Arequipa to Cusco, Peru (12 Feb)

We only had to check out at 12 so had a nice relaxing morning. Went to book our overnight bus tickets to Cusco for that night. Packed and checked out then went for a walk around town trying to find Pete more cargos as he split his whilst trying to do a jumping photo (very funny!). Walked around for hours but couldn’t find anything that fitted well. Went to Starbucks again then to a restaurant up on a terrace looking over the main plaza. It was beautiful. Pete decided to taste Alpaca meat and i tasted it too – it was actually quite nice. Someone next to us ordered guinea pig which came out whole on a stick and looked like it had been spit roasted (apparently it is delicious but I’ll take their word for it as I’m definitely not trying it!!)

We went back to hostal, transferred photos onto hard drive, booked accommodation in cusco and waited until it was time to head to the bus. Next thing the guy we booked our bus tickets through pitched up at the hostel and said the bus had been cancelled and we could either go at 7am or 8pm the next day. We decided to get the 8pm overnighter, cancelled accommodation in Cusco and booked another night at the hostel in Arequipa. The guy took our tickets to get them changed at the bus station. 20 mins later he comes back and says they managed to find another bus so if we want to go tonight we need to hurry! We threw our stuff in our bags and ran out the hostel. The guy sped us to the bus station probably breaking about 10 traffic laws on the way including turning right from the far lane cutting the cars off in the other 2 lanes! We made it there safe and sound and made the bus thankfully. I couldn’t sleep for some reason so it was a long night!

Colca Canyon, Peru (10-11 Feb)

10 Feb – our day started at 2:30am and we were picked up at 3am to drive out to Colca Canyon. We jumped into the minivan and were given pillows and blankets so we could sleep. The ride was quite bumpy which made sleeping a bit difficult. At 7am we arrived in a little town where we had a quick breakfast. We then continued driving for around an hour to Condor Valley where we very lucky and saw 8 condors. They where huge – 1 meter in height and their wing span is just under 3 meters. Their young stay brown in colour until they are 18 years old and then they turn black and white and live until they are 70 years old! We were very lucky with the weather in the morning as it was nice and sunny. We left Condor Valley and drove to where we were going to start the hike. We met our guide – Louis. Louis’ grandparents were farmers in the canyon and still lived there so he was very knowledgeable about the history, landscape and flora/fauna.

We were in a group of seven, a Dutch couple, Gerard and Feyley, Thomas the Frenchman, Stan the Swiss scientist and Mardi the local girl from Arequipa. We hiked into the Canyon, starting at about 1100. The descent was 1300m to the river over 8 km of zig zagging down. It got pretty hairy at times. We were walking along high cliffs at times, not good for those who suffer from vertigo. The plus side is that the views are amazing. Having gotten down to the river our legs felt like jelly.

The river is in serious flood at the moment. If you fell in you wouldn’t last 20 seconds. At the bridge I took a pic of Pete to get the river in. He leaned against the rail which gave way. Fortunately he managed to grab the tension cable above him just avoiding falling into the river! On the other side it wasn’t much better. We had an initial ascent of about 100 m but the path literally went up a cliff and then right along it. It was pretty nerve wracking. Lunch was at a local village, it was traditional food, the soups are always good over here. After lunch we followed a tributary river before hitting a sharp 30 min climb. During this time, the weather took a turn for the worse. It started pouring down and did not stop for the rest of the day. Pete and i bought huge plastic ponchos and we looked so funny wearing them but hey did keep us dry (well Pete to his upper thighs and me basically to my ankles!) Louis took us through a couple of other towns and showed us some bug larva on cacti that when squashed produced a deep red blood. The locals use this as dye and mix the red with flowers to make other colours. Luis then proceeded to smear the squashed bug blood over all of our faces to make us look like inca warriors – nice! Apparently the women also use it as lipstick but putting it on my cheeks was as far as I was willing to go. After posing for some cheesy warrior photos we started our descent back to the river and to the oasis where we were staying for the night. The path had become a river and again was quite treacherous but was a good challenge. The views over the oasis was amazing. Raging rivers, waterfalls, lush vegetation and a beautiful bridge to cross that takes you to a rustic camp site with a nice blue pool and cute basic huts. We went for a swim as we were drenched anyway and didn’t fancy a cold shower. Dinner was at seven and after a quick brief we crashed out, ready for the big climb the following day.

