GUARDIAN TRAVEL COMPETITION 2012

TIPS for Travel Writers



• Write in the first person, past tense (or present if the action really justifies it), and make your story a personal account, interwoven with facts, description and observation.
• Many writers start their piece with a strong – but brief – anecdote that introduces the general feeling, tone and point of the trip and story. Something that grabs the reader's attention and makes them want to read on. Don't start with the journey to the airport – start with something interesting, not what happened first.
• Early on you need to get across the point of the story and trip – where you were, what were you doing there and why. If there is a hook – a new trend, discovery or angle – make that clear within the first few paragraphs.
• Try to come up with a narrative thread that will run throughout the piece, linking the beginning and end; a point you are making. The piece should flow, but don't tell the entire trip chronologically, cherry pick the best bits, anecdotes and descriptions, that will tell the story for you.
• Quotes from people you met can bring the piece to life, give the locals a voice and make a point it would take longer to explain yourself. Quote people accurately and identify them, who are they, where did you meet them?
• Avoid cliches. Try to come up with original descriptions that mean something. Our pet hates include: "bustling markets"... "azure/cobalt sea"... "nestling among" ... "hearty fare" ... "a smorgasbord of...".
• Don't use phrases and words you wouldn't use in speech (such as "eateries" or "abodes"), and don't try to be too clever or formal; the best writing sounds natural and has personality. It should sound like you. Don't try to be "gonzo" or really hilarious, unless you're sure it's working.
• Check your facts! It's good to work in some interesting nuggets of information, perhaps things you've learned from talking to people, or in books or other research, but use reliable sources and double-check they are correct.
• Write economically – don't waste words on sentences that could be condensed. Eg say "there was a..." not "it became apparent to me that in fact there existed a...".
• Moments that affected you personally don't necessarily make interesting reading. Avoid tales of personal mishaps – missed buses, diarrhoea, rain – unless pertinent to the story. Focus on telling the reader something about the place, about an experience that they might have too if they were to repeat the trip.

Five more tips from Guardian travel writers

Author Giles Foden says he always feels travel writing benefits from a cinematic approach, in that you need to vary the focus – wide lens for setting and landscape; medium lens for context and colour; zoom lens for detail and narrative – and switch between the views in a piece. It may sound a bit precious, but it's a very handy tip for varying the pace of an article.
Andy Pietrasik, head of Guardian Travel
Travel journalism should add to the wealth of information already out there in guidebooks and on websites, so try to seek out the more off-the-beaten-track places to eat, drink, visit – often the places locals might frequent. Revealing a new or different side to a destination will give your story a richness that you won't get with a description of a visit to the tourist cafe in the main square.
Isabel Choat, online travel editor
What sets good travel writing apart is detail, detail, detail. Which cafe, on what street, overlooking what view? You must sweep the reader up and carry them off on the journey with you. Paint an evocation of where you are so we can experience it along with you. Be specific and drop "stunning", "breathtaking" and "fantastic" from your lexicon, otherwise it's just a TripAdvisor entry.
Sally Shalam, Guardian hotel critic
An important rule of creative travel writing is to show, not tell, wherever possible. Readers want to feel as if they're eavesdropping on a conversation, or being shown something secret and magical. People don't like being told what to think. If a child wearing rags made you sad, for example, describe the child, their clothes, the way they carried themselves. Assume readers are sentient. If you write it well, they will "feel" what effect the encounter had on you. This is much more powerful than saying, "I felt sad."
Mike Carter, Guardian contributor and author of One Man and his Bike
My golden rule when writing a piece is to include as much visual description as possible. It's easy to presume a lot, but your readers don't know what you've seen. So explain it as vividly as possible. Don't ever describe something as "characterful" or "beautiful" – this doesn't mean anything to anybody but you. Describe things as if you were explaining them to a blind person. To say a building is "old" isn't good enough; explain the colours, the peeling stucco, the elaborate, angular finishes on windowsills, the cleaning lady in a faded blue smock who was leaning out of a second-storey window with a cigarette dangling from her mouth. There is a thin line between elaborate, colourful, evocative writing and pretentious tosh, but it's better to lean towards the pretentious tosh side of the spectrum than to be dull and presumptuous.
Benji Lanyado, Guardian writer and blogger

ENTRIES 400 words or less

 AN ENCOUNTER (as submitted)

Just two weeks retired, just over sixty, our first morning ever in Sumatra. Juliater, a dark skinned student with brilliant white teeth wearing a peaked baseball cap and white T-shirt joined us at the back of a crowded bus.

‘I’m Christian’, he announced proudly.

We walked together around Brastagi and chose a room in a lovely Dutch wooden house, with a veranda overlooking the mountains. Juliater took us to his own village, a wedding and much more.

Lingga retained several traditional wooden houses with tall steep thatched roofs. Eight families would have lived in the single room split into quarters around four central fireplaces. At the king’s impressively decorated house he explained the Batak view of a world divided into three kingdoms, the Earth, the Middle and the Sky. A stepladder and low doorway led to the Middle (the living quarters) forcing one to bow on entry. Outside was the birthing stool where the village king’s children were born in full sight of the villagers, a proof of origin. Their elected headman sold our memento, a hollow cane receptacle for blessing medicine, carved with heads of the three mythical kings.

