As the monarch died, I boarded a plane bound for Peru and spent the mourning period having Peruvian adventures instead of being stuck at home with nothing but Mourn-Hub on TV.

Here’s a photo gallery, you can also click the links below to see some description from my microblog at the time.

Made it to Peru. Here is the Pacific ocean. It’s grey and wavey.

Lima is chock full of cops right now. All the different types, quite a rainbow of different uniforms. Black ones. Camo ones. Blue ones.

There were food riots a while back. The president is locking down against protest.

But it is also beautiful and modern and the big institutional buildings are Gothic and ornate and incredible.

Saw a monastery with catacombs filled with human bones, and also amazing carved cedar wood walls.

Tired like a zombie. No sleep on the overnight plane. No chance for naps.

Going to enjoy the hell out of some sleep now.

i flew half way up the mountain to the interior of peru. 2500m high. Highest I’ve ever been outside a plane. Everyone is saying not to smoke or drink booze cuz of the altitude sickness but I’m keen to test if it’ll be any different.

Had a window seat as we flew over the mountainous desert.

The mountains are brown and lifeless. They have channels running through them like rivers but are empty of water. They have large flat planes and deep crevices. But no houses or roads or plants or infrastructure or trees. Beautiful but an empty void barren of life like Mars or the moon. They stretch into the distance, becoming more indistinct and washed out by the effects of atmosphere. There is no horizon, only the grey wash into the sky.

There’s a big lake, edges looking salt encrusted, not filling it’s own lake bed.

Nicer view from this hotel.

I am indeed more drunkener than i would normally expect on one cocktail and one glass of wine. Seemed to be the single cigarette that really tipped the balance.

But I’m still well and probably gonna have a night cap now as i go to bed before breakfast on the hotel balcony looking over the town square.

Been on a tour of #arequipa Looking at the volcanoes and the churches and the monastery.

The Spanish colonized the whole country like 500 years ago. Replacing the Inca almost completely so those churches are all Christian ones with only the vaguest hint at the Inca culture.

The Inca worshipped the sun and the moon and the rain and the lake which all do at least exist. But the Spanish killed them until they worshipped jehova instead.

And for what? Gold? The Spanish pretend God beat out the Inca pretend gods through violence and oppression, but the Inca were killing each other pretty effectively even before that.

Both their gods love blood and death.

An afternoon on my own now. Will have to eat at some point and should try and avoid staying in the hotel room pressing buttons or watching star trek.

Wonder what i should do? Anyone got any ideas? Is anyone from arequipa on fedi? Or been here? What’s cool?

Drove up a mountain looking at smoking volcanos and stopping to watch the llamas.

Lots of time in a coach going up mountains in peru again. This time to where the condors hangout. They flew around with hardly any flapping over this 3km deep valley.

This llama found my biscuits very tasty. Had the cutie eating out of my hands.

Highest point about 5km above the sea level. The Inca make these piles of stones with offerings for their gods. Now tourists do it for luck making wishes. I wished for a successful kickstarter in November.

Tonight’s hotel view of lake titicaca. Arrived just in time for it to get dark.

About 500 years ago the Spanish invaded the land now called Peru. The Inca fought back, and many bloody battles ranged over the area.

The Uros people living on the shores of lake titikaka found themselves stuck in the middle. Fuck this, they thought, we’re out of here.

So they used their boats made from reeds and rowed the hell into the lake looking for new land.

But there was no new unoccupied land to find.

They find that the dried clumped roots of the lake’s reeds floats. So they lash lumps of it together, cover it in a reed flooring, and make artificial floating islands to live on.

And have been living there ever since.

Went to visit those islands, met an Uros family who invited us into their floating reed island homes.

They took us for a ride in their reed boats and explained through our translator how they build these things.

The islands are bouncy like walking on a mattress, and slowly soak up the water, becoming sunken islands in around 25 years. So the two families living on the island we visited will need to build a new one in a decade or so, when their homes start to sink into the lake.

Amazing stuff, i had no idea they existed.

Visited this archaeology site in the borders of the old Inca empire. It mixes Inca building tech with a neighbouring tribe. Nobody is sure what it used to be so they call it a temple, but i think i agree more with those who reckon a factory or trade/distribution center

Lots of storage buildings, and two styles suggests cooperative building, which to me suggests trade.

The long corridor aligns with the solstice sun, but you’d do that anyway given free range i reckon.

A day in cusco.

Visited Saqsaywaman. It used to be the biggest temple around, 500 years ago. The Inca building style didn’t use any mortar. Just cut the blocks of granite into jigsaw shapes so they hold together without. Strong and earthquake proof.

Then the Catholics took it apart to use the blocks in their cathedrals. Which were also impressively ornate. But which fell over in the next earthquake.

While i was there the front area was full of school kids practicing their dance and ceremony for solstice. Was quite impressive.

Also a church in town. Much of the town is built on Inca foundations. That mortice free interlocking blocks. Then modern styles in top.

The museum of precolombian art has lots of very old art. This fox jug is thousands of years old.

Went to a little llama farm, fed the llamas. My favourite was the little baby one. I’m scritching his head here.

Followed by visiting Ollantaytanbo, which is a temple that the Inca never finished constructing. Their own civil war and then the invasion of the Catholics halted construction.

It’s quite a climb, lots of terraces up the hill and this precarious walkway across the cliff. Pics of the walkway and the view from it, with the village and valley below.

we got a train to the jungle. There we met a lizard.

Then, through the trees, Machu Picchu. An old Inca temple.

Exhausting day, but it’s quite a place. High and difficult to reach. They abandoned the place and burned all the trails to it to prevent the Catholics destroying it. Though the elements still did quite a job. It’s cleaned up a bit for the tourists now. Some call it a wonder. Where the jungle meets the Highlands.