but later rewarded ourselfes with stuffing ourselfes at a huge buffet that offered everything from alpaca, ceviche to cuy ) and on the way back to Arequipa we spotted lamas, alpacas, vicuñas and flamingos in the "national reserve of salinas and aqua blanca".

We had a look at another archeological pre-inca site near Trujillo called "Huaca de la Luna & de la Sol" which was impressive, and returned to the market several times during the day to have another piece of that yummy chocolate cake and another fresh fruit juice..."siempre con hambre" is a phrase I´ll have to add to my personal description. After a sleepless night in an overnight-bus I made it to Huaraz and the "Cordilleras blancas". Considering the weather, I decided to do an one day hike to the Laguna 69. We got several camionettas/busses to get to the trailhead in the Huascarán National Park, passing different lakes whose colours varied from turquoise to a milky light blue. The sky was covered with clouds while I was struggeling to get up to 4.600 meters, moving at the speed of a sloth, thankful for every cascading waterfall along the way I could take a picture of. Well, I made it up to the lake just in time for the clouds to disappear and reveal the jagged, snowy mountains that back the lake and also the stunning mountainranges of this beautiful nationalpark. Needless to say that after enjoying the view for half an hour on the way back down it started to rain, by the time we got back to the road everything that wasn't covered by my emergency rainponcho was completely soaked. We flagged down a passing truck, got on the back and made our way out of the nationalpark, chased by clouds and fog. But it was definitely worth it. Another sleepless night in a bus and I made it to Lima, had a look around the town for a day, the most fascinating thing for me was to make it back to where I started in the morning on those variety of busses/minibusses. I couldn't warm up to the idea of staying on another overnight bus again just yet, so I decided to break the trip further down the Panamericana - I stopped at Huancachina, a little oasis in the middle of waste sand dunes - like a big playground, one of the places where the tourists must outnumber the locals, but it's quite a nice setting if you manage to ignore the rubbish lying around in the dunes and the sound of howling engines of the sandbuggies rushing down the dunes.

I thought I could escape the dusk of the Panamericana by doing a bit of a detour - from Chiclayo I went to Chachapoyas, on to Cajamarca and then back to the Panamericana: to Trujillo. Surely, the bus trips got longer than in Ecuador. Still love to go to the markets, and I always buy some fruits I've never seen before like PEPINO, BABACO, TAXO or GUAYABA to taste or make juices from. And of course, can`t help buying mangos all the time - so juicy that the juice keeps droping down to your elbows while eating them. Near Chachapoyas, there´s the pre-inca fortress of Kuelap to marvel at, and lots of sarcofarcos far up in the rocks. In Cajamarca I run into a bit of a fiesta on a main square, and students of an university performed dances in traditional dresses while lots of locals with huge hats were watching. Well, I made it to Trujillo, and went to the nearby beach town of Huanchaco today, to finally see the pacific! On or way back we had a look at Chan-Chan, another archeological site close to Trujillo, dusty remains of the Chimu-empire.