That animism lived on was confirmed by cigarettes left alight in forked sticks around the sulphurous summit of the 2000m volcano, offerings to calm its God.

Days later we were welcomed by women in extra-wide highly coloured hats to a large Christian wedding party. The guests sat on the floor, divided into close family, guests of the bridegroom’s auntie, responsible by tradition for the food; we were guests of his uncle. We ate well with the awkward fingers of our right hands then rinsed them in the finger bowls provided. The women wore tops and skirts displaying every vivid colour of the rainbow, particularly memorable were the laughing smiles of those with lips and teeth freshly crimson from chewing Betel.

The bride and groom sat side by side on a ceremonial sofa wearing headdresses and tops of red and gold. There were serious speeches, not the jokey kind we had enjoyed years earlier at our own wedding. We had purchased a ‘long cloth’ (kain panjang) from a local market stall and now wound it around the couple as a symbol of union and pushed bank notes between the extended fingers of a collector.

Two months later we left mostly Muslim Sumatra full of unforgettable encounters with friendly, fun loving, Indonesians. 

AN ENCOUNTER (not submitted)

Just retired, just over sixty, just setting out on a new life globe trotting. A young university student started practising his English on the bus. Then Juliater, so named because he was born in July, rudely muscled in. On reaching Brastagi he walked with us looking for accommodation. Much to his surprise we selected not the hotel but a room in a lovely colonial wooden house.

Next day Juliater arrived after breakfast, such lads do not to let the chance of a tip pass by, and took us to Linga his tiny Christian village. At the chief’s painted wooden house on stilts a guide explained the Batak view of a world divided into three kingdoms, the Underworld, the Middle where the family lived in a single room, and the Sky. We were shown the birthing stool where the chief’s children were born in full sight of the villagers, a proof of origin.

Days later he took us to a large Batak wedding where we were welcomed by the colourful crowd, highlighted by the crimson lips and teeth of Betel eating women. That rude young man had become our friend. We kept infrequent contact by email whilst he continued his teacher training at Medan. The Asian Financial Crisis hit a year later and their Rupiah devalued by a factor of four. His people were starving, no longer even able to afford rice. We sent him money to allow him to complete his last year of training. We had become his friend.

Tired of his pupil’s lack of enthusiasm for learning he left for Bali, Indonesia’s only tourist destination, 1500 miles away. Seemingly in no time he had found his feet working in an English owned school. Just ten years ago the first terrorist bomb exploded leaving over 200 visitors dead and the school closed for lack of business. He now has his own school, teaching outsiders Indonesian, the money spinner, and locals English, the community service.

Juliater visited Europe twice as a backpacker, we met up in Amsterdam and Paris, in between we celebrated our Golden Wedding in two months travelling around Bali and Lombok. This year he married a girl from eastern Sumatra who is now pregnant. His own father deserted leaving the mother he idolises to labour in the fields. I can see we will be wheelie-bagging in Bali once more to see the great dad and baby.

 A JOURNEY as submitted

The fishing village of Amed is as east as one can get in Bali. Wooden hulled outriggers spend the day unused on the beach, but leave at dusk for a night’s fishing. Every morning vivid multicoloured sails glinted in the early sun heralding their safe return. Out of sight but further east lay Lombok. Just off its northern coast the idyllic sounding Gili islands ban motor vehicles, and dogs. Island hopping was called for, but a journey by scheduled ferry would involve a long tiresome detour.

‘You could sail direct to Gili Trawangan’, suggested Putu, the boatman taking us to snorkel over a coral reef.

The idea germinated and within hours of landing we had shaken hands on a deal with another local fisherman who spoke no English.

‘I should have persisted’ said Putu later. Sorry he hadn’t expected an old couple to be up for it.

Next morning a boat beached stern first outside the hotel. The hull was sturdy with plenty of freeboard, but only 12ft long and barely 2ft wide, the two outriggers like the gaff were longer than the hull. The tiny helmsman hoisted our luggage over his head, waded through the surf, and placed it in the bow. We sat in the middle facing each other, our man stood at the stern, tiller in hand.

Off we sailed, stiff wind abeam, showered with warm spray each time the outrigger dug into a wave. The sail made a wonderful sight with its bold stripes of red, black and blue. It hung from a near vertical bamboo gaff, lashed to the bow, propped by the short mast, bending as the sails filled. He steered without compass by keeping Agung Bali’s highest mountain directly astern, trailing as ever his 100ft line of 100 hooks. Soon we were out of sight of land, the now invisible peak betrayed only by a tiny cloud.  We crossed the imaginary Wallace line which separates the ecosystems of Australasia and Asia. It was hard to forget that a young couple had drifted in these seas for days, saved only by a text to the UK from a mobile they had dismissed as useless. After four hours under sail we beached on the golden sands of Trawangan, without having caught a single fish.

Two days later he was back with another human catch; grinning widely as he pointed to his haul of gleaming fish.