11 Feb – We were supposed to wake up at 5am but we didn’t hear our alarm and got woken up by Louis at 5:20am. We felt terrible that the group had been waiting for us for so long. We were eventually on the track by 5:40am. The rest of the team had already walked on by then. It took us about 45 min to catch up to them and we really pushed ourselves. The walk was all uphill and quite challenging. Fortunately it was not raining but we had no view as we were literally walking in the clouds. The trip up took three hours. We had the option of taking a mule up if it got too hard. A few casualties passed us but our group made it up donkieless. We were finished by the time we got to the top. Bearing in mind that we had had no breakfast before the climb and we were at 3000 m altitude so the air is thin up there. We walked into town, had a good breakfast and then made our way along the canyon by bus to a great hot spring to help ease the muscles. We stopped off at a few great viewpoints on the way home and also to get some pics of baby Alpacas. Again in the afternoon it started bucketing down. It took ages to get back to Arequipa, the rain and heavy mist slowed us down to a crawl. When we got to Arequipa it must have been raining heavily the whole day because town was half under water. The driver then dropped us off way away from our hostel. So getting back was a bit of a wet affair, but not until we stopped off and got a bargain bucket from KFC. After a feast, and some serious hiking we fell asleep before our heads even hit the pillows.

Arequipa, Peru 8-9 Feb

08 Feb – woke up at 6:30am as we were getting picked up at 7am to get our bus to Arequipa. It took us 6 1/2 hours. We finally arrived and the city was huge. We had a crazy taxi ride to our hostel. The streets of Arequipa are packed with little yellow taxis. We decided to treat ourselves to the super delux room and we were so glad we did – the room was amazing. It looked like a 5 star room you would find in a fancy hotel. It was a huge old colonial building and the room had really high ceilings, marble and polished stone walls and floors and opened up to an awesome bath and ensuite at the one end of the room. We were only going to stay one night but we decided to stay for 2 before going on the hiking tour to Colca Canyon. I was in heaven being able to have a bubble bath with a few glasses of red wine 🙂 We went to find a restaurant for dinner and landed up in a really posh Italian restaurant. There is a lot of rain around the area at the moment. The rivers are in flood and the streets become rivers just about everyday. We almost had to swim to the restaurant. We had amazing wine and food. I had the most delicious spinach and artichoke cannelloni and felt like i was in Italy not Peru! 1st day in Arequipa was amazing and very indulgent- we definitely didn’t feel like backpackers!

09 Feb – Having spent the night in luxury, the day started off a little slow. We needed to book our tour to the Colca Canyon and not much else. To be honest it is quite nice every now and then not to itinerise yourself too much. We took a walk to the market square, and of course got drenched along the way. The markets always present a Kaleidoscope of colours with all the fruits and veggies packed high. We are getting good at avoiding the butchery areas. It just doesn’t get any better, the meat is hideous. After the market we walked around the old town. It really is a beautiful city. Lots of old colonial influence. The main plaza is dotted with huge palm trees and fountains and is really bustling with locals, pedlars, tourists, hippies and pigeons. Their is a pedestrianised road that feels very first world, with great shops and even western brands. We couldn’t resist having a KFC and a Starbucks for lunch. Not very participative in the culture but it was really tasty. After the walk we headed back to the casa and prepared our kit for the trek. We went to bed early as we were up early the following morning.

