McCrae Ladies in Peru

We took a taxi from the Ica bus terminal out to the desert oasis of Huacachina. This oasis is surrounded by the highest sandunes in America. As we were arriving in the dark it was amazing to see the dunes once the sun had risen. Our taxi delivered us to a hotel where he said we could find breakfast at 5 30 a.m. We were greeted by a man at reception who led us to the pool bar area and woke up the bartender who was sleeping under the bar with a pillow and sleeping bag. The bartender was very jovial upon being awoken at such an odd hour and agreed that he too would have coffee, that is, after he found a match to light the stove with. We sat poolside for about an hour ... read more

We were picked up at our hotel by our guide Daniel and headed out of Arequipa with a group of other tourists for a two day tour of the Colca Canyon region. The Colca Canyon is the deepest canyon in the world, more than two and a half times the depth of the Grand Canyon. We made various stops along the drive to the canyon town of Chivay. We saw beautiful mountains views, surrounding volcanoes, and took photos of volcano Ampato where Juanita was found. We stopped in Chivay for a buffet brunch of traditional Peruvian food (we both enjoyed the jello most). We met several Peruvians on the trip who all told us it was not good Peruvian cuisine. As it was the Peruvian independance holiday the trip consisted of primarily Peruvian residents on vacation. ... read more

After a good nights sleep and an excellent breakfast we decided to walk around the city of Arequipa, fully avoiding bus transportation. Arequipa is known as the White City and is very beautiful with white colonial buildings, a beautiful main square and much cleaner and more upscale than most cities. The city is surrounded by active volcanoes and the majority of buildings are constructed using volcanic sillar, the white ash from a volcanic eruption. We looked in the artisan shops, walked around the main square and did a number of tourist sites including the monestary of Santa Catalina, a city within a city. We also visited the Museo Santuary which houses the mummy Juanita, the Ampato Maiden. The Museo Santuary presented an excellent film which described the child sacrifices made by the Inca people to the ... read more

Hello! Once again we are a few days behind in updating this blog but we will do our best to bring you all up to speed on the last few days. They have been exhausting, adventure filled days! We started out early from our Copacabana hotel in Bolivia, and walked over to where we were suspossed to meet our bus to go back to Peru and on to Arequipa. We had paid for our ticket two days earlier and felt assured that this would confirm us a seat on the bus for the 12 hour journey. However, we have learnt that nothing goes according to plan in South America.... We arrived at the bus stop only to be told by several ladies in straw hats that we had no reservation and their gestures indicated they wanted ... read more

Hello again! We are now writing to you from Copacabana, Bolivia. We arrived here yesterday by bus from Puno, Peru. It was a very interesting border crossing - after our documents being check on the Peruvian side, we were told to walk up a hill and through and arched stone entranceway into Bolivia. Our bus would then pick us up on the other side. Here we presented all our documents again, reboarded the bus and continued on for Copacabana. Once in Copacabana, we walked to hotel - Hotel Rosario, which is vrey nice and located on the shore of Lake Titicaca (Bolivian side). We spent the afternoon wandering around Copa, it is a very beautiful hillside village of approximately 5000 people. There is an unmistakable laid back attitude to the town, created by the very gentle ... read more

Hello again! We are finally finding some spare time to write a few entries about the last few days. When we last wrote we were heading to Machu Picchu. We arrived there by train on the Vistadome, a nice way to travel with huge windows and skylights for viewing the mountain scenary as you zig-zag up the mountain. Once we entered the gate to Machu Picchu, we were both amazed at the majesty of this ancient site. We climbed up through the agricultural terraces which gave us beautiful views down to the ruins as well as Wayna Picchu in the background. It was an overwhelming experience, everywhere we looked we wanted to take a photograph! We also met some very friendly llamas, who are in charge of maintaining the grass on the terraces and throughout the ... read more

We have now been in Cusco since Wednesday afternoon. What a change in temperature! We went from soo hot and humid to very very very cold. We immediately bought mittens and hats and plan to buy more! haha.... Cusco though is a very beautiful mountain city. We are staying at a hostel which has amazing views of the city and surrounding mountains - very nice scenery for a morning cup of Coca Tea. The city is full of tourists but the locals are very helpful. We have met many travellers from various parts of the world and shared experiences and stories about traveling to the next destination. So far our days have been full of trying to organize our itinerary from here. Transportation is difficult to coordinate in Peru and it is proving challenging to chart ... read more

We are writing this a few days after leaving Iquitos and the Amazon jungle area, but this is the first time we have been on the computers. The whole Amazon experience was far beyond our expectations and absolutely amazing. We visited a village close to our lodge and met many of the native people who are very friendly and fascinating. They depend on the amazong for everything, washing themselves, their clothing and providing food and drinking water. Our lodge was 80 km north of Iquitos on the Amazon River. It was very rustic, with no electricity or hot water and three walls for the bedroom. We had very full days of activity - visiting the local village, piranna fishing (!) - which we ate later..., hiking through the jungle and walking the rainforest canopy walkway, where ... read more

Hola! After arriving in Lima, Carlos - the driver sent by our hotel met us at the airport and gave us a speedy ride into the Miraflores district of Lima. We are staying in Hotel del Posada Marquez (pink colonial architecture - very pretty). We settled into our room for the night - after a few difficulties locking the door and finding the window beside our bed didn´t lock....slept well and awoke feeling rested after the last few tiring days. Breakfast was interesting....dinner rolls, butter, scrambled eggs and coffee which was thick and dark like molasses. All in all, a GREAT wake up and start to our day. We decided to go for a walk on our own to begin our journey around Lima. We are staying in the Miraflores district which is an upper-class neighborhood ... read more

Hello to All, This is our first entry into the newly created "McCrae Ladies in Peru" blog site! My mom and I are hoping to be able to update you all with our travels/adventures every now and then during the trip. Not sure how often we will be able to check in though...stay tuned for updates! It is currently 2:45 a.m. on Thursday morning and we are set to take off this morning at 7:55 a.m. on Continental Airlines flight CO1867 bound for Houston. This flight arrives in Houston at 10:21 a.m. and is a total of 3h26min. We then have a layover in Houston for a few hours, boarding Continental flight CO590 at 3:55 which will take us to Lima (the capital/main city of Peru). This flight is 6h37min and arrives in Lima at 10:32 ... read more