 

 

PATAGONIA 1974

BACKPACKING PATAGONIA



Backpacking by R L Stevenson!

‘For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move; to feel the needs and hitches of our life more nearly …’


I am a self confessed nomad, never more alive than when travelling, my kicks come from learning the skills needed to get around in a new country in a foreign language. Stuff happens, when travelling without a fixed itinerary, following your nose, taking every opportunity to divert. Chance discoveries are almost always fun, the bits you remember best.


Joan is not quite the same her initial aim is to visit the places she has read about and almost always they include the popular tourist destinations of the particular country, but she often plans to coincide with local festivals, to visit national parks, indeed anything novel that takes her fancy in a backpacker’s guidebook.

In this talk I hope to blend the flavour of our ad-hoc travel whilst giving a picture of the wonder of the ‘el fin del mundo’.


Initial Appeal

When we set out just over a year ago we had intended to travel down the south western coast of South America. ‘Exploring-Chile’ I entitled my dairy kept in the form of a computer blog. Ever since hitch-hiking deep into the Artic Circle, in my second year at university, this southern extremity had attracted me. Cape Horn represented the ultimate in western isles – beyond Scotland, Norway, Alaska and New Zealand. Little did I realise that the map did not convey the real story of hundreds of miles of uninhabited land, not desert but very much tree green and sea blue – even the ice was blue. Neither had it sunk in that in the absence of people there would be no roads for this was still virgin wilderness. In direct contrast to the vast western deserts of China which have been tamed by civil engineers with motorways. If you wanted to travel independently to the deep-south of Chile there is only one option, a ferry boat, and the bigger of the two available had been put out of action in the festive period between Christmas and New Year


The Reality, Patagonia

In this talk I will be concerned not only with Patagonia but also about our style of travel. It’s backpacking because I still carry my belongings in a rucksack, although with two artificial knees Joan now trails a small wheely-bag instead, and because we make our way by local public scheduled transport, sometimes train or air, but mainly by bus with a few improvised sections, and because we never book accommodation ahead relying on a traveller’s guide book usually the Lonely Planet, nor do we even think more than a few days ahead.


The first thing to realise is about modern backpackers is that they walk with their rucksacks only when there is no realistic alternative, that is when there is no other form of transport available. Things aren’t what they seem. It’s a far cry from the backpacking we used to indulge in years ago trekking the long distance footpaths in France en famille with our tiny lightweight tents, cooking gear, food and water on our backs. 

Neither can we tell you much about the gregarious youngsters on their gap years for our paths seldom cross, though we did study their methods closely during our novice stage at 55+ in Thailand. In general they get their kicks from meeting up with other travellers from other developed parts of the globe, whereas we always hope to make contact with the locals. They are budgeting for accommodation on a shoestring and bargain very hard, but these days we generally go for hotels, and ask politely for and usually get discounts. We do however meet a sprinkling of people taking mid-life gap years, and with increasing frequency people of our own age group, with similar attitudes to our own.


The biggest contrast is with the organised tour groups, which we see at the key tourist spots. Tours are sold by packing as much as possible into each day so as to make the trip seem as attractive as possible. We admire those displays of stamina but we wouldn’t swap the luxury of being able to rest when we want to. On this trip as you will see later we had to take 6 days out for recovery from health problems – and missed very little as a result. What a tour squeezes into two weeks we will cover and much more but in two months and at lower cost. Of course it helps to be retired and have a good pension! The only option for the younger set of permanent travellers is to dropout, but we’re content to know we have paid our passage.


We found a way to visit all the major ice fields and that set the mind racing. Glaciers in Chile like San Rafael which can only be reached by several hours on a boat meandering through the mists of the Western Isles, because unlike the others this one walks right into the sea. Torres del Paine, the most picturesque mountain region of South America – but for trekkers not sailors, famous for its limestone pinnacles and glaciers galore. We hadn’t intended to visit El Chalten, the Argentinian rival to Torres del Paine with the chief attraction Mount Fitzroy (so named after the captain of Darwin’s boat who spied it as they sought the passage through to the Pacific. Then just a little to the south El Calafate with glaciers galore liked the famed Moreno (which you may have seen in the photo exhibition outside the Industrial Museum), and by far the best (and cheapest) day long boat trip by the large catamaran of Fernando Gonzales to the largest of the southern ice-field named Upsala after the Swedish university which, like Mr Moreno, helped convince the world that they belonged to Argentina not Chile.


These faces of these glaciers are all receding as they edge forward and break off spectacularly, as always, but are no longer being replenished sufficiently quickly so that the loss is dramatically obvious in the case of San Rafael, which may disappear as one of the world’s great sights in a decade. No doubt it will be classed as another sign of global warming, but one can’t help but wonder how an area nearer the equator than Britain and no higher higher (the treks would not even qualify as Munroe’s, became so cold in the first place. All to do with the contrast of the cold Humbolt, and our warm Gulf Stream, both of which run up our western coasts and drastically alter the local climate. Since this ice, like that of the continent of Antartica is land based this melt water will cause an increase in sea level. The amazingly deep blue of some ice is testament to the method of formation, we were told this ice was formed at high altitude altering its crystalline structure, but from observation it is normally prevalent at the lower point of the glaciers where it will have been under huge pressure for thousands of years. At San Rafael they send a rubber Zodiac to collect ice from the vicinity and serve whisky with a thousand year old ice.







