Bill and Wendy's ickcillint adventures

We have only two weeks left in South America.  We grieve. We have only two weeks left in South America.  Yahoo! The human condition is always in flux between two realities.  We are caught in the flux. It is torture.

Lake TItikaka is amazing.  It is over 8000 sq kilometres, so large that when we first saw it, we were discombobulated - it looks like the ocean.  It is the highest fresh water navigable lake in the world, situated at 3800 meters above sea level.  Jacques Coustea studied this lake in the 1970's, looking for the lost city of the Incas. He never did find it, but he did find toads (1 billion of them) that  were no longer amphibious, but had grown breathing sacks and lived up to 400 feet deep. What is even more fascinating about the lake is the way the Peruvian people have managed to use the reeds that grow along the shores of the lake.  They have built floating islands and constructed sturdy reed homes and boats from the reeds.  It is really something to behold - like visiting the floating boats in Vietnam.  Hard to believe that this is America. Several islands dot the lake and are populated by the Quechua People.  As part of our tour of the lake, we arranged to do a home stay wi

Stuck in the Mud On the way out of the jungle, we encountered a mudslide that covered the road.  I demanded to be let out as the mudslide was at the edge of a deep cliff.  Our guide, Jose, agreed it was a good idea for all to leave the vehicle while the driver drove through the mud. Low and behold, the van driver, dug the axle deep into the mud that was firm, but spongy.   We had to use a machete and a rock pick to dig out the vehicle.  Finally, we pushed the vehicle backwards only to find that a root had punctured the oil pan. We filled the ruts in the mud with rock and branches and the with Bill sitting inside the van for weight, the van crossed to the other side of the slide.  Now we had a repair job to handle as black oil seeped out into the mud. Then, as we were repairing the oil pan, along came a public transportation bus loaded with Andean men, women and children.  The bus driver ordered them all out and he tackled the road with a shovel. He then drove across the very un

 In the Jungle, the Mighty Jungle Amazonia.  The Amazon Jungle.  I felt it seeping into my blood, leaving me never the same. Some years ago, my mother made a trip to Alaska.  It had such an effect on her that when she returned and tried to describe it, she said, "It was as if I was born there." I had a similar experience. The journey into the heart of the Amazon Jungle took four days.  Six touristas, a family group of four from Australia and Bill and I left Cuscos by collectivo early Monday morning.  We drove along highway for about four hours and then left the main paved road to travel along a very treacherous gravel road that snaked into the Andean Rain Forest.  The treachery of the road was exacerbated by the recent months of rainy season.  We are in the shoulder season now, but the roads are soft and heavy rain still predominate the region causing massive landslides of red muddy clay.  We managed to cross the Acjanacu Pass at 3,500 meters above sea level descendin

Wendy and I just completed our hike of the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. She has blogged about our experience and I am going to blog about more personal stuff. I have had a problem with both knees, the left more than the right, since we did the hike to Ciudad Perdida. I have been hobbling around hoping, and then confident,  I could do the hike. I started to take Ibuprofen to ease the pain or whatever it is supposed to do. I felt ready to go - sort of. I/We bought a knee brace/support in Quenca. In fact we bought two which gave me more confidence that I could do the hike. Then in Chiclayo, Peru after showering in the morning, I walked on the tile floor from the bathroom to the bedroom, likely with wet feet, slipped on the floor crashing down in the entrance to the bathroom. Peru is one of those countries where the floor in the bathroom is elevated about 15 cm from the floor in the rest of the room. I came crashing down bruising quite extensively my left forearm, scraping my back on the ri

Survivors on the Inca Trail We made it!  We survived the Inca Trail and were rewarded with the splendour that took our breathe away at the site of the Sacred City of Machu Picchu. We and eleven other fellow hikers from New Zealand, Australia and two other Canadians from Calgary began this 44 km sojourn on April 2, leaving Cuscos by bus in the morning and staying in a homestay in Ollantaytambo after a nice dinner in this bustling tourist town.  Ollantaytambo is the site of another magnificent Inca site where huge rocks in the temple are seamed perfectly without the use of mortar. It is mind boggling to see this and to try and sort out, how on earth the Inca stone workers perfectly seamed rock.  One of the rocks at Machu Picchu (MP) has 32 perfectly seamed sides! On April 3 , we began our hike from Ollantaytambo (2720 metres above sea level) and began a 7 hour trek along the "Peruvian trail" undulating along and up and down over a completely stone pathway.  Asce