Peru - Blog 2

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Blog 2 = Days 4 To 17

Hey guys & girls!

I was meaning to write more blogs over the course of the trip so far, but what can i say… i´ve had better things to do :-) I´ll try to keep this short and sweet and not like a dear diary entry, but there´s a bit to tell...

After my last blog and bus incident (Or better known as the Jose incident) it was mentioned that i should have contacted a couple of mates (Paul and Nige) who´s been to South America recently, and in doing so I could have avoided the bus trouble…. It was a very good point, and the only reason i didn´t was lack of planning and laziness on my part… However, no amount of planning and organising could have saved me from my one final (hopefully) f*ck up! More on that later

Col´´s Note: See how i´m building the suspense and keeping you hooked?… :P

The day after the the previous blog I took a bus to Arequipa, which is Peru´s second largest city, based near huge mountains and the two biggest canyons in the world (twice as deep as the grand canyon). I was considering doing a couple days either climbing El Misti, or going to Colca Canyon. However upon walking up a small hill in the city centre and getting seriously out of breath i decided against the 5000m+ mountain, and the colca canyon involved another two seriously long bus journeys! So i just became a cultured tourist for the day and visited a huge cathedral and a monastery – Santa De Catalina… Christ, it freaked me out! (blasphemous pun intended)

I don´t understand the complete commitment that the nuns show, to give up pretty much everything to live purely for a faith. Hmmm. However I liked what they did with the place, the one garden looked like the confession scene from Godfather III, and another room had a nun stood up facing into the corner of a room, I assumed this was a reconstruction of the end of the Blair Witch Project, and the nuns are trying to appeal to a wider audience. I could be wrong though… maybe I should have paid for a guided tour.

Once I was cultured out in Arequipa I took an overnight bus to Puno. Upon arriving in Puno I had a coffee (this is leading somewhere…) and thought of things I could relax and enjoy that day... However upon paying for the coffee I realised i´d left my bank card in a machine in Arequipa! Cue a day of panic. F*ck!!!! Was my first choice of words… I think it was also my next 50 or so words. I think the staff thought I had Tourettes, or just some strange gringo disease! So after speaking with a couple people on the phone (mum and jo) to rant in disbelief at, I cancelled my card and started using my credit card (which was stressful due to limited initial funds!) One classic conversation with Barclaycard to increase my credit and make things more comfortable until Jo brings my new barclays debit card to Buenos Aires (what a girlfriend :) )

Me: “So can I have the extra credit? I´ve not got a bad history and it´s an emergency”

Indian call woman: “Computer says no”

Me: “What can I do next then to get this increased, I don´t want to be stuck in this country, i´ve explained my situation an it´s not good”

Indian Call Woman: “Please try again in 6 months”

Me: “Thanks, you´ve been very helpful. Now put your manager on the phone”

Thankfully her boss was more helpful and sorted it out… stress sorted. Phew! Move over Fozzie Bear, Kermit, Miss Piggy and Gonzo; what a muppet I am!


Once that was sorted I was free to start enjoying my holiday once more, and booked a day trip to Lake Titikaka, and specifically on the islands of Ulros and Tequile. Ulros islands are worth mentioning… It´s made up of multiple floating islands made from reeds. The people live on there and constantly need to rebuild it and ensure it´s not sinking. The people of the islands also had a unique way of settling arguments… as they could simply chop the island in half and push their neighbours away!! Handy.

On from Puno I was very excited to get to cusco and get on with the two activites this trip was all about.
1. A trek to Machu Picchu
2. Staying in an amazon lodge (via a flight to Puerto Maldanado)

After wearing my Peruvian football shirt to help with haggling (genius) I was booked on both.

The Trek:
The first day was biking down a mountain path for about 4 or so hours, which wasn’t without incident! First an America woman managed to go flying off her bike and had some nasty cuts and bruises but was fine. The next to crash was a French girl who succeeded in going teeth first into the gutter of the road! She stood up and her two front teeth were actually pushed backwards!! She had to push them back herself, I can´t imagine that was nice!!! During these crashes there was no first aid kit available, what a sham, and there went any tips for this trek!

There was also this classic line on the bus afterwards between an American and a Dutch bloke:

American : “Hey, Dutch guy… you´re pretty hardcore on the bikes dude!! And that´s coming from an American”

Cue collective groans and heads in hands. What a gimp.

After the ride we stayed in a small town called Santa Maria and played football with the local lads (age 17-35ish). It was a 5-a-side game and i´d like to think that I showed them how to play :-) However we lost 2-1- :-( At that point our guide Ugo said we owed money for losing!! If we´d have known it was for money we´d have been tying a lot harder! Thanks Ugo, and then even better Ugo said: “Can you pay for me, i´ve left my wallet…” haha

After that the 3 more days hiking was tough but fun, and the views were awesome. The day of Machu Picchu was incredible to say the least and I was completely blown away by the place. I was also chuffed with the group of people we had (the hardcore American left after day one on another tour) i´ll be looking to keep in touch with some of them.

One person of note was a guy called Robin from Sweden… he had the impressive statistic of having 131 mosquito bites on his legs!!!!

The Amazon Lodge:
Incredible, probably my favourite part of the trip so far. We managed to see a wild Anaconda, a variety of monkeys, caiman (at night with head torches in a boat) and plenty more. Upon seeing a spider monkey in front of us on a vine we immediately took some pics, of course. But upon walking below it I also tried to give it a high five… in doing so it jumped onto my back and sat on my shoulders…. That was foooking cool I tell you!

We were taken around the one monkey island by a guide called Marco. He was a good guy, but he was chopping everything he possibly could and more with his machete, and swinging it in the air… it´s very hard to trust a man who´s twitchy with a blade!!

While walking through the Jungle I was in film reference heaven…. It looked exactly like the Jungle in Predator!! Throughout the whole time I had the soundtrack running through my head, and whenever there was a creature in the foliage i´d be thinking “There´s something in the trees, and it aint no man…”

The was awesome. It shouldn´t have made the jungle experience better… but it really did!

Next…

As of now i´m baçk in Cusco, and have two nights left here before flying to Lima, and then a Saturday flight to Buenos Aires to meet Jo  and do Argentina for two weeks.

Hopefully this hasn´t been too much of a read, as there is just too much to tell you…

Thanks for reading
Roll on Argentina.

p.s. Matt Evans, Paul Cunningham, put me down for 5 quid sponsorship money. Although i´m sporting a rather dashing beard myself (mainly goatee) at the moment, and it´s enforced my opinion that if this was the 70´s i´d definitely have a handle bar moustache!!

p.p.s. Sorry about lack of pictures, i´ll get some on facebook when I return.

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