Polccoyo Mountains

Jul. 7th, 2025 06:24 pm
purplecat: The family on top of Pen Y Fan (General:Walking)
[personal profile] purplecat
Because of all the mix-ups with permits and so on, we were offered an additional "free" activity. We picked a trip to the Polccoyo rainbow mountain area. It turned out that there are two rainbow mountains in Peru of which Vinicunca is the more spectacular, touristy, and better known. Different mineral compositions in the soil - particularly copper - cause the geological layers exposed in rainbow mountains to reveal stripes of bright colours. Our guide for the day, Olmer, was obviously from the Polccoyo area and felt very passionately about it. He explained that it was being opened up to tourists in a bid to stave off a proposed investment from a Canadian mining company who wanted to establish a copper mine in the area.

It was beautiful and remote and while there were two or three parties of tourists, it was easy to feel alone in the landscape. B. and I were a bit dubious that it could both retain its character and generate enough income to hold off the allure of mining company big bucks.

Photos )

The road up to Palccoyo went along multiple switch-backs from tarmac to dirt track, and past alfalfa farmers on the lower slopes (the alfalfa feeds the guinea pigs which are a local speciality - if you are interested they taste a bit like duck) to alpaca farmers on the higher slopes (alpaca is genuinely nice meat, quite lamby but more restrained). On the way back down I tried to photograph alpaca from the taxi resulting in a lot of blurry photos of alpaca of which these are the best.

Photos from the taxi )

Random Doctor Who Picture

Jul. 5th, 2025 08:42 am
purplecat: The Sixth Doctor (Who:Six)
[personal profile] purplecat

Book cover for Doctor Who The Shadow in the Glass by Justing Richards and Stephen Cole.  A blue cover with the faces of the sixth Doctor and Hitler behind a transparent globe.  Blue streaks emanate out from the globe.

I've no memory of reading this at all. The back makes it sound both interesting and memorable - a retired brigadier stumbling upon shenanigans from WW2 recruiting the sixth Doctor for help. Richards and Cole are both solid Doctor Who authors who I rate but none of it stirs a memory.

Moray and the Salt Mines of Maras

Jul. 3rd, 2025 06:19 pm
purplecat: Hand Drawn picture of a Toy Cat (Default)
[personal profile] purplecat
We had a "free" day in Cusco, but there were some suggestions of activities that our guide could organise for us. Two other people in the group were interested in seeing the Moray Ruins and the Salt Mines of Maras and we were happy to tag along and make the excursion cheaper.

Moray was the first Inca Plant laboratory we encountered. As noted previously, it wasn't quite clear to us why it earned the status of laboratory.

Pictures under the Cut )

The Salt Mines are not actually mines, but a salt extraction plant that predates the arrival of the Spanish and which are still worked today. Mineral rich water from the mountains comes in and fills clay lined pools. The water then evaporates and the salt is collected. They are owned by 300 families and there were people working them - flattening the clay lining - when we visited. I bought salt.

Photos under the Cut )

Costume Bracket: Round 4, Post 4

Jul. 1st, 2025 07:16 pm
purplecat: The Tardis against a sunset (or possibly sunrise) (Doctor Who)
[personal profile] purplecat
Two Doctor Who companion outfits for your delectation and delight! Outfits selected by a mixture of ones I, personally, like; lists on the internet; and a certain random element.


Outfits below the Cut )

Vote for your favourite of these costumes. Use whatever criteria you please - most practical, most outrageously spacey, most of its decade!

Voting will remain open for at least a week, possibly longer!

Costume Bracket Masterlist

Images are a mixture of my own screencaps, screencaps from Lost in Time Graphics, PCJ's Whoniverse Gallery, and random Google searches.

Sacsayhuaman

Jun. 30th, 2025 06:01 pm
purplecat: Two dummies wearing Edwardian dresses. (General:History)
[personal profile] purplecat
Sacsayhuaman is a massive Inca fortress, called the House of the Sun, on a hill top above Cusco. We were taken up their on our first day in Peru, walked around the site and then walked back down into Cusco.

It is quite a thing )

So, what else did you do in Peru?

Jun. 26th, 2025 05:33 pm
purplecat: Hand Drawn picture of a Toy Cat (Default)
[personal profile] purplecat
Our Inca Trail holiday actually started with three days spent in and around Cusco, the ancient Inca Capital. Our first day started with a walking tour of Cusco. Because of the various mix-ups with permits, this was with a guide called Arturo who should have been our guide for the whole trip, but wasn't.

Photos under the Cut )

Machu Picchu

Jun. 25th, 2025 06:55 pm
purplecat: The family on top of Pen Y Fan (General:Walking)
[personal profile] purplecat
Then Wilbert showed us around Machu Picchu.

Photos )

The story of Machu Picchu, as Wilbert told it to us, was that it was under construction as a district capital when the Spanish arrived. Intimating that things were going badly with the Spanish, the Inca moved 700 people and all their gold from their capital of Cusco along the Inca trail to Machu Picchu, destroying the roads behind them with landslides. They remained there for 80 years but were aware that the Spanish, in search of the gold, were getting closer aided by a generation of half-Peruvian, half-Spanish collaborators. After 80 years, therefore, they hid the gold in the surrounding hills and some moved back towards Cusco where they were captured by the Spanish and others moved east into the Amazon where their descendents were briefly encountered by archeologists in the 1970s. The Spanish eventually reached Machu Picchu but found no gold. This story does not appear anywhere else I've looked (but, as noted, information at the level of detail I'm accustomed to for historic sites is much harder to find for Machu Picchu), but it wouldn't surprise me if it isn't the legend as told among the local Andean people.

Costume Bracket: Round 4, Post 3

Jun. 24th, 2025 06:40 pm
purplecat: The Tardis against a sunset (or possibly sunrise) (Doctor Who)
[personal profile] purplecat
Two Doctor Who companion outfits for your delectation and delight! Outfits selected by a mixture of ones I, personally, like; lists on the internet; and a certain random element.


Outfits below the Cut )

Vote for your favourite of these costumes. Use whatever criteria you please - most practical, most outrageously spacey, most of its decade!

Voting will remain open for at least a week, possibly longer!

Costume Bracket Masterlist

Images are a mixture of my own screencaps, screencaps from Lost in Time Graphics, PCJ's Whoniverse Gallery, and random Google searches.

Profile

annariel_dw: A hand writing by candlelight. (Default)
Annariel Fandom Fiction, Graphics and Recs

May 2020

S M T W T F S
     12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
242526272829 30
31      

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags