Wonders in the jungle
Lucinda Baring
If you want a more intrepid holiday than your usual week on the Costa del Sol, then Peru has it all. But when trying to decide how to tackle an entire country in less than a fortnight, the options can seem rather daunting. In the end we chose to go with Inkaterra, a small chain of eco-hotels, for the ease of being met at every airport and the comfort of staying in three luxury boutique hotels. What’s more, if you are at all concerned about the environment, rest assured: Inkaterra’s mission is to conserve Peru’s natural and cultural heritage and is 100 per cent carbon-neutral, so you can ignore any jealous mutterings about the size of your ‘carbon footprint’.
First stop: the jungle. On arrival, we were given a debrief from the manager, Alejandro, about where everything was, what to do in case of a fire and what to do if you found a nasty spider clinging to your mosquito net — blow the whistle hanging in your room, apparently. I assumed this was just a friendly ‘Welcome to the Amazon’ wind-up but was quickly put in my place. ‘What did you expect? This is the jungle!’ Oh, good.
To prove his point, Alejandro marched me straight off in search of the nearest tarantula, which turned out to be a ‘pink-footed’ one. Don’t be fooled: there was nothing feminine or ballet-shoe’d about it. It was a black, hairy, ferocious-looking monster the size of my hand, the underside of whose pink foot I was invited to touch. Forget it — Alejandro had already shown me where its poisonous red fangs were and they were too close.
Spiders aside, Reserva Amazonica was spectacular. Set within 200 hectares of private land, we saw enough wildlife in the first hour to make the oppressive 36°C heat worth putting up with. During lunch we spotted a scarlet macaw, so brightly coloured it seemed cartoon-like, and a group of saddleback tamarins fooling around in the trees. The short path back to our individual cabanas — rustic chic with white linen, tiled bathrooms, hammocks for reading and lit only by kerosene lamps — provided us with glimpses of a pygmy marmoset (the smallest monkey in the world), an aguti (a giant rat the size of a cat) and a red Amazon squirrel with a big bushy tail.
After lunch we went trekking off into the rainforest with our machete-wielding guide, ostensibly to see more wildlife but in reality to learn a lot about trees: self-peeling ones that shed their bark to avoid being strangled by vines, monkey ladders that you can boil to cure tuberculosis, trees with roots up to four metres wide and others with roots like stilts on which they physically move to find more light.
Other excursions included the river at twilight, where fireflies appeared and disappeared like flickering candles, and fishing bats swooped down in hope of some supper. Floating down the Amazon at night, the only things we could see were the lights of the miners, sifting through the riverbank in search of gold, and the red eyes of the caimans. At dawn we paddled in a canoe around Lake Sandoval: a wildlife haven where we saw cormorants, snakebirds, kingfishers and hoatzins — surely the ugliest bird in Peru, with claws on its wings to help it climb out of the water into the trees — huge butterflies with electric-blue wings and a howler monkey asleep in a tree. As if that wasn’t enough, our last morning took us over seven swinging bridges 31 metres above the rainforest on the canopy walk. As the thunder rolled in, the toucans started calling, apparently because they wanted the rain to come and quench their thirst.
From the dense rainforest to the arid highlands of the Andes. The colder temperatures of the Sacred Valley were a welcome relief from the humidity and I revelled in the cosiness of our private villa. After a few sweaty and sleepless nights in the jungle, the high beds with big white duvets and hot-water bottles proved unsurprisingly conducive to sleep. Each villa is named after its maid — Sonia in our case, who provided simple but hearty Andean meals, the highlight of which was a breakfast of quinoa pancakes served in the garden surrounded by hummingbirds.
Equipped with car and driver, we visited the Andean village of Pisac, where the main attraction is the very vibrant market on Thursdays and Sundays. Although now sadly awash with tourists, the character and colour of the market remains undiminished and I came away with eight pairs of socks made from the softest alpaca wool. Then a quick visit to Chinchero, a weaving community funded by an NGO and 3,750 metres above sea level, and Ollantaytambo, a village with an Inca ruin and a station, from which you can get the train to the daddy of all Inca ruins.
Machu Picchu, despite its status as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World, is still only accessible by train or on foot. The well-trodden ‘Inca Trail’ can be completed in four days, two or even just one. But if you’re too old for trekking or desperately pressed for time, you can catch the train straight to Aguas Calientes and then it’s a 25-minute bus journey to the top. There is something shameful about being the only tourist under 80 not to have physically earned the right to see the ruins, but one distinct advantage is that you can arrive well before the hordes from the trail. We caught the first bus at 5 a.m., giving us Machu Picchu practically to ourselves, save for a handful of geriatrics on sticks.
There is some debate as to whether Machu Picchu has been so overphotographed that when you see it with your own eyes it is a slight anticlimax. Not this time (my second). The sheer size of the place, hidden high up between the mountains and built 6,000 years ago, is quite the most incredible feat of construction. We took a guide, who spent three hours explaining not only how the city was built (by using the natural erosion of the rocks and chipping away at the cracks before inserting metal poles for leverage) but also why it was deserted. There is something a bit sad about walking round a ‘lost city’, seeing the meticulous detail with which it was built and knowing it was never lived in for fear of an attack by Spaniards that never arrived.
Our hotel, Inkaterra Machu Picchu, was my favourite of the three Inkaterra properties. Set deep in the valley with the Urubamaba River flowing along one side, the place is a haven of nature and relaxation, surrounded by lush greenery and the sound of trickling water. The atmosphere is dusky and candlelit, with bowls of eucalyptus around every corner and open fires in every bedroom which you light yourself with the aid of a kind of gunpowder. If you’re a real relaxation junkie, take a private yoga class in the studio overlooking the river, followed by a massage in the spa, and finish with a session in the Aztec sauna, a little eucalyptus-lined igloo heated by rocks from the mountain. Here the eco-projects include an orchid cultivation programme in two private gardens, a visit to which taught me about the tiny mosquito orchid, just 1cm wide, the umbrella orchid which is protected by a green leaf overhead, and the little spider orchid, pale green and about half the size of a petit pois.
In the 12 days I spent in Peru I learnt more about Andean cultures and traditions than I could have from any book or lecture. I learnt that Andeans are superstitious people who worship the sun and the mountains and make offerings to Mother Earth to prevent her from ‘eating’ them. I learnt that they eat guinea pig (revoltingly dark and veiny) and drink chicha, a beer made from corn that tastes like cider. I learnt that once upon a time they stole bones from graveyards to use to cut the fat out of people’s bottoms, in order that they might become thinner. I learnt that no matter how poor they might be, Peruvians are some of the most hospitable people on earth.
In 12 days we crammed in a trip to the jungle, the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu, but in every place we were left wanting more. And that’s without spending any proper time in Lima and Cusco or visiting Lake Titicaca. And that is what makes Peru so interesting — its diversity. You just have to keep going back — which is exactly what I intend to do.
A 12-night Inkaterra package booked through Abercrombie & Kent costs from £3,190 per person, including accommodation, certain meals, all flights, transfers and excursions.
Previous page