HISTORY

Inhabited since 12,000 BC by people who had migrated to the far south of the Americas after crossing the Baring Straits at the end of the last ice age.  However there was no written history until the Spanish colonisers led by Pedro de Valdivia arrived in the sixteenth century, followed by 5,000 colonisers. At which time the far south was populated by four nomadic tribes two, Selknam and Tehuelche (6 foot monsters normally considered the Patagones), hunted guanco and rhea on the steppes, and Yamana and Chono who hunted seals. Further north the Mapuche were starting to farm the land.


Christopher Columbus is credited as being the first European to reach America in 1498.

The first European to visit was the Portuguese explorer Magellan seeking a route to the Spice Islands. He was the first to sail through the Magellan Straits which join the oceans north of the island of Terra del Fuego. Although his boat completed the first circumnavigation of the world 1519-23, he was killed in battle in the Philippines. Drake followed with his circumnavigation 1577-80.


The Beagle started its first voyage in 1826 but the second 1832-36 is more famous for the discoveries of Darwin in South America.


The export trade was at its height between 1830 and 1870, the chief goods being silver and copper ore and then nitrates and finally the bulk export of frozen lamb wool and candle fat to Europe. The great days of their copper trade of course coincide with the pre-eminence of Swansea in smelting copper. Those were the days of sail and the route was by way of Cape Horn where the great Atlantic and Pacific oceans meet. Punta Arenas in the south was an important port, a refuge to those ships who had rounded the cape. It was also the port where all the Antarctic expeditions of Scott and Amundsen started. With the arrival of steam ships Punta Arenas was bypassed as the ships stopped further north in Conception for coal from its great under sea mines. Once the Panama Canal opened in 1914 the ships no longer had to round Cape Horn to pass between the great oceans.


POLITICS AND NUEVA CANCION

Simon Bolivar from Caracus descended from Spanish aristocracy 1783-1830 drove the Spanish out of the north of South America finishing with Peru which then included Bolivia. In fact Simon Bolivar had formed a single huge alliance which quickly began to break up.


Che Guevara 1928-67 joined Castro’s revolution in Mexico in 1956 and helped him ‘free’ Cuba. Batista fled on 1 Jan 1959. Che left Cuba in 1965 to pursue new revolutions in the Congo and Bolivia, but was killed by the Bolivian army in 1967.


Years of struggle for a poplar government coincided with the rise in the early sixties of the Nueva Cancion, lead by the singer Violeta Parra, as a way to voice social and political comment. It was like the French Chanson under Georges Brassens, a tradition which remains to this day as songs ‘a la texte’. In fact many of Violeta Parra’s recordings were made in Paris. She died in 1967 and the movement was taken up by Victor Jarra and the guitar became the ‘gun’ and the words the ‘bullets’ of political revolution. The group we were to hear Inti Illimani (Sun of Illimani- a mountain in Bolivia) was formed by students in the same year and is going strong today, having been exiled in Europe for the Pinochet years, still promoting the traditional music of the Andes and Nueva Cancion.


Salvador Allende was elected as the first socialist president in 1970 with a small majority, but lasted a few days over three years. He was forced out by a military uprising under General Pinochet in 1973 with the assistance of the CIA and their $8 million budget and not helped by the world oil crisis and the resulting crash in the copper price. There followed a terrible period of military dictatorship when thousands of political opponents disappeared or were tortured. The popular singer Victor Jarra had his hands smashed to ensure he could never again play guitar and his body was found a few days after the uprising riddled with bullets. Many were exiled, like the world famous poet Neruda of El Postino Fame, and a number of Chileans fled to Swansea in the 70’s. Pinochet was voted out in a referendum in1988 and was replaced by a democratic government in 1989.


There were similar problems in Argentina just a few years later and 30,000 political dissidents disappeared in the ‘dirty war’ between 1976 and 1983. It is said that many were thrown from planes into the Atlantic so that there would be no remains. In fact Operation Condor was a conspiracy of Argentina, Chile and several other South American states. General Galtieri was deposed as a result of the Falklands War in June 1982. More recently there was the financial crisis in Argentina in 2001, when a run on the banks caused the government to prohibit bank withdrawals.


BRUCE CHATWIN's Visit 1974 

NORTHERN PERU (2003)

NORTHERN PERU

PLANNING
Armed with a single rucksack, a return ticket to fly, a Lonely Planet guide, and an email booking for a couple of nights in Lima, we were off on a two month search for Paddington Bear in deepest Peru. Adventure enough for an OAP with a dodgy knee and an equally ancient wife with a pair of artificial ones. Time is the one luxury all pensioners have, leisurely travelling extracts maximum benefit, and at an all in cost no higher than a short package trip to the same country.


