I did not think of desert when I thought Peru and a coastal desert felt even stranger. We have travelled by public coaches for two days now and have seen much desert, populated and desolate. They hug the coast, fish and irrigate from snowfall rivers. West of the Andes is an extreme rainshadow. The desert isn't stopping the development as we saw luxury appartments blocks and squallid villages, all literally rising from the sandy gravel. They get 1mm of rain here per year.
We flew from Cusco to Lima, in Peru, then to Quito and finally to Galapagos in Equador. This is a volcanic archipelago still growing from a fault line in the west and folding under in the east. It keeps renewing but doesn't grow. The land is ash and volcanic rock with limited soil and very little rain. There are no land mammals. The only land carnivores are tiny lizards and snakes. The large reptiles, Land and Sea Iguanas, eat cacti and algae respectively. Sea Iguanas Land Iguanas
Day three was a long difficult day, mostly because we were fatigued from Day 2. We started with a 300m climb to the coll. We then had an "Inca flat" walk for most of the day before decending 1000m to our camp. We were woken at 3.30am rosethe next morning and the camp was dismantled. Our porter's had to walk 500m down to make a 5.40am train with all the camp supplies and equipment. For us, on the other hand, there was a two hour wait in darkness at the Park entrance gate. We then had a two hour walk to the Sun Gate overlooking Machu Picchu.
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