Welsh David's South America: 25 February 2017 – Arequipa to and at Puerto Inka (Peru)

It took more than an hour to leave the environs of Arequipa and the electric fence on many of the houses and business premises then spending hours looking at miles and miles of open cast copper mining areas. Leaving Arequipa at an altitude of 2380 metres (7740 ft) and a pleasant temperature after three hours we were at the coast when the temperature increased dramatically and it became too warm for some people. We did stop somewhere on the ‘beach’ for an early lunch, only I would class the beach as more dust than sand and certainly not to my liking.

Views on the way to Puerto Inka

Lunch on the 'beach'

These shaded areas seemed to be free to use

Cacti grown for the fungus on the leaves. This is used in cosmetics.

A fishing port

We arrived at Puerto Inka at 17.00 hours and immediately set to preparing salads and meat for a barbeque. After everything was ready I went walking up the headland to see some Inca ruins which turned out to be different to what I had seen before in other places. This cove had been an Inca port for shipping and also for fishing. The ruins had numerous stone walled underground pits with narrow openings at ground level and which had obviously been used to store good. Even the line of buildings looked more like storerooms than living places. Apparently, with Puerto Inka being on the direct line from the cost to Machu Picchu it was known that fresh fish were sent by a series of runners who ran five miles each as quickly as possible, to Machu Picchu, where they arrived still fresh. I say apparently as I don’t understand why this should be so when there was an abundance of fish in the Sacred Valley.