It was obvious enough that we had to include the usual southern circuit of Lima, Cusco, Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca and Arequipa. In the event we spent even more time in the little visited north of the country.

DISCOVERING PERUVIAN CIVILISATION

The excellent Museo de la Nacion in Lima brings Peruvian history to life. They divide time into pre-Ceramic, about which little is known, and pre-Columbian, meaning before Christopher Columbus discovered America. The Indians never did have a written language, so their history can only be interpreted from beautiful painted pottery, textiles and jewellery. Like the Egyptians their wonders were preserved by ceremonial burial in pyramids in the desert.


The Incas are comparatively recent and their strength was military conquest, not until the Spanish arrived could their history be written down. They ruled Peru for just a single century before being overthrown by the Spanish Conquistadors, who in turn were expelled around 1820.


TRUJILLO
Those who haven’t experienced luxury bus travel in South America along the Pan American highway have a nice surprise awaiting them, Royal or Imperial Class is a cut above National Express. Few Peruvians own private cars so the traffic was just a few lorries and buses.


Trujillo vies with Arequipa for the title of second city. It features a magnificent Plaza de Armas with stylish colonial buildings on four sides and a formal park area in the middle. At the centre of this one is a fine monument with sculptures celebrating the ousting of the Spanish in 1820. Every city, town, and village, has such a plaza but this is an especially splendid example.


What more could we want than a good hotel, an excellent choice of restaurants, and a small evening venue with live music ranging from Spanish guitars through traditional songs to Andean flute music. Well there was the discovery that a good lunch, consisting of an excellent soup, a main course, a desert and corn drink, could be had for 60p for those to prepared to lunch with the local inhabitants. We relaxed knowing we were going to enjoy our time in Peru.


COASTAL ARCHAEOLOGY
Our original intention was only to stay a couple of nights using Trujillo as a convenient staging post for the journey inland to the Andes. In fact we stayed six days to explore the archaeological wonders hidden in the desert.  Chan Chan was the capital of the Chimu Empire, dating back to around AD 1000. It was built entirely with adobe (mud) brick, indeed Bam, the site of the recent tragic earthquake in Iran, brought memories flooding back


Even more impressive are Huaca de la Luna and Huaca del Sol. These belong to the Moche era, which in the first centuries AD produced the finest pottery and precious metal of Peru. The pyramids of Huaca de la Luna are being excavated now to reveal the complex structure of several levels. Each level represents about 100 years, and has a bigger floor area than the previous one. The one below was encapsulated in brick to form the foundation for the next level, thus protecting its own exterior wall decoration from El Nino floods and years of sand blasting.


Cassinelli Museum, a tiny fortified dungeon in the modern city of Trujillo, has a marvellous collection of Moche pottery. It may well be that much of the display has been purchased illegally over the years from grave robbers, and that some pots are reproductions, but the collection is a fine testament to the life-time work of an ageing enthusiast.


For these trips to the sites we hired a taxi for £2/hour, but from then on we followed the advice of ‘a German couple from Edinburgh’, and learnt how to use the minibuses, or ‘colectivos’, which are the locals transport. The drivers compete volubly for trade like old time market traders. In a poor country with few private cars local transport is plentiful, cheap and crowded, but great fun.


CHICLAYO AND THE ROYAL TOMBS AT SIPAN
Bustling Chiclayo, known as the ‘capital of Peruvian friendship’, lived up to its reputation with the exception of the razor artist, who noticing my bulging trouser pocket slashed it in the crowded market to reveal nothing but the spine of my Spanish pocket dictionary.


Peru’s most impressive precious metal artifacts were found at Sipan after modern grave robbers flooded the antiques market with exquisite jewellery. With the help of armed guards archaeologists opened, the grave of Lord Sipan, and a couple of years later the deeper grave of the Old Lord Sipan.


These nobles were given ceremonial burials with companions, priests and protectors, and all parts of their bodies were adorned with funeral masks and other decorations. The Moche used gold and silver, inlaid shells, and chemically electroplated gold onto copper well before the discovery of electricity. All is now on display in the brand-new world-class museum opened in November 2002 at Lambayeque. Museo Tumbas Realas de Sipan mimics the multi-level pyramid. Entering at the top you see the most recent tombs first, then work down the levels to the grave of the Old Lord. There is a wonderful photographic record of the actual excavation, but the superbly displayed explanations of exhibits are in Spanish. Unbelievably we were the only foreign tourists to visit the museum that day, it cannot be long before it becomes a well-known tourist venue.


Walter Alva, director of the superb wide-ranging Bruning Museum in the same town, led the excavations. The National Geographic Magazine featured the discoveries at Sipan and the Moche civilisation in Oct 1988 and June 1990. Thor Heyerdahl researched his Kon Tiki theories here, both in terms of cultural similarities with Pacific Islanders and in studying construction of the caballitos or little horses, local sea going reed boats.


Guide Jose Jimenez took us by car to the sites at Sipan, and Tucume. This young man spoke fluent English and we quickly developed a rapport and learnt not only the background to the excavation of Sipan, but also much of the lifestyle, economy and politics of modern day Peru.