Sillustani Ruins – Puno, Lima (7th Feb)

We had an amazing breakfast at the hostel then spent some time updating the blog. Went for a walk in town and booked our bus tickets to Arequipa for the next morning. We decided to try out a restaurant that was offering a “menu touristica” I.e. set menu that landed up being divine. It was a super smart restaurant with waiters in black tie suites and the food was delicious. We waddled out of the restaurant after eating way too much and went to get our tour bus out to an ancient burial ruin site called Sillustani. Sillustani is a pre-Incan burial ground on the shores of Lake Umayo near Puno. The location was stunning. The tombs, which are built above ground in tower-like structures called chullpas, are from the Colla people. The structures housed the remains of complete family groups, and you can see the difference in classes of people I.e the rich and important people had huge tombs whereas the not so wealthy had smaller ones. They have found around 20 mummies in each tomb and there are hundreds of them. The biggest tomb had 44 infants and toddler mummies buried next to it but they don’t know why. They Think some where sacrificial as hey were in pairs – 1 male and 1 female which symbolised as offering for fertility.

They also had big stone circles with 2 massive rocks in the middle which faced east. They used us to work out the summer and winter solstice so they knew when to plant crops and when to harvest crops due to which rock in the middle of the circle the sun hit when it rose in the morning. It was very cleaver.

It is really strange as a lot of the tombs were destroyed and they weren’t sure how this happened until a study showed they were destroyed by lightning. The rocks they used to build them are full of minerals and metals that are conductive and attract lightning. They now have loads of lightening poles all over the place. They are still excavating the site now and they think they will find hundreds more people and tombs. When they bury the bodies the wrap them in wet reeds and when these feeds dry the compact down and so compact the body. Most of the bodies they have found look really small and are in foetus position an the reason they are so small is due to this method. It was a really interesting day and our guide – whose name was “Cleaver” believe I or not – was great.

Puno & the Floating Islands of Lake Titicaca – Peru (6 Feb)

We checked out and went to get our 9am bus to Puno. Sat on the bus from 8:45 until 9:30 and didn’t move. Eventually they came and said there was a problem with the bus and we all had to get off and get onto another (much smaller and less comfy bus). We eventually set off and after about 40 mins got to the boarder crossing into Peru that looked like a corner cafe in a street lined with shops. Didn’t look like a boarder crossing at all. It was very quick and easy and we were on our way again in no time :). Thomas was on our bus and he was sitting a few seats in front of us in the next isle. The guy next to us took a big sip of his coke and it was obviously too gassy or it went down the wrong way so it all came back out like a fountain and sprayed all over Thomas! It looked so funny, it went up the windows and even hit the roof!! Shame poor Thomas!

We got to Puno which was huge. I wasn´t expecting it to be such a big city. We checked into our very nice hostel and then went for a walk around town. It was a very busy and bustling town with taxi´s and little tuk-tuks everywhere.

We were hungry so looked for a place for lunch, we saw some strange signs including one saying “Dont forget to try our frozen cheese”. We found a little coffe and sandwich shop but didn´t realise that they had one little stove next to the till that they were cooking everythying on. A group of 5 people had ordered pancakes and eggs etc, Pete ordered a burger and I ordered a chicken and avo sandwich. An hour later we were still waiting. When it finally arrived they had toasted my bread and just left it and then decided to microwave it to heat it up (with the avo and chicken on) It was disgusting. Pete´s burger was also gross. Anyway after 1.5 hours we finally made it out of there.

It had been raining all morning but the rain had finally stopped so we decided to book a trip out to the “Floating Islands” called Uros Islands. It was great. We caught a boat out to the islands which took 25 minutes and then stopped at one island to meet one of the Uros Tribe families (The Uros Tribes pre-date the Incas). They rely on tourists so have opened up their homes to let us see how they live. It was very interesting. The man demonstrated how they have to keep laying straw every 2-3 weeks to keep building up the islands and he also showed us how they collect the reeds roots during raining season to actually build the islands. The ladies then sang to us in their native language, Spanish and finally they sang “row row row your boat gently down the stream” in English which was very sweet – the kids got involved too and were loving it. They had the cutest little daughter. They then took us on a boat ride in their reed boat – it looked like such hard work to paddle this big boat around the island. When we got back one of the women took me into her room and decided to dress me up. It was very funny. She put this huge blue skirt on me with a matching blue jacket with flowers on and then gave me pigtails and put a bowler hat on my head. I looked huge (and quite ridiculous) – ha ha. They did it to some of the other girls too so we all ran around the island looking like locals 🙂

