Peru

Hello, we´ve been in Brazil for 10 days now so time for a quick update of our two weeks in Peru.

We spent the time in southern Peru visiting the main tourist spots. The first stop was Puno on Lake Titicaca. The city is only 3 hours from the Bolivian border and we didn´t notice too many differences except that it became immediately obvious that Peru is a mass tourist destination. Puno itself was fairly attractive and we spent an afternoon visiting the unique floating islands a short boat ride from town. This trip has become pretty commercialized - the only islands we visited were those containing souvenir stalls and cafes - but it was still something different and the islands were made from edible reeds, making it the only place we´ve been to that you could eat the floor.

From Puno we headed to Cusco, capital city of the Inca Empire. The city is completely devoted to tourism (because its the gateway to Machu Picchu) and therefore its highly commercialized. It was the first place we´d been to in a while where you´d get a lot of attention from touts and tour operators. Although in fairness, it was a very easy place to spend a few days as there were plenty of good restaurants catering for tourists. We have to mention our hostel here - the Hotel Royal Frankenstein. It was run by really lovely people but the rooms were horrible and seriously depressing (it was cheap but we didn´t think we´d want to slit our wrists every morning!). The hostel was owned by a german who advertised with the slogan ¨cold, dark, gloomy rooms - what else do you expect from a german?!¨Can´t fault him for honesty! Also, it was the only hostel we´ve been to where there was a biological diagram of the urinary process next to the toilet, plastic spiders on the wall and a plaster sculpture of a women holding a mirror in the ceiling - we won´t be rushing back for our honeymoon!

There are a few Inca ruins close to the city so we decided to spend a day walking around them. Kim soon realised that ruins ¨don´t really rock her boat¨and that Machu Picchu would probably be her fill of looking at big, old stones!

We were slightly shocked by the price of the tourist train to Machu Picchu so decided to try and save some money by travelling by road. We soon realised that there´s a reason people don´t travel there by car - its a right mission. It was a 9 hour journey, partly along cliff-side, dirt roads (which we hadn´t realised when we booked it). By now, I think its well documented that we don´t enjoy this type of journey and it was worried faces all round again! Our favourite part was when the driver decided to cross a flimsy bridge over a drop that would have resulted in certain death. He spent a few seconds weighing up whether we could make it but then decided f**k it we´ll be alright - wish we had his confidence! Needless to say before we´d even finished the journey we agreed to fork out for the tourist train on the way back - best decision we ever made!

We stopped overnight in Aguas Callientes, the town in the valley below Machu Picchu. Here we met our guide who was a real charmer and a right cocky little s*it! There were some Israelis in our group and from the outset it was clear that the guide wasn´t feeling the love for them. They were quite good humoured considering that he told them that ¨I will be your guide for 2 hours and after that I don´t know you and you don´t know me!¨ The guide didn´t win any more brownie points by turning up late the next morning which was annoying as we had stayed at Aguas Callientes purposely to get up early and beat the crowds. He must have felt a bit sheepish because the night before he had stressed the importance of being punctual, saying ¨not Israeli time, Inca time¨ which gave the Israelis some ammo to take the piss out of him.

It seems that getting up early to beat the crowds to Machu Picchu is impossible anyway because there must have been at least 500 people waiting to go up when we left at 5.30am. Despite the huge number of tourists at the site, Machu Picchu was definitely worth the effort - its truly world class. The setting is spectacular, the ruins are really well preserved and the history is very interesting. The whole thing is really well done, and they´ve managed to prevent mass tourism from infringing on the magic of the place.

We took the train back to Cusco and enjoyed the relative luxury of the tourist train. We spent a couple of days hanging around Cusco as there was a national strike delaying transport. Once this had passed we caught a bus to Arequipa, Peru´s second largest city. To be honest we did nothing here, apart from sleep, eat and read. There was an option of trekking into the worlds deepest canyon but we couldn´t be bothered!

After relaxing for a couple of days we headed back across the border to Copacabana, Bolivia. We had vowed to do a short 2 day trek to the Isla Del Sol on Lake Titicaca. It was a lovely couple of days, with immense mountain scenery, sunshine, and rural villages. It was good to be back in Bolivia.

We are currently in Salvador, Brazil where we are enjoying sunshine, beaches and the novelty of warm nights - the thermals have been well and truly dispatched!

We have a few more days in Brazil before we catch our flight home on 7th August. We will see you all soon!

Take care
Andrew & Kim

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