CHACHAPOYAS and KUELAP
Chachapoyas, ‘the land of the clouds’, a backwater on the wet eastern side of the Andes was our next destination. It is reached by overnight bus, and we were warned to prepare for a trip without a proper toilet stop, though it did stop on request at the roadside - not ideal for females in trousers!


It was a fertile rural area, with bullocks ploughing, hand tilling and threshing, and bird-life. Each village was instantly recognisable by the vivid colour of freestanding corrugated iron toilets, part of a new drive to improve sanitation in the homesteads. They are a hard working population and nobody walked idly along the long country roads. If the women weren’t spinning or knitting, they were carrying a hand plough or a chicken, or leading a pig on a string.


We shared a taxi with Janis, a young Greek traveller, for a 30 km day trip to the mountain top city of Kuelap, about 800AD. Until recently the only access was a long hard climb from the old town of Tingo, now destroyed by flood, but the road to the new town leaves visitors with only a stroll up a stone paved path. It provides magnificent views of green-topped mountains, and the most enchanting display of wild flowers.


The ruined city is entered by a steep path leading from a narrow break in a stone wall over 30 feet high, the other side is protected by a sheer rock face. There were 400 round houses but only some bases remain, many decorated with geometric friezes, and only a single house has been restored with its high conical thatched roof. The site has been magically reclaimed by the cloud forest, with many trees bearing huge orchid flowers. The wondrous setting of this ancient city made us think Machu Picchu would be an anti-climax. It wasn’t, but neither was there that wonderful feeling of discovery we got at deserted, overgrown, Kuelap. We noted with some pleasure that we were the oldest visitors of the year, but then we three were the only visitors that day.


LEYMEBAMBA
The next decision was whether to backtrack to Chiclayo in the comparative comfort of an overnight bus, or proceed to complete a circuit to Cajamarca by one of the roughest, hairiest, but most spectacular journeys across the Andes. We hired a taxi for the day to take us to the halfway point, and were delighted when the driver asked permission to bring his wife and young son along. Our modest £50 fare was funding a two day outing for them.


First we made a side trip to Revash, where there are spectacular red and white burial houses, or sarcophagi, in a cliff 1000 metres above the valley floor. It took us several hours to climb and we might still have been defeated by the final ascent had not a park warden appeared from nowhere to hack steps into the slippery muddy path with his machete. Back at the car Joan beamed with delight, her confidence was back, after several years of immobility with arthritic knees.


This style of overhanging cliff burial is a feature the area. Indeed at that night’s destination, Leymebamba, a museum opened in June 2000, provides a controlled environment for research into the two hundred mummies recovered from Laguna de los Condores. The story of the discovery was recently broadcast on Channel Five.


We could spend a whole holiday walking the countryside around that sleepy village, watching the boys play a war game with spinning tops, seeing how the river was diverted to clean the streets in turn and provide a supply of running water for the washing. It was no surprise to learn that Austrians had helped fund the museum, for it’s their kind of country.


CROSSING THE ANDES
The tough road first climbs the cloud forest of the eastern Andes before dropping steeply down to the Rio Maranon basin and climbing the western peaks before descending to our destination, Celendin. The usual options for the twelve-hour drive were uncomfortably by small daily bus, very uncomfortably by bumpy colectivo, or excitingly with superb views from the top of a cattle lorry. Instead we persuaded the owner of the Raymipampa restaurant to take us in his four-wheel drive for £50. It was a good decision for, although the weather was disappointingly overcast, this narrow, unmade, precipitous switchback was undoubtedly a highlight of our holiday. Celendin was the first obviously Indian town, where the women were dressed in tall hats and wore multiple layers of brightly coloured skirts. We had finally entered the Andean Peru of our expectation.


The early morning bus to Cajamarca left at first light. From our high vantage point we watched the countryside come to life. The peasants sat leaning against the walls of their adobe brick houses to warm themselves in the first rays of the sun. At one point the driver, realising he was being pursued on horseback, stopped and backed up to the nearest hair pin bend to wait for the market produce which was following by pack horses. The bus stopped for breakfast at a simple, isolated, restaurant.


Then, as we neared Cajamarca, we entered a patchwork of fertile fields in vivid colours of lush grass, ripe maize, wheat, barley and artichokes, with rows of cactus for field boundaries, earth of red and rich brown, and a ever changing sky of blue and grey with dramatic cloud formations. A sight so impressive that the very next day we persuaded a taxi driver to drop us on that deserted unmade road, just so we could spend a whole day breathing it in, as we walked slowly back to town.




CAJAMARCA
Cajamarca is the milk producing area of Peru. They send 300,00 litres a day to Lima and still have enough left over to produce the only good cheese we found in Peru. It is a lovely colonial town, with a good choice of hotels and restaurants, and the atmosphere of a market town. Peru, like the Zimbabwe of today, underwent a forcible redistribution of land to the people in 1974. The then military Marxist government paid the owners pitiful compensation, like 20p for a milking cow. It was often said that the farming productivity has never recovered to its former level. The same political upheaval was blamed in Chiclayo for the demise of the sugar cane producing/exporting industry, though they also had to contend with the increasing subsidised production of sugar beet in the developed world.


