We get on the 9am bus outta dodge (can´t believe we made it out the canyon so early...was expecing to be on the midday bus), back along the canyon lip to Chivay...a town famous for their mineral laden hot springs, where we plan to spend a day soaking our weary bones. Along the way our bus stops for a few minutes at the tourist trap Cruz del Condor. People in tour-buses pay big dollar to stand at a lookout spot with a few hundred others in the hope of seeing the condors that nest in this part of the canyon. Amazingly, [View Full Entry]

---

---

So we begin, we meet Pedro, our guide for the next few days who looks about 12, but turns out to be 20. We´re in our best hiking gear, and he´s wearing hiphop baggy jeans and sandals :) The first couple of hours are absolutely brilliant...the scenery is more breathtaking than the exercise and I´m really enjoying it. Starting to think I could really get into this hiking lark. I´m already running out of superlatives to describe the scenery...check out the pictures and let your jaw drop. Yes, we really are clinbing into that, and somehow out the other side. A [View Full Entry]

---

---

We take a bus over the mountains that I´ve been looking at from my rooftop in Arequipa, over the highest pass of 4800mtr. That´s high! The highest we´ve been so far and the altitude has some imapct...luckily we don´t get any ill effects, just get a bit drowsy and dreamy for about half hour...it´s quite nice! Enjoy watching my first llamas, the smaller alpacas, and their teeny endangered relatives the vicunas drinking from pools made by the melting glaciers we´re passing. Notice some weird ´Blair Witch´style rock piles all along the way...they are called apachetas and are spritual offerings to [View Full Entry]

---

---

Arequipa is a city in the basin of the active volcano El Misti (5822mtr) and 2 snowcapped mountains, Chachani (6075mtr) and Pichu Pichu (5571mtr). It´s the gateway to canyon country, but we´re spending a few days here soaking up some culture before heading into the wilds of Colca Canyon...one of the deepest in the world at over 3000mtr deep. It seems everything is big in Peru, except the people...me and Ritch are giants in comparison! Unfortunately our first couple of days here have been spent suffering...the pollo con aroz on the bus down here has upset both our stomachs. I´m not [View Full Entry]

---

---

It´s really beautiful here...and sunny! Lima is shrouded by coastal fog at this time of year so it feels good to have the sun on my skin. We checked into Casa de Arena as we´d heard that´s where the party´s at...5 mins later and we´re by the pool, cerveza in hand. Ok, so we´ve only been on the road a couple of days, but the hectic last month of planning and partying makes this ´holiday within a holiday´seem well earned! We sign up for that nights all you can eat and drink BBQ and meet new friends at the bar. Coleman [View Full Entry]

---

---

Leaving Lima on our southbound bys we pass through the ghetto onto the the Pan American highway which follows the entire coast N - S and that´s alot of road. Southbound it´s a never ending stretch of coastal desert, and the scale is extraordinary. Our destination, Ica, is about 250km, or 5hrs on the bus. But the seats are well comfy, Angelina is being Lara Croft on the TV so the boys on the bus are happy happy. On route we pass through Pisco, famous for the bodegas producing wine and it´s namesake grape brandy which we ´sampled´the night before. This [View Full Entry]

---

---

So we begin in Barranco, a suburb of Lima which is described as the bohemian artists quarter. I heard alot of negatives about Lima so my expectations were not too high. But we arrived to the very modern airport straight into the taxi our hostel (called One Hostel...it was really great) had sent for us. As I would soon discover, things work pretty well here. Granted we haven´t deviated from the well beaten path just yet, but the infrastructure in Lima is very well developed and there is clearly alot of money here...how well it is distrubited is yet to be [View Full Entry]

---

---