The only downside was that afterwards they showed you their arts and crafts which were beautiful but they really pressurized you into buying something. I was close to breaking but Pete was quite firm and convinced me I didn´t need a massive woven piece of fabric with a tribal pattern on (which in hindsight was a good thing cause I wouldn´t have been able to fit it into my backpack!). The trip was amazing though. Their lives are so different to anything I have seen and they are really happy living on their little floating island. They previously had problems with using candles and gas as quite a few fires broke out so someone sponsored them solar panels and they now have electricity safely through these solar panels which is amazing to see on this little floating reed island. They look like they have such a lovely little community. The children were all running around playing games. They had even set up a volley ball net and a couple were playing volley ball.

We took the boat trip back at sunset which was nice and we decided that as Lake Titicaca is famous for its trout and kingfish that we should go to a nice fish restaurant for dinner so that is what we did. I had kingfish which was delicious and Pete got trout. He decided to be adventurous and ordered it “Peruvian style” even though we had no clue how it would be prepared. It came out cold and with loads of lemon juice on. It was nice but wasn´t quite what he was feeling like and it was really really sharp. The evening was really lovely and Puno is very vibrant at night so it was nice to walk around and take in the local atmosphere 🙂

Isla del Sol – Lake Titicaca – Bolivia (5 Feb)

We woke up early so we could get the 8:30am boat out to Isla del Sol (Island of the Sun). This is where the Incas believe the sun was created so it was a very sacred island to them. It started raining as we left so we didn’t see much during the 2 hour boat ride to the north of the island. We landed up chatting to a French guy Pierre for most of the trip. Thomas, Giovanni and Ferhat were also with us. We finally arrived and had a quick walk around the town before heading off to view the ruins. Pete and I also decided we would do the 8km hike to the South part of the island instead of getting back on the boat. We started off walking in completely the wrong direction. We could hear these 2 little boys shouting “hola amigos” and something else but we assumed they were calling someone else and we carried on walking up this hill. Eventually 2 very breathless young boys caught up to us and told us we were going the wrong way! Shame we felt so bad that we had made them run all the way up the hill! We were heading to someone’s house! Ha ha

We walked back down and took the correct path over the little beach to the hill on the other side and landed up bumping into Theo! We couldn’t believe it! He had been staying on the island for a day. Anyway we had a quick chat but needed to go as we were told it would take 3:45min to do the ruins and then walk to the South part of the island and the boat was leaving at 4pm to take us back and it was already12:00.

The ruins were very interesting. There was a sacrificial table where the Incas use to do human sacrifices to the Sun Gods. It was crazy to see the temple and building ruins from so many thousands of years ago.

We left and followed the Inca trail across the island seeing stunning scenery and views along the way. Some of the hills have been cultivated and they have terraced the hillside with plots of land giving it a dramatic look. We also walked passed a forest of eucalyptus trees which we weren’t expecting to find on the island. We walked through a few small towns – I really love seeing how other people live and it is always fascinating to see their way of life.

The south part of the island was stunning. There were a lot of restaurants and hostels up the very steep hill from the marina. We saw them strap people’s luggage onto donkeys and head up the hill to the hostels. It was amazing to see the old locals hike up and down this hill with no problem at all. At this attitude we were getting breathless really quickly.

The boat ride back was much better as it wasn’t raining. We sat chatting to Pierre again and met a couple of guys from South Korea – it was so interesting chatting to them. They gave Pete and me a little Korean trinket to keep which was very sweet. They were out here to study a Bolivian tribe who didn’t have any written language, only spoken language and a few years ago a missionary from South Korea taught them how to write in Korean so now they can write in Korean but not speak it and can’t write in their own language – very strange.

We were so tired and sunburned when we got back that we grabbed a quick bite to eat, booked our bus tickets to Puno for the next morning and went back to the hotel to pack.

La Paz to Copacabana (Lake Titicaca) – Bolivia (4 Feb)

We waited in reception from 7am for our bus that arrived at 7:40am. We then drove around La Paz to all the other hostels picking people up. We eventually left La Paz at 9am after driving past our hostel again at about 8:45am!!

