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Peru
Puno- Islas Flotantes
Our trip into Peru began in typically chaotic fashion when it emerged that our bus had not been allowed into Copacabana to pick us up due to a roadblock (presumably due to some spurious political argument as usual), and we had to walk out of town to where the buses were parked and waiting. We greeted this with happy resignation, having got used to this sort of thing by now. The journey to Puno, on the banks of Lake Titicaca, passed uneventfully and we soon arrived at our Scottish owned hostel, The Bothy. Any hopes of a Scottish hostel emulating its excellent Irish counterpart Wild Rover, were soon dashed as we came to realise that the only Scottish thing about the hostel, aside from the name, was a Scottish Rugby sticker on the door, and this quiet, sleepy hostel definitely didn’t have a party vibe. Still, the staff were very good and we managed to talk them into a cut price rate for the dorm (we like to think it was because of our Scottish connection).
Puno is the launch point for tours to the famous Islas Flotantes (Floating Islands) of Lake Titicaca and
since we were keen for some traditional indigenous culture, we signed up for a day tour. The floating islands are constructed using layers of the buoyant totora reeds that grow abundantly in the shallows of Lake Titicaca and are inhabited by the Uro tribe who have maintained their floating lifestyle here for centuries. It all seems to add up to a unique cultural experience but unfortunately the island dwellers rely so heavily on tourism nowadays that the whole thing has become horribly commercial and it all seems like a farce. The menfolk put on a demonstration of their island-making and hunting techniques which was interesting but felt far too much like a pantomime. Meanwhile the women, with their ludicrously bright costumes attempted to sell their “handmade fabrics” (ie. tat) to the hundreds of gringos that came their way. Just to leave a final bad taste in our mouths the women assembled at the edge of the island as our boat left, and sang us off with a lovely rendition of “Row row row your boat”, followed by the parting words “Hasta la Vista, BABY!”. Cringe.
Back in Puno we were similarly overwhelmed by the tourist-baiting mafia in the main
street as dozens of restaurant and bar reps practically mugged us to come into their establishments. Our abiding impression of Puno and its surrounding attractions was that tourism has almost completely ruined its appeal (no jibes about our presence adding to the problem please, we already know!).
Cusco- Salkantay trek and Machu Picchu
After only two days in Puno we headed onwards to Cusco to prepare for our trek to Machu Picchu. Cuzco heads the list of many a traveller’s itinerary. It’s an awe inspiring colonial city built on hefty stone foundations of the Incas. In close proximity to Cusco lies Peru’s biggest draw card – the ‘Lost’ city of the Incas, Machu Picchu, perched high on a remote mountaintop.
Cusco itself is a city steeped in history with massive Inca-built walls lining steep, narrow cobblestone streets. With over 1.5million tourists to the city every year, the city’s economy is now almost totally at the whim of international tourists, and every second building surrounding Cusco’s central plaza, Plaza de Armas, is a restaurant, shop or hotel. Although a tourist mecca, we loved the place and were quite happy to just sit back and chill in preparation for
our big hike up to Machu Picchu.
We were travelling at this point with Barry and Karen, an Irish couple, and Lotte, a Dutch girl, all of whom we had met at the animal sanctuary in Bolivia, and were planning to trek to Machu Picchu together. There are many ways for travellers to get to Machu Picchu and after much research before we came away, we decided we were keen to take on an alternative trek, rather than the traditional Inca Trail. Having been warned about booking cheap Inca treks to Machu Picchu, we searched around and opted to go on the Salkantay Trek with Andean Life, a more expensive but highly recommended local outfit. We hoped that this would ensure a top quality trek with a guide who would really look after us and add to our experience. Guess what- it didn’t quite work out that way.
Salkantay is one of several alternatives to the classic Inca Trail to Machu Picchu and it involves trekking through a variety of terrains including steep glacial valleys, rugged Andean peaks, lush cloud forest and steamy river valleys. The trek itself was excellent and we really enjoyed the challenge it
presented as well as the spectacular scenery on offer. Unfortunately, our guide, Leebos, was a huge disappointment in so many ways. From the outset he didn’t inspire confidence as he didn’t seem to know what the tour itinerary was supposed to be during our briefing and he answered our questions very vaguely. On day one we were hiking on steep rocky terrain towards the highest point of the trek at around 4600m and for the most part he was nowhere to be seen, instead charging off ahead and only stopping to wait every couple of hours. This was annoying since we received almost no information about the impressive areas we were trekking through, but more importantly when he abandoned us towards the end of day one as night was falling, it left us in danger of becoming lost with no torches and no idea where our campsite was. Needless to say he got an earful from us when we finally made it to the campsite. Later that evening, we were however, treated to an excellent meal prepared by the group’s chef and then we bedded down for the night for a well-deserved sleep.
Day two was a day of
fairly boring trekking as we had to take a detour to avoid a recent landslide which had wiped out part of the original trail. However there were a few parts where we were walking over paths which looked in imminent danger of crumbling and falling into the canyon below, and of course Leebos wasn’t around to give us any warning. We finished the day’s trekking relatively early, presumably Leebos’s way of making up for the previous day’s debacle and were rewarded with cold shower facilities and beer!
