We want you to testify.
After 12 hours of flight from Amsterdam to Lima...
Upon awakening, we take the bus to the south along the Pacific coast. Whether you are in Beirut, Athens or Lima, the landscape of the city outskirts is the same everywhere : kilometers of commercial space who only know that effective straights, aggressive edges, angles without concession, neon colors and advertising boards... it is globalization so ugliness and disheartening that just expresses profitability worries.
Why doing 12 hours of plane to see that ? We have only to go to Marmande...
Southern Peru along the Pacific is a vast desert, as the Altiplano while 60% of Peru is occupied by the Amazon rainforest, that we have not seen. After 6 hours on the road, at the edge of the ocean, visiting a natural park formed by several islands which are covered with birds, penguins ans seals.
Then again 5 hours of bus until Nazca, pre-Columbian civilization site, overview of "lines", the immense symbolic designs on desert floor and necropolis of mummies, relics of pre-Columbian civilizations.Along the way, we discover in these immense landscapes, herds of llamas and alpacas in the wild.
After 11 hours of bus, Arequipa, city full of important pre-Inca, Inca and Spanish history.We begin to discover the superposition of civilizations since
the early ages of humanity (10,000 years) and how the conquistadors gave an abrupt end to their civilizations.We feel how the Peruvian people consciously connects to its origins prior to colonization while assuming the contribution of the Catholic religion brought by the colonizers. But inside which remains the cult of the sun and earth from previous civilizations. God the father the Sun, has a son, the Inca and the virgin represents mother earth.
In 4 trips of 11, 9, 6 and 5 hours of bus and flight, we traveled about 3,000km.
Arriving at Titicaca Lake, we gained altitude, it is at 3,800m.
We will have spent almost one week between 3,400 and 4,800m of altitude, without respiratory problem (Eh! Eh!), just a little headache at first, driven out by the quids of coca leaves.
The discovery of the lake showed us an Indian tribe living on floating island made of reeds from the lake...another world, another relation with the world. By visiting the house of a familiy, we learn ther now have solar panels enabling them to have electricity and television (without heating while the reed roof is not even waterproof!) and for our pleasure, we learn that among the 3 channels they receive, there TF1. We are reassured that the French culture is broadcast in its most noble appearance!! (LOL!)
Also visit an island where we observe the entire population gathered to participate in collective work on the village square. For legacy of pre-colonial civilizations, Peruvian society has remained very faithful to a community organization.
By bus across the Altiplano, go to Cuzco (3400m), beautiful city full of Inca history, it was the empire's center.
From here, we take the train (only access possible) to Machu Pichu.
The site is truly magical by the natural environment of mountains covered with greenery. The Amazon forest is near. This place was not known by the Spanish because it was secret and unkown to the population. All the buildings, temples, astronomical studies center, residential areas, agricultural terraces, hydraulic systeme, create an array, without any possible link that we known. This is a highlight!
But there is a mystery. Machu Pichu but also in the entire country, the considerable amount of constructions (temples, cities, thousands of mountainside terraces...) are made of stones, some blocks of hundreds of tons, cut, polished, fitted with such perfection that earthquakes have not affected them, then they did not know the iron, the polishing was performed with obsidian, that the blocks were transported and hoisted from quarries located at some kilometers... but the Inca empire did not last a century, from 1438 to 1532, 96 years... then suddenly the Spanish invasion has all stopped.
We liked the way Peruvian hosting us : the guides, drivers, hotel staff, shopkeepers are peaceful, smiling and generous in how they do their job...
Return to Cuzco by train and then by plane to Lima... and Bordeaux by Amsterdam, without any difficulty.
So great escape and true rest after internships. We are now ready to start our new year, fed by the richness of forms that the life has deployed and deploys on the "Pachamama", our native mother earth.
Jean and Jacques
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