We got some great views of La Paz on the way out so that made up for our lack of sightseeing a bit! I felt so car sick though after winding our way around the city. The bus ride was beautiful. We arrived in a very sunny and hot Copacabana at 12:30 and there was a transfer bus waiting to take us to our hotel which was an unexpected surprise. The hotel Utima was really cute. We had a good room with a very nice view over the lake. We dumped our stuff and went to walk around the town. I really like the town, it is full of very colourful stalls selling goodies made out of llama wool. There were loads of bars and restaurants and it had a cute little marina area. We went to get lunch and Pete got this double American burger that was huge. People walking in kept asking him what it was and ordering the same 🙂

We were so tired (this altitude is sapping our energy) so we had a siesta. We are really feeling the altitude and the short walk up the hill to our hotel was leaving us really breathless. It is so strange and it is horrible feeling tired all the time.

We went to find a restaurant for dinner and landed up bumping into Thomas again. He was with an Italian guy Giovanni and another German guy Ferhat. We all went to dinner. It was funny, so many people the guys knew from their bus trip walked into the same restaurant as us and also an English guy we met in Turpiza who is cycling his way around South America. We had a great evening chatting and the food was good – I ate an entire huge pizza and could hardly move afterwards! It was a great evening 🙂

La Paz – Bolivia (1-3 Feb)

01 Feb – we arrived in La Paz at 7am and got a taxi to Hostel Provenzial.  The hostel felt more like a hotel than a hostel.  We had a great big airy room with a nice ensuite and it seemed to be in a good location which was a relief.  We had breakfast and tried to have an hour nap as neither of us slept well on the bus.  We then headed down to a bar called Oliver’s Tavern that was directly below our hostel.  We only went in there to get a map of the city and to have a cup of coffee but landed up in there for hours.  It is run by a young English guy from Birmingham and they served Tetley’s and PG tips by the pint as well as full English breakfasts, fish and chips, bangers n mash etc – it was really nice to have a good cup of tea again!

A couple sitting at the table next to us started chatting to us an they were from South Africa.  Jamie and Ross.  Jamie was from Joburg and we worked out that we knew some of the same people (small world) anyway we landed up joining them and 1 glass of wine turned into 5 glasses of wine and we then decided to go to a club.  We got home at 2:30am after getting to Oliver’s Tavern at 1pm for a “quick coffee”.  Very impromptu and fun day 🙂 

02 Feb – woke up feeling awful.  Drinking at altitude seems to double the hangover.  We managed to drag ourselves to breakfast and then went straight back to sleep.  We woke up and went down to Olivers Tavern for some hangover food – they sold English breakfasts all day 🙂 we then went back to the hostel and watched movies for the rest of the day.  For dinner we found an “English” curry house and had an amazing curry – first one in 2 months – it was divine.  We then went back to the hostel and passed out – what a waste of a day!!!

03 Feb – we decided we had to do some sightseeing today and had arranged to meet Jamie and Ross for lunch before they headed off to Potosi so we walked around the witches market that morning.  It was lovely and colourful and they sold all kinds of clothing, bags, hats, tablecloths etc made out of alpaca/llama wool.  They also sold some strange things like dried out llama foetuses which were either arranged in baskets or hanging from the shops door entrance.  They believe that if you bury a llama foetus under the porch of a new house that it will bring you good luck and fortune.  It was very strange to see though.  We booked our bus tickets to Copacabana, Lake Titicaca for the following morning and as we were  booking we bumped into Theo!  Through broken Spanish we arranged to meet at Oliver’s tavern at 7pm for dinner.

 We then met Jamie and Ross and Sol and Luna at 12:30 for lunch.  We were all very good having lunch, coffees, cokes etc until about 3:00pm when we decided to have one last farewell drink.  Well we sat there drinking until 7pm – the mojito’s were flowing nicely.  We sadly had to say our goodbyes to Jamie And Ross and headed over to meet Theo.

Theo told us Rosa was here with her sister and they came to join us.  They had some other friends join too.  We then bumped into Mark, the English guy we had partied with on New Years and bumped into again in Puerto varas – his brother had just joined him on his travels so they joined us for dinner.  It landed up being a great crowd.  We stayed there drinking until midnight when Pete and I left them to it and went to pack as we had a 7am bus in the morning to Lake Titicaca.