Day three involved a steep hike up a forest trail followed by an equally steep downhill section and, surprisingly, Leebos spent a great deal more time with us. This was a really enjoyable day of hiking even though some of our group were beginning to feel the effects of the walking, with some nasty blisters and bad knees taking their toll (the two of us were fine). Sandy and Lotte were also beginning to feel the psychological effects of the trek, inventing a bizarre parallel world based on Spongebob Squarepants with all the members of the trek group as characters. In the afternoon we caught our first glimpse of Machu Picchu, a
4800m
The top of the walk, Salkantayspectacular view from some small Inca ruins across the huge expanse of the valley to the famous site. It really whetted our appetite for the main thing the following day.
By the end of day three we arrived in Aguas Calientes, the nearest town to Machu Picchu, via a short train ride. One of the big draws here is the thermal pools which are recommended as good way to ease sore muscles after the trek. For any future visitors reading, three words: Do. Not. Go. The pools are tiny, overcrowded, artificial looking, and the cloudy water has a distinctive aroma of urine. Lesson learned, we headed to a local Pizza place for food and beer to celebrate our hiking achievements. Leebos joined us and decided to announce half way through our dinner that he hadn’t yet bought our tickets for the much awaited finale, Machu Picchu. 2 of our group were summoned to collect everyones passports so that Leebos could go and purchase the said tickets. With leebos gone, we all headed wearily to bed, unsure as to what the next day would hold.
Huaynapicchu is the hill which overlooks the ruins of Machu Picchu and, since its
sides are so steep and there are so many visitors every day, numbers allowed to climb the hill are strictly limited to 400 per day, in two time slots: 7-8am and 10-11am. In order to guarantee one of the coveted stamps to allow you to climb Huaynapicchu, you need to ensure that you get up to the site very early in the morning so we headed to join the queue for buses at 4am. Unfortunately our concept of early was not the same as others’ as by the time we got there, there were already hundreds of people in the queue ahead of us. However, if we’d listened to Leebos, we wouldn’t have got to the bus queue until 6am. To cut a long story short, we made it to Machu Picchu and were lucky enough to be assigned tickets for the 7-8am climb. Unfortunately this meant that we couldn’t get a guided tour of the Inca ruins from Leebos since he said had to go back down to the town. Even though all the other groups’ guides stayed with them for the whole day, we were actually quite keen to get rid of him so we sent him on
Busted.
Being told off for the heinous crime of using a flag for a photo. his way (tipless) and 6 soon became the famous 5 once more.
There’s no denying it, Machu Picchu definitely has the WOW factor and the views from Huaynapicchu didn’t disappoint. However, we couldn’t help thinking that after 3 long days of hard trekking, the impact of it was slightly lost on us since we were pretty knackered and so perhaps we didn’t really do it justice. In hindsight, we’d have trekked the Salkantay separately and save Machu Picchu for a day on its own as it really does deserve it.
After a couple of days well deserved rest back in Cusco, we decided to head to Arequipa, the destination for Sandy’s birthday!
Arequipa
Peru’s second largest city doesn’t lack for drama. Arequipa is the land of active volcanoes, thermal springs, the world’s deepest canyons and the Andean Condor.
First things first, we had a birthday to celebrate and so we decided to book once again in to the Irish hostel chain Wild Rover. Although a lot quieter than its counterparts, we had a great pre birthday-eve party with Barry & Karen, Joaquin (from Sweden who we’d picked up in La Paz and had been with
us on and off since then, complete with broken pinky), some new hostel friends and the awesome hostel crew led by the bonkers Fiona. Big credit to Donny and Fiona who pulled off a fantastic party, complete with a pool comp, unlimited alcohol shots, a birthday cake (which ended up in my face), fab music, an Enrique serenade and lots and lots of fun.
The actual birthday was spent in style at the 5 star Arequipa Libertador Hotel, being pampered, wined and dined. Unfortunately Sandy was full of the cold, but what better way to spend a day when you’re feeling sorry for yourself than to be fantastically looked after… 5* style!
Colca Canyon tour
Once we’d brought ourselves back down to earth, it was back to hostel living and travelling itineraries. With limited time in Arequipa, we decided to go on a 2 day bus tour to of the Colca region, an area of spectacular mountain scenery, including one of the world’s deepest Canyons, at 3191m. The trip is well worth doing for the scenery alone and our guide was really excellent. The highlight of day one was a short hike up towards an old Inca
burial site with ancient sunbleached skulls and other bones on display, followed by a soak in some thermal pools which thankfully were a lot better executed than their Machu Picchu counterparts. Day two was all about watching the Andean Condors at Colca Canyon. At first when we approached the Condors’ perch it looked as if we would just see them at rest, but five minutes after we arrived, as if on cue, they took to the skies and what followed was an incredible aerial display. They are absolutely massive, with a 3.2m wingspan, and when they cruised low overhead it seemed more like we were watching small aircraft than living creatures. They must have flown like this for at least half an hour, putting on a great show for the tourist hoards. After the tour we quickly hopped on the bus to head to the nation’s capital.
