Peru

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Puno
Took a bus from the border around lake T to Puno. First impressions: extremely annoying touts. We arrived at about 9.30pm and were greeted off the bus by 2 jabbering touts. As we hadn't booked a hotel we had to gather for a minute to make a plan. We were still with Tori & Paul so we looked most conspicuous in a group of four & so ended up fighting 5 or 6 of the persistent buggers off, finally agreeing to take a free taxi to look at a centrally located "very economical" hotel. So with the tout squeezed into the boot with our 4 rucksacks off we went.

The hotel was crap and after he insisted on taking us to another crap one we gave him the slip and in our fatigue justified the cost of a really quite nice hotel, the first non crap one we found, but not before getting a little bit of discount. Of course!

We only had one day for sight seeing and were feeling lazy so we opted to hang around the town centre while Tori & Paul went on a trip to a local town/market type thing. We could've gone to visit the floating markets (markets on floating wooden platforms in the lake) but, in all honesty, they looked rubbish in the photos & we'd heard there was a lot of pressure from the locals to buy stuff so we didn´t bother.

However, we did manage to get nice and drunk that evening in a Rock bar and ended up after last orders stumbling into a locals karaoke bar which was a little daunting at first, being the only tourists but after proving to be respectful sorts (we took a drink at the bar where we listened to the local drunk men singing & clapped when appropriate) we were welcomed by one of the bolder singers.

For the 5 hour journey to Cusco we booked onto a "tourist bus" which did the journey over about 7 hours with stops on the way to visit:-

• Pukara - an archeological site and museum
  
• La Raya - a mountain viewpoint
  
• Raqchi - a massive Inca archeological site, complete with a partially standing temple
  
• Andahuaylillas - the "Sistine Chapel" of South America. Actually turned out to be very beautiful.
  

Cusco
Cusco's usually a lively little town because it's the jump off point for Machu Picchu - usually it's crawling with tourists and backpackers so there are plenty of fun nights out to be had.

We arrived a couple of days before Machu Picchu was allowed to reopen after the recent crazy flooding had caused multiple landslides on the various roads and trails leading to the site. Hence the town was pretty dead. We bought a "tourist ticket" which allowed us access to about 20 museums/sites in and around Cusco and spent the first couple of days trekking around town visiting some of them, including a bus tour to some of the ones just outside the town - we wore flip flops for this so of course it poured down raining for most of it.

After nearly 11 months of travelling, Kerry finally relented on her insistence that we "never enter a country themed pub again" after Tori & Paul found an Irish pub (called "Paddy's", naturally) that served amazing pub grub (we were starting to miss it). We went about 3 times and had mashed potato every time. Such a novelty! Incidentally the reasoning for the no theme pub rule was based on Irish & German bars in Russia having obscene price hikes & not a lot of atmosphere!

A few days after Machu Picchu reopened Cusco started to liven up. Predictably, the first few days were chaos - none of the tour operators (that we encountered or heard about) really knew what they were doing...

Ollantaytambo & The Sacred Valley
We read up on ways to get to Machu Picchu and decided to travel to Ollantaytambo. The reasoning was that Ollyanta looked like a nice base for a couple of days seeing some of the highlights of the other Sacred Valley ruins nearby then take a train to Aguas Calientes, the town just outside MP where all the tours end up to spend the night before going to MP.

We went it alone here as Tori & Paul had signed up for a 3 day biking & treking tour to Machu Picchu which seemed like a bit too much effort to us.

While we were in Ollanta we saw the very impressive ruins of Ollantaytambo on one day and then hired a taxi to take us to see nearby Moray & the Salinera de Maras. We thought all 3 were very cool. See photos for details.

We had assumed, based on a combination of online research, previous travel experience & the fact that tour operators were selling 3 day tours with return train tickets included, that as we had a few days leeway we'd be able to get a couple of seats on one of the 10 daily trains. Unfortunately for us, while doing our research we'd failed to find the bit where they were running a cut down train schedule & only selling entry tickets to MP in Cusco, from where we'd just come. There were no train tickets available so after a very pleasant 3 nights in Ollanta we headed back to Cusco to find another way to MP.

Machu Picchu (and Aguas Calientes)
So.. after the Ollanta faff we almost made the decision to skip MP as in all honesty we weren't THAT bothered. However, we decided to give it a shot & talk to some tour operators. We ended up going on an almost completely disastrous 1 night/2 day car tour. Neither of us can be bothered to go into detail about this, it was just too painful. Ask us over a beer sometime. Suffice to say that after a bit of unplanned hiking in the dark we did get to Machu Picchu on the scheduled day but ended up taking 2 days to get back instead of one. And more tan one near death experience (think climbing over landslides still partially in progress on the side of a mountain).

Machu Picchu itself was (just about) worth the effort (although the effort was considerable) as they tagged us onto a large group tour with a professional guide who was very good. The thing that we found about MP was that the location was the magical bit, stunning. The ruins themselves, although very well preserved, were no more interesting than some of the others in the Sacred Valley. All in all though we are glad we went.. And extremely glad that we don't have to go back.

Colca Canyon

More touts (all female this time) in the small town that we stayed in near the canyon. We went with the one that just gave us a flyer & a price then waited quietly while 2 or 3 others badgered us.

One of the deepest canyons in the world. We hired a taxi visited a lookout point where a dozen or so condors meet up everyday. You can stand on the view point and the condors hover right in front of you as they glide in and out of the canyon. Very cool. The actual Canyon wasn't as spectacular as we'd assumed (it was narrow & lush therefore fairly valley like) but the scenery was very pretty and the condors themselves were enough to justify the tour.

Arequipa
The White City because of the colour it's stone buildings. Visited a working convent where the nuns pretty much (still) have zero contact with the outside world. Some nice architecture to be seen here. We we only had one night here plus the day leading up to our overnight bus so we were not feeling motivated to bother much. The convent was cool, we had very nice ice cream & cake but otherwise there is nothing to say.

Lima
We hadn't heard a single good word about Lima in 11 months of travelling but were flying from there to Mexico City so ended up spending a couple of nights. It has a lot of casinos and not a lot else. Actually, although there wasn´t a great deal to see and do it did have a nice city vibe to it and a plush shopping centre on the beachside. It's building and waterside location actually reminded us of a slightly rundown Rio de Janeiro.

Two definite good points to Lima :-

1. our hostel The Blue House, which was cheap, spacious, shabby in a cosy-lived-in-kind of way and also had a baby parrot in the courtyard which found its voice & stopped sounding like a dying camel on the 3rd & final morning we were there. It was too cute. Apparently we are both bird people.

2. our discovery of Ceviche, a Peruvian/Equadorian seaford and citrus (quite like sushi) dish which we´d never tried before a caused instant and multiple foodgasms right there in the restaurant.

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Photos

Some ruins!!!
These ones are at....errr, I've forgotten.

Big stones
Forgotten the name of the site though

Zip line crossing.....
.....on te way to Machu Picchu

Imagine....
......crossing this river via these railway (gaps between the sleepers) in the dark with only a torh to guide you. Yep - been there, done that........

Survived the river crossing? OK, now.....
........cross this landslide (still partially in progress so watch out for falling boulders) halfway up a mountain (we were asked to cross this one in the dark, too, but refused on the grounds that WE'RE NOT FUCKING STUPID)

Machu Friggin Picchu
as it was when we first arrived at daft o'clock in the morning