Sucre to La Paz – Bolivia (31 Jan)

We checked out of our room and had a little walk around to a few more sites. We spoke to a travel agent about going not the Amazon Jungle but they didn’t recommend it now as it is rainy season and full of Mosquitos.  They suggested we do a Pampas tour instead, which is to the marshland area and you fish for piranhas, search for giant anacondas and swim with pink dolphins.  All sounded great to us so we went to an Internet cafe and spent a few hours researching the various tour operators.  We decided to leave it until we got to La Paz to book.  

We had a late lunch an Pete got a 450g massive rump steak so he was happy and then we went to collect our bags and headed for the bus station to catch our 11 hour bus to La Paz.  The bus was great and the seats fully folded down and had a leg piece you could pull up so you were lying flat.  It was like being in 1st class on a plane.  I thought the ride was going to be great but we had to wind our way up and down so many mountain passes and I started feeling motion sick.  I also couldn’t sleep cause I kept getting rocked back an forth 😦 it was a long night!

Sucre – Bolivia (29-30 Jan)

29 Jan – We woke up at 5:30am as we were getting a 7am bus to Sucre. We shared a taxi to the bus station with 2 German girls. The taxi driver couldn’t fit all the backpacks in his boot so just left his boot open and tried to tie my backpack on. Amazingly it was still there when we got to the station.

Station was a new fond building with 2 floors and hollow in the middle. Bus companies lined the top an their reps would shout out locations which would Ecco through the building. The acoustics of all their voices shouting different locations was crazy.

Bus was very bouncy and we were at the back which made it worse. The lady behind us had her little portable radio and blasted local music for he whole trip. It was quite nice actually. It was crazy going up the hill and looking out over Potosi – it is really big and crowded. I was glad to be leaving. Went through lovely valley with green rolling hills and a stream running through. We drove past a town having a bull parade or auction. One of the bulls got away and started charging down the road which looked quite scary. We then went through some flat farmland, I think the we’re growing quinoa. There were more amazing valleys, mounting ranges, little towns. It was a really beautiful and picturesque bus ride.

We arrived in Sucra at 10am and got a taxi to Wasi Masi hostel. It was such a stunning little hostel with a great courtyard. Our room was lovely and had a huge king size bed so Pete could actually fit on it for once.

We walked around the market and then took a walk to some sites. The city is really beautiful with whitewashed buildings with terracotta roofs and loads of grand churches. We walked up to an old convent which had stunning views over the city. We had a beer at a restaurant close by and just enjoyed the views and scenery.

We then had a late Lunch at joyride cafe and then just chilled at the hostel for the evening.

30 Jan – Had a relaxing morning walking around the town and went back to the hostel. We bumped into Liz (Belgian girl we met on the bus) and her Darcy (Canadian) and Thomas (German) joined Pete and I for lunch. We tried out a local resturant and had their set lunch menu so we had no clue what we were getting but it was nice. The guys then wanted to go to the Dino Park and as we had nothing to do we said we would join them. It is an excavasion site where they found dinosaur footprints. It was interesting to see but the tour was aweful. The ground that the footprints are on has been pushed up over time due to continental shifting and the creating of mountains and volcano´s in the area so the wall is now vertical which looks really strange. It was great that our guide could speak English but he had the stranges accent I have ever heard which made it very difficult to understand. He also locked eyes with anyone who made eye contact with him and would stare at you intensely as he was explaining something which was quite uncomfortable – i tried to avoid eye contact at all times but failed a few times!!

That evening we decided to just make bruchetta for dinner and open our last bottle of wine from Mendoza. We sat in the hostel courtyard and started chatting to a guy from South Korea – Charlie. He was really interesting and has lived a very interesting life. He was a producer in the film industry and also spent 3 months studying to be a monk. A few others came to join us, a German guy, Ozzie guy and Darcy and Liz arrived a bit later and we all landed up chatting over a few bottles of wine which was great.