Annie10
Anne Lovell Joined: December 20th 2006
Logged in: August 17th 2009
Logged in: August 17th 2009
Travel Blog Posts
The Flamingo! our boat for 8 days
In order to get to the Galapagos, we had to take an hour flight to the coastal city of Guayaquil and then another hour flight to the islands. We landed on the second biggest island, Santa Cruz. There we gathered our bags, rented snorkeling equipment and met our tour guide, Alfanso. We also met the rest of our group. There were three couples and one random weird German guy named Hoygar who Amanda had to bunk with since she drew the shortest straw. Unfortunately, the group wasn’t what we had hoped for but everyone was nice. A bus then took us about an hour and a half to the other side of the island to the small town were we would begin our 8 day boat tour. However, our boat was not ready yet, so we ... read more
start of the trail
We had to wake up around 6am and we were picked up at our hostel by a bus that took us about 2 hours to a small town in the middle of these huge mountains. There we had lunch and met the other 9 people on our trip and the group was not very outgoing. The group was made up of couples in their mid 30s and then one random british guy and the three of us and I was a little nervous about having a fun time with everyone for the next four days on the trail. However, by the end everyone warmed up to us and we We had to wake up around 6am and we were picked up at our hostel by a bus that took us about 2 hours to a small ... read more
cusco
After a long trip from Lake Titicaca, we got into Cusco, the second largest city in Peru and checked into the Loki, which is known in town as the backpacker, party hostel. It was the biggest hostel that we had stayed in and our first shared living situation. We were in a bunk room with 7 other people, two guys from New Zealand we immediately got along with and ended up hanging out with them for the majority of the time that we were in Cusco. Later that night Antonio and Rorie checked into our room as well, so it was a great group of people in our room. Also, I ran into a guy, Will Minehart, who graduated a year before me from Bucknell. We both recognized each other and knew that we had ... read more
Colca Canyon looking down at the little villages
After a night bus from Nasca we arrived in Arequipa early in the morning and took a taxi to a hostel, which was a renovated mansion in the middle of town. Our room was really nice and not very expensive. We spent the rests of the day exploring and had lunch on a sunny restaurant patio. That day we also signed up to do a two day hike in Colca Canyon. We went to bed early that night because we had to wake up at 2am to catch a bus 5 hours to the Colca Canyon. The bus was miserable though, smelly, and crammed and we were barely able to sleep. Finally we arrived at this tiny town where we had breakfast and then hiked about 20 minutes to the start of the trail and our ... read more
our plane
After riding on a bus about 3 hours we arrived in the afternoon in the small town of Nasca/Nazca. We got off the bus and found a cab to take us to the airport. We had already bought our tickets to fly over the Nasca lines so after waiting for about 2 hours and finding that we were the last people in the airport and the sun was about to set, we started pressuring the tour company and finally they called us out to the tarmac to board our tiny, four person plane. We met our captain who I got to sit in the front with and off into the air we went. After about 5 minutes in the plane, there was a terrible and deafening scratchy noise that came through our earphones. It kept going ... read more
Huacachina
After traveling in a bus about 6 hours overnight from Lima we arrived in Inca mid morning and took a taxi about 20 minutes to the small desert oasis of Huacachina. We checked into a cute hostel and had breakfast there on the patio overlooking the small lake in the middle of the town. Immediately after we got on our suits and went to lie out on the beach surrounding the lake. Huacachina is like nothing I have ever seen before… the town is made up of solely hostels, restaurants, a small lake with paddle boats and it is completely surrounded by huge sand dunes. That afternoon we got on a dune buggy that took us on a thrilling ride in the sand dunes. We were driving over sand dune cliffs really fast and it made ... read more
Lima
Originally we were planning on getting in and getting out of Lima, since thats what many people had told me to do- they had said that the city was dirty and dangerous. However, we ended up having one of the best weekends of our entire trip. After a long bus overnight bus ride, we got into Lima and checked into the Flying Dog hostel, which was right in the middle of the one of the nicest districts in Lima, called the Miraflores. We were very tired so we slept until the early afternoon and then went out to explore the city. First we made a Starbucks stop because it was the first one we had seen in South America and it was nice to have a little comfort from home. Then we walked along the coast ... read more
Huanchaco
After another night bus ride we got to the bus station in Trujillo, the third biggest city in Peru, and we had no idea what we wanted to do. There were some other people in the bus station that we had met while waiting for the bus in Mancora and they seemed to know what they were doing and we joined them in a taxi to the small surf town of Huanchaco, just 20 minutes outside of Trujillo. We checked into this small, cute Swiss owned hostel and had breakfast with the group. Then we all split up and Amanda, Rachel and I explored the town. There wasn't much to the town other than a long strip of sea food restaurants along the beach, some hostels, a behind that extensive slums. Unfortunately it was overcast and ... read more
our terrible room and the mosquito nets that didn't work
We arrived in the small beach town of Mancora at 4am with no place to stay. Fortunately we found a taxi at that time of the morning and he took us to one of the cheapest hostels in the town. After a couple of hours of sleep and being eaten alive by mosquitoes, we wanted to shower, found that there was no water and realized why the place was so inexpensive. We immediately decided to find a new place to stay and on our way out we ran into two other girls from the US traveling north through Peru. We decided to get a dorm room for the five of us because it was cheaper and once our accommodations were settled we immediately hit the beach. It was a beautiful day on the beach and we ... read more
the beginning of our five hour train ride
After packing up our backpack and putting our other stuff in storage, we moved out of our apartment and hopped on the bus 6 hour bus to Riobamba, the fourth largest city in the center of Ecuador. We got there in the late afternoon and had hopped to go to a soccer game that night, only to find out that it was actually an afternoon game and it was already over. I was extremely disappointed but it turned out to be ok, because we ended up going to a soccer game in Quito at the end our trip. So we check into a hostel and walked around, the dirty, noisy, not exciting town. We had dinner and then went to bed early because we had to wake up early to catch the famous “Devil’s Nose” train, ... read more