HUARAZ, THE HIGH ANDES
At this point the high Andes were formed in two ranges as the Pacific plate pushed under the continental plates, forming first the Cordillera Negra to the west and then the snow capped Cordillera Blanca to the east. In geological terms the Andes are recent and still developing, in an area still subject to major earthquakes.


Since Peru is close to the equator the snow line is high, over 5000 meters, so the presence of fifty peaks over 6700 metres makes this not only the climbers Mecca but also a place of great beauty for us mortals. One attraction for climbers wanting to get full value from a short vacation applies equally to the more mundane tourist, and that is ease of access to the mountains. Colectivos run frequently and cheaply on unpaved roads past the farmsteads right up to the snow line. As one climber remarked ‘it’s remarkable how quickly they turn into taxis if you want to go beyond their normal route’. Go out by colectivo in the morning, walk around in majestic scenery, and flag down a colectivo when you are ready to return.


Huaraz is the only major tourist destination north of Lima, but there is none of the hassle that makes it impossible to do your own thing in the centre of Cusco. Perhaps this is because it attracts largely climbers and independent travellers of all nationalities, including Peruvian, but not so far package tours. It is a good base for side trips by bus tour to say Chavin de Huantar, the centre of a refined civilisation BC, or to the glacier of Pasto Ruri, where we walked few hours in bright sunlight at 5200 metres, our highest ever.


CARAZ
A long valley divides the Cordilleras running north past the town of Yungay, which was destroyed by earthquake in 1970, up to Caraz and beyond. From this quiet mountain village we arranged a taxi to take us to Laguna Paron. Even the scenic mountain road had not prepared us for that stunning first glimpse of a huge, sparkling, turquoise, glacial lake sided by high snow covered mountains falling to the glacier at the far end. We had this sanctuary to ourselves until late in the day we met two young American climbers contemplating tomorrow’s assault on the mountain that serves as the icon for Paramount Pictures.

Laguna Llanganuco is a little more popular since it can be reached cheaply by colectivo via Yungay. Though a wonderful place it couldn’t dislodge that first magical view of Paron. But the biggest surprise was yet to come.


On Sunday morning we were woken at five by the arrival of buses and the excited talk of children. They divided into school groups and started to draw huge chalk pictures of Christ, doves and other Christian symbols on the four roads around the Plaza de Armas. Then they proceeded to fill in the designs with flower petals and coloured wood chippings. We had unknowingly arrived for Corpus Christi. We last saw such a complete decoration of the streets thirty years earlier, in the small village of Massanet in the Spanish Pyrenees. Then one by one small-groups of Indians from the mountain hamlets marched into town, banging home made drums, playing home made pipes and shouldering statues of Christ on sedan chairs, on route to the church. Once inside they paraded around paying their respects in music to each of the earlier statues before setting down their own.


The church was packed for the service, the priests were of pure Spanish descent, the congregation of town dwellers was mostly of mixed blood, but standing, so that the church was packed like a rush hour tube train, were the Indian farmers from the hills. After the service the priests led a procession very slowly around the plaza, stopping at each corner for a ceremony. When it was over the Indians reformed in groups and marched in procession into the hills. Those that remained sat in the shade on the steps of the church.

This parading of statues of God was so reminiscent of the Hindu festival at Kullu, south of Kashmir in the Indian Himalaya. It was another case of similarity of rituals of people born into like environments, albeit on the other side of the world and in spite of totally different religions. Both Kullu and Caraz are valley towns in areas where poor people live by agriculture in isolated mountain communities.


One of the inspiring delights of travel comes from the highlighting of essential human needs, which are so much easier to discern in less sophisticated communities. If you’re still interested then start planning soon, for May to September is the best period in the Peruvian Andes. It takes courage to start with nothing but outline plans, thereafter the freedom is amazingly relaxing.




Brian Corbett            3000 words                21 Jan 2004



FACTFILE

KLM to Lima via Amsterdam £587
Iberia to Lima via Madrid
Internal Aero Continente

CASH
Budget £40/day for two in Peru
Peruvian Soles (US$ currency rarely used)
ATM’s are everywhere, they offer Soles or US$

PERU GERIATRICKING

GERIATRICKING
We are nearing the half way stage of our holiday adventure, so it’s time to take stock. Before we set out we both wondered if at our age and both with obvious physical frailties whether this would turn out to be one step too far. But we both knew that if we didn’t try we would never know what our limits were, it was this year or chickening out for ever. Nevertheless it was a big step. Five years after similar expeditions to Sumatra and India in the first year of retirement, and with the additional hazards of large numbers of pickpockets and violent street crime.


