St George's Ladies Group

On 28th May Mr Paul Bowers came with his wife Sue to give us a talk and show slides of the Inca Trail.

Mr Bowers retired from the Police Force eight years ago. He was situated in Southampton as a photographer in the force.

He went on a retirement course, then spoke to his wife about what places they would like to visit. They both made a list and at the top of each of them was Peru - Machu Picchu.

They did this trip which was for 3½ weeks.

The cities are built like a panther. They went to Cuzco which means “Navel” centre of the world. It is mainly Spanish speaking. One of the parts looks like the head of the panther. It is volcanic rock and Sue was standing beside it; on a slide you could see how high it was compared with her height. It was about 15 feet high.

The cities were abandoned when the Spanish invaded. In one rock high up is a store room for food. It is south facing and it is kept cool. Paul said that potatoes were kept there for fifteen years! I don’t know whether to believe him on that.

They were each given some green leaves and a pebble, which you grind to put into your mouth when walking to prevent “mountain sickness” which can be quite nasty. The leaves are in fact Cocaine.

They had a local leader and it was a four day walk from 3rd to 7th April 1997. At the beginning of the walk is the Statue of the Inca King.

There are 28 different temperatures in Peru alone, and one minute it could be quite muggy heat the next it was cold with ice on the tents and snow on the mountains.

Wherever the path took them they could always see Mount Veronica. It was very green around and the river ran straight. Most parts are in the National Park and as it could be dangerous, they were checked in to establish who was going in and going out. They walked 40 miles or 66 kilometres.

There were a group of “Porters” who ran ahead of them each time to put up tables and prepare food, so when they got there it was all ready and waiting for them. They also put up the tents for them. At the end of the four days they were paid £5 which they were very grateful for. There were also two boys amongst the porters aged 9 and 7 who were also very keen to carry things.

The views were beautiful and there were wild orchids and butterflies and even green parrots flying above. As it was hot and humid Paul lost 3¼ stone in weight. I think he was quite pleased about that.
The temperature dropped considerably when getting to Dead Woman’s Pass. There was ice on the tents and snow on the mountains.

There are only four toilets, so you can imagine they stayed on just so they could use one of them as they are a very rare thing in Peru.

The reservoir was built in 1700. They had to keep to the path which is made of limestone and could get very slippery if it was wet.

They got to Machu Picchu and found it to be a spiritual place. There were 13 baths along the side. It was built in a rain forest and rained for two days while they were there. They camped at the bottom. 40,000 people lived there. No-one knows why it was really built. But, it felt a calm and quiet place and Paul was very excited to see it.

Out of all the places in the world to visit, Machu Picchu is the second most popular place after the Grand Canyon.

Priscilla Barlow