Hola amigos,
I don´t know where to start really...Peru has been fabulous, love it. It has certainly been a busy few weeks, travelling from the north of Peru, down the coast, into the desert, the mountains and more and it has been some ride...but I´ll try to go quickly so I don´t bore you all...
Mancora was our first stop and where I last emailed from, it was a sleepy little seaside town where we managed to all get successfully sunburnt enough to remind us for the next week that we´d been at the beach. Then it was down the coast to Huanchaco where we camped for a couple of nights inbetween visiting Chan Chan, the ruins of the largest mud city in the world which they´re trying to restore, and then the Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon which were pretty cool to look at, all the painting inside that is still original, just a shame that the guide was so intensely boring it put us all to sleep. A couple of nights around the campfire toasting marshmallows and drinking out of tin cups and we were ready to head back to a hostal so it was off to Huaraz, up in the mountains via some more ruins of course...can´t remember their name but they were really old, around 800BC and crumbled when we walked on them...and yet they still let us...made for an interesting tour quote - ¨its ok, they´re old¨...
Got to Huaraz, and half of our truck seemed to come down with a nasty gastro, a combination of altitude sickness and a bug that was going around meant that there were many unhappy people, thank goodness I wasn´t among them, but it did mean I was on nurse duty for a while... Huaraz is famous in Peru for having the highest peak, Huascaran, ice-climbing and mountain climbing. Didn´t partake in any of that while we were there, but while everyone else was sick in bed I did a trip up to Lake Chinancocha which was beautiful and saw the buried city of Yungay where about 25,000 people were killed when the city was buried in an avalanche in 1970, very sad.
Leaving Huaraz with a truck of recovering sickies we wound our way down out of the mountains and into the desert smog of Lima where we occupied ourselves for a few days by taking in the San Francisco Monastery, the Catacombes - very wrong to have that many bones in one place, and the Museum of the Inquistion where we learned all sorts of torture techniques that the Spanish used when they arrived into South America, lovely...
Heading out of Lima, first stop was Paracas where we had a trip out to the Ballestas Islands and saw lots of the usual...pelicans, penguins and boobies - yes, that would be the bird...plus hundreds of stinky sea lions. Back on shore I had an unexpected reunion with Guy who had started his South America trip that day with another company, but had spotted our big yellow truck on his return from the islands. It was a very quick hello and goodbye as his truck was leaving but as it turned out, the good bye wasn´t for very long. After the Ballestas Islands we took off into the desert where we went dune-buggying and sandboarding for an overnight trip. It was seriously the most fun I´ve had in a long time, it was crazy driving up and down and sideways and vertically and horizontally on these huge sandunes, like a giant rollercoaster that never stopped. That night was a Pisco sour party in the desert and then we all fell asleep in the sand eventually, waking up when the sun came up over the dunes, only a couple of hours later! A great night had by all...
Next stop was Nazca where you could have a flight over the famous Nazca lines - the pre-Inca lines in the desert formed into different shapes. I passed on the flight after talking to a few people who´d already done it, and boy was I glad of my decision when everyone else came back either green, gray or vomiting...those planes were pretty small and it was not the calmest of days...I spent the day instead lying beside the pool at the campground, and that was where Guy and I next ran into each other, when he came back from his flight looking a pretty green shade of gray too! So after talking to the tour leader, it turns out that our trucks are going to be travelling parallel for a lot of the trip around to Rio which probably isn´t quite what either of us were expecting!
After a night at Nazca, we packed up the tents again, and headed to Puerto Inca, the holiday destination for the Incas back in the day, where we had a great sangria party that night camping right on the beach with a big bonfire and pig on a spit, good fun. I was one of the few that braved the water, it was a little chilly but not really by New Zealand standards! Then it was onto Arequipa for a couple of nights, doing exciting things like laundry, but also checking out the beautiful Santa Catalina Convent, and the Museo Santuarios Andinas where Juanita the Ice Princess is kept. She is a mummy who was an Incan sacrifice 500 years ago on top of Ampato Volcano, and was dicovered in 1995 when an avalanche revealed her. She is perfectly preserved and quite amazing to see. After having a dinner of Cuy - guinea pig, no they´re not pets over here they eat them, we saw a movie and then headed out of Arequipa at 2am wrapped up in our sleeping bags on board Moose on our way to the Colca Canyon to try to get there early morning so we could see the Condors flying. It was a long rough night but we survived and we made it in plenty of time to see the magnificent Condors soaring on the thermal currents of the canyon. The surprising thing was the fact that they were selling slingshots at the markets there and the local school kids were actually buying them and using them to try to hit the Condors - horrific. Then it was back along the bumpy road to Chivay for a night where most of us crashed in a big way...
