Searlo
Searlo Joined: June 9th 2009
Logged in: May 16th 2011
Logged in: May 16th 2011
Current plans are leave Auckland for Peru, travel around Peru quickly with my Bro, then move on to Bolivia and finally Argentina. I'm estimating about a month in each country but I haven't restricted countries to be these nor the timeframe.
Travel Blog Posts
So finally I arrived in La Paz, a place there was a lot to do here, and I wasn´t sure how much time I´d spend in La Paz. I ended up loving my time in La Paz and it was by far and above the best place I stayed in. There was a lot to do, but I fell ill for some of my time in La Paz and hence I never got to do as much as I wanted to. I also went from La Paz to the Jungle and back again, I´m not going to bother to have two entries for two different trips, so I´m just going to summarise what happened in each of the events that I went to. Generic La Paz We (me the Canadians and the Korean) arrived in La ... read more
P7100729
So I finally made it into Bolivia. We ended up in Copacabana which is the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca and meant to be much nicer than Puno. As I may have said in my earlier blog, I skipped Puno for all but the bus station. After the pretty hectic ride that we had getting to Copa, we all had a pretty chill day and didn´t do anything really exciting. We had the standard day of looking around for the high quality woven llama goods and hunted around for food. We then decided it would be a great idea to climb the hill which would have a great view over the city. The korean girl decided that the tiny little path next to us would be as good as any, we tried to get her to ... read more
So it seems as though trouble seems to follow me everywhere, the whole point of going to Lima was to avoid the road blocks, but it looks as though I didn´t get the memo. Truth be told, the day that I bought my ticket to Nazca, the road blocks were actually over, so I could have avoided the whole trip west and avoided the expensive flight more importantly. Well, I arrived in to Juliaca and found a quick cheap bus to Puno. I arrived in Puno and found a room as recommended by Lonely Planey and was swiftly taken to my room, shown the toilet etc. No cost was discussed about how much my room was going to cost (it was about 11pm at night and the brain wasn´t at it´s peak performance). Well I slept ... read more
me and bro
Okay, this is just me getting some more photos up. Stayed a few nights in Huaccachina, a resort that is now a party place. Pretty much people go there to sandboard and to relax in the sun by the pool/lagoon. We met up with the American girls from the Inca trail, and went Dune Buggy/ Sand boarding with them. Lots of fun. I´m still finding sand in my shoes...... read more
Machu Piccu Topshot
Okay so I´ll finally get around to what is the highlight so far on my trip. First day This was descrived as the easy day. We woke up super early since we were told that our guides would pick us up between 5.20am and 6.00am. We let the hostel guy know that we´d be up super early and he replied that he works all day, so there´d be no problems right? Well for once in our lives we made it out of bed and got changed and were rearing to go at 5am, we head downstairs and were locked out of the office... this means that we were locked inside, so even if the guide was there, he wouldn´t be able to get to us. Panic set in for a few short moments as we devised ... read more
Cusco is fast becoming the next Bankok. I really thought that Cuzco would be awesome, but it seems so touristy. There are hawkers everwhere and prices are similar to back home. In all honesty, apart from the ruins, I didn´t really enjoy the city all that much. Toilets vary in quality. Didn´t realise that toilets would vary between type we get back home, sitters which flush, through to squatters that don´t. But there is plenty in the middle. Toilets with no lid, toilets which need manual flushing, squatters which are awesomely clean. All toilets have one charm, very Thailand: Paper goes in the bin.... Food is nothing what I expected Another food entry, but whatcha going to do. The food here is 90% awesome and 10% of the mistakes I made when learning to cook. I´ve ... read more
Road Blocks Argghhh. 9 months of planning and it´s civil unrest that gets me unstuck. Due to the horror stories I ´ve heard about getting from Cuzco to Puno/Arequipa recently I´ve decided to give going from Cuzco to Puno a miss. Instead I think I´ll head west and end up flying from Lima to La Paz. It´ll cost me a bit more, but some of the stories I´ve heard include walking for 56km and having to pay for a new bus on the other side. Now as much of an athlete as I am, I don´t think I´ll ever be keen to walk 56km in the dark, in a country where I don´t really speak the language, where I´m trying to avoid drunken men with guns who are fuelled up on booze. Let alone pay for ... read more
Busy city centre
Okay, so I´m heading off on the Inca Trail tomorrow so I thought that I´d update the blog. I´ve been here for almost a week now and am actually starting to know my way around. I´ve been taking language courses so my spanish is getting better, but I still battle trying to understand what´s been said to me. Food I´ve found the food in Cuzco to be awesome. I don´t know if it´s my attitude, but so far the most expensive meal I´ve had has been the worst meal. Each time I want to eat, and I have enough time I just wonder in a direction opposite to the Plaza de Amas as far as I can get without getting to hungry or until I see a place that looks like my sort of place. So ... read more
Plaza De Amas
So the flight from Santiago to Arequipa was as confusing as it could have been for me. I took a little airline, and as expected the English on the flight was minimal. I made it, so you know it was good enough but still... First I flew out of Santiago intending to fly into Arequipa, Peru and was thinking that I should have to go through the international airport. When I was sure that the lady who spoke no English told me to go to the Domestic airport I thought, that makes sense since my e-ticket said I had two connecting flights, but the actual ticket printed off mentioned nothing about any connecting flights. The board mentioned nothing of my flight at all so when the guy checking my tickets told me I was in the ... read more
Alrighty, So the flight over to Santiago was standard. Flew in, spent 5 hours in Santiago. Most of my time was spent looking for the Plazy de Amas, turns out that if the one I found was the correct one, it was quite a waste of time. It didnßt have the standard awesomeness that the Spanish architecture is renown for. My short analysis of Santiago would have to be: Dirty smoggy city filled with amazingly hot girls. Flight arrived in at around 1pm Chilean time and flight left at around 7.30 the next day. Was told it took around 30 mins to get to the airport, but I wasnßt sure that the buses would e running and was paranoid about a taxi not picking me up/not waking up mzself so decided I spent the night in ... read more