Lima
After studying Peru’s capital many moons ago, Lima was a place that Sandy was really eager to visit and it didn’t disappoint. Although not quite how she imagined it, Lima has a really great mix of old and new, from the fast-paced metropolis of Miraflores, to the colonial architecture (yes
more of that stuff) of the old town and crumbling Inca pyramids right in the middle of town.
We stayed in Miraflores, mainly because it was the closest area to the sea, but also because it has all the best restaurants and bars. It feels really modern and quite glitzy, but at the same time we found the people to be very friendly and down to earth. The people who fixed the backside of Sandy’s jeans were particularly nice!
We visited the old town too and found it to be really well preserved and full of character. We’ve been let down a lot by various countries capitals, but we really enjoyed walking around Lima, taking in the atmosphere.
Mancora
Mancora, on Peru’s North coast, was a well needed beach front stopover en route to Ecuador. A surfer’s paradise, although low season, the town was the tranquil setting we needed. For the next couple of days we simply chilled out, watched amazing sunsets, ran around killing the constant stream of ants in our room (well Sandy did…) and caught up on some washing.
After just under a month in Peru, and time starting to disappear,
it was time to travel onwards to Ecuador…
(Flagging somewhat with the constant travel and the realisation that we’d been travelling for nearly 6months and it would be impossible to visit everywhere in South and Central America in our time left, we decided to make a list of our ‘must see’ sights and countries. We came up with the plan to travel fast through Ecuador and Colombia, stopping only in the places we were 100% keen to visit.)
Ecuador Highlights:
Mitad del Mundo – Middle of the World
We couldn’t come all the way to Ecuador and not visit the equator at Mitad del Mundo., 22km north of Quito. The Mitad del Mundo complex is touristy sure, and rumour has it that the ‘real’ equator is actually 240m down the road, however hopping back and forth between the marked out hemispheres was pretty awesome and definitely an experience to remember.
The Oriente – Tena
Ecuador’s white water capital (many would argue the best in South America) sits at the confluence of the Rio Tena and the Rio Pano and was our sole purpose for venturing in to the Oriente. We were sorely tempted to dip
our feet back in to volunteering or to sign up for a 4 day jungle trip, but spoilt by our experience in the Bolivian jungle we decided to stick to the rafting. The rafting was well worth the wait and an awesome day was had rafting Class III & Class IV with our crazy Ecuadorian guide and 3 rafting buddies, even though Donny suffered pretty bad sunburn.
Colombia Highlight:
Cartagena de Indias
Cartagena is a really pretty city, known as ‘the fairytale city of romance and legends’. Dripping in 16th and 17th architecture, the city is full of narrow winding streets, churches and plazas. Now a fashionable seaside resort for local Colombians, Cartagena is unfortunately over run with tourists and wears the price tag that comes with it. Never-the-less, we enjoyed taking in the sites and the highlight was a trip to a mud volcano – the 15m high Volcan de Lodo El Totumo, 50km northeast of Cartagena- which spews mud instead of lava and ash. You climb to the top by specially built stairs and then climb in to the crater for a refreshing mud bath. Needs to be seen to be believed.
Cartagena is also
the port for vessels traveling on to Panama. Private vessels have latched on to the gringo sense of adventure and now offer private sails across. Currently the only other way across to Panama is by plane as the Darien Gap is deemed unsafe to travel due to guerrillas and bandits. We were both very keen to experience the crossing, but sadly there were no boats sailing in our time frame so instead we caught our first fight of the trip, temporarily rejoicing in the change of scenery from a tedious bus to a nice fast plane.
While we were in Cartagena we made the difficult decision to cut out a large chunk of Central America and limit ourselves to a handful of countries- to give us time to actually experience the cultures, rather than just ticking off must-sees. Guatemala, Belize and Mexico made the final cut but we couldn’t come to Central America and not visit the Panama Canal, so we decided to spend a day or two in Panama City before jetting off on our second flight, to Guatemala.
Panama Canal
We jumped on the chicken bus to head to the canal, the southern end of
which is just a few kilometres outside Panama City. The Miraflores locks are where vessels enter the canal proper on their voyage from the Pacific to the Atlantic, passing through the biggest locks in the whole canal system and rising a total of 16.5metres in the process. We were just in time to catch the spectacle of the final ship in the queue, a Greek tanker called Danae, passing through. It was bizarre to see such a huge ship squeeze through such a narrow gap and quite rewarding to see such an amazing feat of engineering in action.
We both had to keep pinching ourselves as to what we had just seen, but the torrential rain and the wait for the chicken bus back to the city centre, soon put us back in check.
Another day, another city, and it was back to the airport for our flight to Guatemala. For reasons unknown to us, we ended up with Business Class tickets, so we scoffed all we could eat and drink in the business lounge airport without disgracing ourselves too much and then we boarded the flight ready to be wined and dined in true Business class style.
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Alex
non-member comment
Hola
Dudes, about time you put up some more chat of your adventures. All of the pictures look awesome. How great is Machu Picchu?! I hate to ask but how long do you have left travelling? It's just that we need to get a night in Viper soon.................. Besitos Alejandro