We walked out of Urubamba one morning along a randomly chosen country road that led through beautiful countryside up into the mountains. As we climbed higher the land became poorer and signs of human activity became scarcer. We came to a road sign that read something like this: Corralbamba 1,562 km. Imagine that, a land so vast and empty that a country road leads hundreds of miles through the mountains before it arrives at the next settlement. What an extraordinary continent. And we had seen it from the aeroplane; huge areas of uninhabited and uninhabitable wilderness.
A little further down the road, not much more than a kilometre away, we came to the village of Corralbamba. We now know that in Spanish speaking countries the decimal point is replaced with a comma. And in some places they measure road distances with great accuracy, down to three decimal places. Well, I never...
Another peculiarity of Urubamba was the frequent occurrence of a type of sign that we couldn’t understand. Outside some houses there would be a big bamboo stick, maybe eight or ten foot long, with a piece of red plastic bag tied to the end. We tried to guess what it meant: vote Gonzales maybe; or no rubbish to collect this week. Eventually we asked someone who spoke enough English for us to understand. It signified a place where chicha, maize beer, had recently been brewed and was available. A couple of times we were passing by people sitting outside in their gardens and invited in to drink some. It tasted OK.