Whatever happens now, and it probably will, this trip is one of the highlights of a well travelled life. One to rival cycle touring on the continent at 16, driving across the Excited States of America at 21, real backpacking with the family along the Grandes Randonnees of France, delivering New Beneteau Yachts to Greece, or this style of travel to Nepal, Sarawak, Sumatra and India. Joan has gained new confidence in her footing and balance, it’s hard to realise that she fell over several times this winter walking on the relatively flat but muddy cliff paths of Gower, or slipped over a cliff in Cinque Terra last autumn only to be saved by Blackberry brambles. Strength and confidence has returned at last to her ankle, which was in plaster 18 months ago. Her back too seems to have fully recovered from that painful slipped disc. All that remains is difficulty and pain in straightening her leg to stand up after sitting, she always lifts herself with the good left leg. As the Chilean doctor, we met, remarked, it’s a testament to her spirit and determination. I just hope we are not overdoing it now, because otherwise it will be all for the good physically.


We have been absolutely delighted with the warm reception we have received everywhere, crime is a thing apart, but we did anticipate resentment of our buying power. In a land where so many are unemployed and most of the workers whether teachers (who are now on strike) or farm labourers earn the minimum wage of 410 soles per month, 85 pounds. But there is not the sign of great wealth that so disfigures India, the States and increasingly our South East. For all the terrible poverty this country at least aims for reasonable equality. There are very few private cars on the streets of Lima and almost none elsewhere, so the streets are full of cheap taxis. Using taxis to get through dangerous areas is the first rule of street wisdom. Still since diesel is about 2 pounds a gallon, and cars and parts are going to be similar, if not higher costs than our own, and the roads are so poor many British drivers would refuse to risk their precious possessions on them, the juddering and tire wear are far beyond anything encountered today in Europe. It seems amazing to me that they can make any money. One upside of using taxis is that I rarely have to carry the rucksack, but we have had to change style, so instead of walking around a few hotels before settling on one it is important to know exactly which hotel you want to try first. The taxi drivers as always want to take you to the hotel where they will get a good commission.


On the basic side, it’s a pity we left valuable slide film at home and brought two bars of soap, two large towels and two toilet rolls that we have never had to use. The minor difficulty of getting into the bottom pocket of the rucksack means Joan has clothes she has never worn. I too have too many unused, but we shall need the warm clothing when we more up to 4000 metres, the next step. We took 2.5 kilos of washing to the laundry today, which means the same old clothes can be recycled for the vast cost of 3 pounds. The stainless steel rucksack security net has been worthwhile, since it essentially means I have my own portable safe and so can leave at least half the valuables locked inside. Given the risk of violent crime valuables are far safer in the relative safety of the hold of a bus or a hotel room than they would be hidden on the person. We expected diarrhoea to be a major hazard, but so far our bowels have been extremely well behaved, which I attribute to eating in popular restaurants with a reputation for good food even if some are in the 50p category. We are however beginning to get tired of the diet, so few vegetables, just meat or fish often with rice and potatoes. You even get tired of quality beef steak and chips after a while. The plus side of the diet are the superb home made soups, a meal in themselves as Heinz would claim, and real freshly made lemonade. Another craving is for nice fresh bread, though we have recently discovered they make quite good brioche.


ATM are available everywhere, they clearly weren‘t when the Lonely Planet was updated in 1999. Getting cash with cards is no problem at all, as long as the machines don’t swallow them (Cinque Terra) or pickpockets steal them (Palermo).

 
One of the beauties of having no fixed itinerary is that you decide from day to day where to go next. Before we left home we imagined that Cajamarca would be our first stop but we stayed first at Trujillo and then Chiclayo and then on the advice of the Germans from Edinburgh went to Chachapoyas next, so three weeks later here we are at Cajamarca. Tomorrow we were going by bus to Huaraz in the high snow covered Andes, but on reading today’s paper we learn that the farmers are now blocking the roads and bus travel is not possible. So tomorrow we fly to Lima where we will try for the earliest flight to Cusco. So now it’s Machu Pichu etc, Lake Titcaca, Arequipa, Nasca, Pisco and back to Lima, so Huaraz will be our last stop. This really is their winter of discontent, a transport strike and road block held us in Trujillo, immediately afterwards the teachers went on strike and they are still out, now the farmers are blockading the roads. We might get our 90 days here yet!


Our budget was 50 pounds a day all in, so far we are running below that figure, but no doubt the popular tourist area of Cusco will be more expensive, and it looks as if we will have to fly more than intended. We will see.


As for my Spanish it is improving, I’m beginning to have confidence in the ability to make myself understood, even if I don’t understand all they say to me it’s enough to wheedle out the meaning. I wish I could stop saying grazie (Italian) instead of gracias, and qui (French) instead of que, and roll my r’s then I might get the intended cordero (lamb) instead of conejo (rabbit), though that didn’t prevent me sending it back! The major problem is that my vocabulary is far too insecure and limited, and my grammatical knowledge is far in advance of what I need for really good survival. There are only a few travellers in the north, but almost all of them speak fluent Spanish (even the English!) and obviously understand the replies, again vocab is probably the root of my problem. The only word difference I’ve noticed is the use of boleta instead of billeta for ticket, though they use chancho as well as cerdo for pork. Given the huge difference there is between French and French Canadian the lack of diversion is amazing, and they kicked the Spanish out in 1820.