Arrival at the river...

My trip to Chavin was an eventful one.  We had the Peruvian equavalent of Inspector Cluseaux who ran the tour and must have talked about a third of the time of the journey and kept all Spanish speaking tourists laughing (damn the lack of Spanish I´ve managed to pick up!).  We went to 4,700 meters high on the journey which passed a wonderful Lake before heading to Chavin (don´t think Cath would have enjoyed the journey).

The site is one of the oldest in Peru we´ve seen- 1,300 BC and really quite interesting even though a little more of the same we found as far back as the Tiwunakus.  It was the centre of the Chequetuan empire one that lasted till the Incans took over.  Really they were into similar things; hallucinagens being used for ceremony, three animals to depict ground, live and afterlife (this case; snake, puma and eagle), the use of the magical number seven in their building as well as far in advanced architecture.  The location of the site is in an area in which it looks as if a snake curls around a mountain, the main square is built exactly to 49 meters by 49 meters and the ´pyramids´ is built big stone, small stone, at a 5 degree angle, which is apparently a perfect structure and angle against earthquakes.  As in the Tiwunaku pyramid they had a ´temple of faces´ which in this case were to depict the priests as gods (whilst taking San Pedro (hallucinagenic cactus)).  They had a great under ground complex you could walk into underneath the pyramid and they had the most amazing underground water system which at one point (when it was working) you could make music from.  It only leaves me to think what really was the reason for fighting between these people who had so much in common?  Arguing about what animal they´d use as their symbolise their religion? Because of slight differences between the way they buried the dead? or perhaps simply because they were bored?

After Tom´s trip to Chavin we left Huaraz next morning on the road to the jungle.  This journey started out with a four hour bus trip to La Union, up and over another really high mountain pass, so I slept as much as possible to avoid altitude effects.  La Union is a small place in the mountains which doesn´t seem to have a big tourist offering, but there are plenty of taxi drivers ready to take passengers on through the mountains to Huanuco.  This is another 4 or so hours, and our normal sized car was packed with six people (glad I wasn´t the one who had to sit on the handbrake in the front) and was chauffeured by a young bloke called Elvis (oh yes, actually, although his musical taste was more 1980s pop) whose motto in life appears to be "if you´re going to have a crash better make it a good one".  Road was narrow, driving was petrifying, it was a long trip.  Happily we arrived in one piece and found our way to a hotel from where we explored the town.  Not much to tell about Huanuco except that it is the world capital of chicken and chips.  Every street has half a dozen fast food chicken restaurants.  Tom decided he fancied pizza for dinner and it took over an hour of walking the town to find what we suspect is the only Italian-style place for miles. 

Just outside town is the "Temple of Crossed Hands" which is supposedly one of the oldest temple ruins in South America - symbolic of the joining of men and women, but as with all other ruined temples we have seen more focussed on animal sacrifices to the gods.  There is only 15% of the original remaining so you have to use your imagination a bit, but they also have a pretty impressive garden of cactus plants there too, and a special natural voice echo platform, so plenty of entertainment!

Yesterday we left Huanuco on the night bus, arriving in Pucallpa at 5am we piled into a moto-taxi (tuk tuk minus the sides) with all our bags and were grateful to find an open hotel.  It´s no Ritz Carlton, but at six pounds per night you get what youpay for (just about) and we were grateful for somewhere to get some more sleep.  Pucallpa is a port town, and very poor.  We get the feeling they don´t see many tourists here (and certainly not many white women in the docks areas as I discovered on our boat hunt) and it has a strange atmosphere.  It´s also a change of climate as we´re now into serious humidity.  Thankfully not very sunny today so no excessive heat to contend with as well. 

We headed in search of transport for our next leg of our trip, taking us to the port of the Henry V, a cargo boat getting loaded up and with an open deck near the top already pretty full of locals in hammocks.  No cabins available, so we moved on to try the only other possibility, the Monte Blanco.  This one also sails tomorrow and we have reserved a cabin - although it´s all a bit wing and a promise, so will have to get there early to make sure it´s still ours!  It has it´s own little loo and shower so the height of luxury by local standards.  There´s a similar deck that will no doubt be full of hammocks by departure time, which is also the dining area.  It should take three days to reach Iquitos.  We´ll sign in again from there...wish us luck!