Today’s speaker was a returning presenter, Geoff Budd, to give us a talk entitled “In search of the Incas”, outlining a trip he made to Peru and Bolivia.
We all tend to think of the Incas as a very ancient civilisation, but, in fact, they lived during the period 1400-1500 AD, and were discovered by the Spanish when they landed by sea, and established the city of Lima, Geoff’s first stop on his trip. The weather in the city would appear to be an ideal year-round temperature of around 25degrees c, but due to warm air meeting colder sea temperatures, the city is covered in fog and mist for around 9 months of the year. Nearby islands are homes to many indigenous birds, the Humboldt penguin being one of them; unusual, given that the country lies only 12degrees south of the equator. The islands face a scraping every 7 years to extract the guano, (bird poo) which is sold for fertiliser.
After Lima, Geoff moved on to Cuzco, a flight of only one hour, but, given that the destination is 12000 feet higher than Lima, the change in altitude proved daunting for many on the trip. The remedy for this problem is coca tea, a derivative of the coca plant, from which cocaine is also produced. Who said that Class A drugs are harmful? The population of the city is Inca based, as is the majority of the country, and is quite Anglicized, the university teaching “English” English, rather than “American”! Any shops in the city are for tourists; the locals all shop in the many markets .The trip continued into what would be considered more naturally rural areas, to Robamba, the sacred valley of the Incas. Here, national dress is very commonly worn in the fields of a very significant food producing area. It is also telling that all the buildings are built with gently inward sloping walls to provide inherent strength and protection from frequent earthquakes. Such buildings are still standing, though Spanish buildings of traditional European regular vertical and horizontal lines have long since succumbed!
Many of the villages and towns are built in very narrow valleys, enabling the inhabitants to identify and deal with marauding tribes in a timely fashion.
Machu Pichu was first discovered in 1911, appearing to have been abandoned, for whatever reason, and was not made accessible until 1960. The Spanish had apparently never found it, so many of the original buildings are still standing, showing an extensive city centre of approximately 25000 inhabitants. Indeed, Machu Pichu is now one of the 7 man-made wonders of the world, of which 3 are in South America.
After travelling back via Cuzco, the trip continued up onto the high plateau on which is situated Lake Titicaca, the world’s highest lake at 21000 feet altitude. The trip ended in La Paz, Bolivia, situated in what can only be called a hole in the plateau, as the city centre is 2000 feet below the edge of the plateau rim. Founded on silver, and exploited by Britain where men wear bowler hats, it is now quite normal to see all the Bolivian lady inhabitants affecting the same head gear! And they say that inequality is dead!