Irish Ladies on Tour..Bolivia-Peru-Bolivia

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Bolivia eventually allowed me into the country and I arrived after a 12hr journey, got a taxi to the Wild Rover hostel where we'd booked for the first couple of nights.
Getting very excited at this stage to see Sinead and Bernie at the airport the next morning!a lovely early start meant I was at the airport for 4.20am, waiting impatiently, only to see the flight is delayed an hour and a half... 😞La Paz airport is really small so I could see the plane land and taxi really close to the viewing area. I was the only gringo standing a good foot over all the little Bolivianos waving like a lunatic as I saw the girls get off the plane! After an emotional welcome we got a taxi back to the wild rover. We got ourselves some breakfast and wandered around the city centre for a few hours, found the witches market and some nice cake shops! The girls seemed unaffected by the altitude so by the end of the day we'd decided to mountain bike down the Worlds most Dangerous of Roads the following day.

Day two, after driving a couple of hours we got all our gear including mighty sexy jacket, trousers and high vis jacket. It was freezing cold at the start of the cycle. First hour was downhill on a paved Tarmac windy road to let us get used to the bikes..such fun! After that we started on the real death road which was skinny, gravelly and windy with a huge drop into nothing on the left side the whole way down. Once I got used to the gravel it was great fun, though a little hairy in places! At the end we visited an animal reserve and I made friends with a monkey who climbed up on me as we were walking in!afterwards we drove back up death road on the bus, that was interesting, I couldn't see the edge of the road the whole way up! And he stopped at the skinniest part and I looked out to see about a foot of road between the wheels and the edge, scary!

Left La Paz bright and early the next morning on a bus. after a coupe of hours the bus stopped at Lake Titicaca and something was said in Spanish, I got the jist that we were to get of the bus and get a boat across to the other side. While we were on our little boat, our bus was on its own ferry floating across beside us! Puno probably would have been a bit boring only we we lucky to come across a massive parade one evening, still not sure what it was for. It consisted of a band followers by loads of dancers in traditional dress, amazing colours. This went on for hours, there were hundreds of bands and all played the same music, really cool to see and I got loads of opportunities to take photos of the locals without having to ask or feel bad!

We took an overnight tour to the floating Islands, Amantani and and Taquile islands on Lake Titicaca. The floating islands are exactly that, made of reeds by the locals, it's like stepping on to a water bed! We stayed with a host family on Amantani Island, our host mum was Sonia, a lovely lady who had two children, and boy and girl. She cooked yum food in the most basic of kitchens I've ever seen. It's a little hut with a fire in the corner. Don't think I'd be able to boil an egg but she managed to make really good dinner and breakfast! She and her daughter dressed us all up in the traditional clothing and we went to a dance in the hall in town that night. Great fun wearing the massive skirts!

Got an overnight bus to Cusco just in time to celebrate Halloween as three cats! Got to meet up with Leigh, Graham and Chris that I'd travelled with in Colombia which was great. Having booked it 4 months previously, we finally got to day one of the Inca Trail...a bit of a slow start, unfortunately we picked a national holiday, and our porters didn't really fancy working, so we were short a few and had to wait a few hours before they could sort replacements!We finally started hiking at half two on day one and arrived at our first campsite around 6.30.. Our amazing porters had overtaken us on the trail and literally ran with all the camping, cooking equipment and all our bags, mental, all while wearing sandals. Felt pretty stupid decked out in hiking gear when they were running last us! By the time we arrive they have tents set up for us and we relax having a hot drink and snacks in the dining tent while dinner is being cooked. The food was really yum, so impressive coming from a tent in the middle of nowhere. We always had delicious soup to start,usually with quinoa in it, a grain common to Peru. This was followed with a buffet style dinner with plenty choice and plenty veg dishes too and a rotten coca tea to help with the altitude!

The next day we were told is the toughest, and it was! We climbed five hours straight up unending steps in the consistent pouring rain to Dead Woman's Pass. Descending the other side for 2hours we arrived at a place to have lunch. Normally at this point everyone camps here for the night but as it was wet season, the company we did the trek with decided it would be safer to skip the last campsite as apparently it can get pretty bad in wet season so we would stay the last night in Aguas Calientes, the town closest to Macchu Picchu. To do this it meant we had to climb the second pass for another 2hours and descend another 2 hrs to another campsite, all on day two after getting through Dead Woman's Pass.

On day three we had 5hrs downhill on lovely steep skinny steps, we stopped for lunch and then did the final section that brought us up the gringo killer steps, all the way to the Sungate at Macchu Picchu by 3pm, we had made it! We spent some time soaking in the view from the sun gate, it was a beautiful sunny evening. Then we started the descent to Aguas Calientes, more steps!

Spent the night in a hostel in the town, it was lovely to finally shower after three days and had a well deserved few rum and cokes. The next morning, day 4, we all took the bus back up to Macchu Picchu for our proper guided tour of the site. It was really overcast and foggy around the mountains so we were delighted to have gotten the great photo weather the evening before. Spent the morning wandering around and took the train that evening and bus back to Cusco. Wrecked as we were we still pulled our glad rags on that night for a bit of dancing, fun night!

Our last stop before getting back to La Paz was Copa....Copacabana...do do do do do do do dooo do, no technically not the one in the song but still it fits...We spent a few days relaxing in the sun here in our lovely three floored house at Hostal las Olas. Amazingly decorated little place with our own garden space and a class view of Lake Titicaca. Sadly leaving Copa, we took the interesting bus boat bus journey back to La Paz for a days shopping and a final hurrah in the Loki bar before Sinead and Bernie left me 😞 All by myseeeeelf, don't wanna be...

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