On our way to Cusco the next day we passed over the highest pass of the trip, at 4900m, we were all feeling a little dizzy and nauseous but it was cool to be able to see it and experience the freezing cold! But arriving in Cusco was fabulous at the end of the day, coz we knew it was time for the Inca trail, what we´d been building up to for so long. Our first day in Cusco was pretty relaxed, just preparing ourselves for what was to come, and then we headed off to the Scared Valley of the Incas for a day, taking in more ruins at Saqsayhuaman - pronounced Sexy Woman, you can imagine what fun we had with that one... and ruins at Pisac as well as a visit to the Chicheria where we all got to try Chicha the local corn alcohol, and then more ruins at Ollantaytambo where we got a practise run for the inca trail, climbing up and up and up hundreds of steps. We stayed out there overnight and the next morning it was an early rise, all set for Day 1 of the Inca Trail.
Day 1 was fine, a couple of patches where it gave you an introduction of what was to come the next day but mostly just nice scenery to enjoy and you guessed it, some more ruins, Llactapata. We also spent the day getting used to seeing porters running past us with 25kg on their backs, gas bottles, ovens, stacks of chairs, they are incredible. Getting to camp that afternoon meant an excuse for a celebratory beer, before an amazing dinner and then early to bed for a 5.30am wake-up for Day 2. Day 2 was the hardest day, we climbed steadily for hours straight up, eventually reaching Dead Womans Pass at 4200m and what an achievement! Your legs burn, your lungs burn but when you get to the top its all worth it...that is till you go over the other side and then have to climb straight down for 700m to reach camp. There was much cheering from camp everytime someone arrived in which was such a good moral booster after a killer day, and I´m proud to say that I totally outdid my own expectations. The average time to complete day 2 is 7hrs and I got into camp in under 5hrs, so I was pretty stoked - all that running training I did in the Outback certainly paid off! That night was passed with a game of Uno with the guides and us all keeping warm by drinking tea with rum - not something I´d tried before but its definitely recommended! Another amazing dinner and it was into bed to spend the whole night freezing and listening to the thunder roll and the lightning crash outside. We were lucky in our tent that there wasn´t a lot of leakage, but others weren´t so lucky and got a bit wet.
Day 3 started at 5am and was a really nice day with 2 passes but neither as high as Dead Womans, and a few more ruins to look at, made more interesting by the fog and clouds that kept rolling in and surrounding us as we walked. Day 3 was the longest one at 15km, but an enjoyable end when we got to camp and there was cold beer waiting for us! We all flagged the offer of a warm shower for 5 soles in exchange for another beer for 5 soles, figuring that we only had dirty clothes to put back on afterwards so what was the point! It was a very early night however as we were getting up at 3.50am to head to the Sun Gate for our first glimpse of Machu Picchu, Lost City of the Incas. Day 4 dawned clear for us and after a short hours walk we reached the 100 steps leading to the Sun Gate and as we came over the top Machu Picchu was bathed in sunshine, no cloud cover, just perfect. It was an incredible view and one that we treasured as we knew that only 1 in every 10 days are you able to see Machu Picchu from the Sun Gate. We took a while to absorb the scene and the feeling and then slowly trundled down the mountain side to the Watchmans Hut where we took the usual photos and got our first up close encounter with the lost city. We wandered the ruins for a couple of hours with our guide and then 7 of us brave ones headed up Wayna Picchu, the mountain towering over the city. We climbed steadily up the mountain with the aid of a rope as the steps are so steep, and got to the top in half an hour - not bad after 4 days of walking! There we stayed perched on the boulders on top for more than an hour just taking in the spectacular view of the surrounding mountains and Machu Picchu below us, and the butterflies swarming around us. We all agreed that the experience of the Inca trail would not have been the same without climbing to the top and experiencing the true tranquility and peacefulness of the mountain sanctuary.
Climbing back down, we wandered the ruins for a little longer but ended up leaving before our impressions were ruined by the hundreds of hideous loud tourists that were arriving on buses by then. We prefer to remember our Machu Picchu free of other people with clear views of everything rather than getting pushed off the side of the ruins by an over-eager tour guide and his group...
The train ride back to Cusco was torture, 4 very noisy smelly uncomfortable hours where sleep was unavoidable. But it all worked out in the end coz arriving back in Cusco, after fabulous showers, we were all pumped and headed into town to the pub where a small group of us successfully completed the 24hr challenge of staying up from 3.50am Day 4 of the Inca trail to 4am the next day. It was lots of fun, and have now gained ourselves the title of ´hardcore´! The next two days were recovery time, saw the Inca Museum, had a massage and did a bit of shopping but not much else!
Last stop in Peru was Puno, Lake Titicaca where we visited one of the floating reed islands, and stayed with a family on the island of Amantani where we watched the locals play football, climbed to the top of the island to watch the sunset and then went to the fiesta that the locals put on for us, dressed by our families in their traditional clothing, very funny to look at, but a great night dancing away to local musicians.
After spending our last night in Peru partying in Puno, it was across the border into Bolivia yesterday. We’re now in La Paz, enjoying the sights, and currently preparing to cycle Death Road tomorrow, should be great!
Sorry its so long again guys, but I’m sure you will have skipped the bits that don’t interest you too much! I hope all is well with everyone, am loving getting your emails, keep it up, its so good to hear everyone’s news.
Love to all,
Senorita Ronita xxx
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