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Published: February 6th 2011
Apart from the occasional crash or hijacking (seriously!), travelling by bus in Peru is pretty easy and safe – if you go with a good company, which travels during daylight hours, that is. We did wing it one day and chose a cheaper bus company... during that journey we saw one of the company’s buses smashed by the side of the road – eek!
Puno Puno is around 8 hours bus ride south-east from Cusco. We decided to see the sights in between by taking a tourist bus that includes four stops and lunch – making the trip 10 hours in total.
We went via Andahuaylillas (beautiful old old old Jesuit church) and Raqchi (fantastic Inca temple ruin in the middle of the city) plus a few other places that didn’t leave a lasting impression. A big highlight was seeing wild flamingos in the little lakes along the way.
Puno is a big old dirty city on the shore of Lake Titicaca. There is not a whole lot to see and do there; it’s really just the stopping point for other places. Regardless, we had a great time and stayed in a really good hostel – Pirwa.
Arequipa – the white city From Puno we set out on a trip to Arequipa, about 6 hours south-west. Arequipa is known as the ‘white city’ because all the main buildings are made of white volcanic rock called sillar. The effect is stunning, lovely white buildings with ornate stone work – beautiful! It’s also known to be a very political city and sure enough one day David and I were completely stuck in the middle of mass protests in the streets. We think it was a protest for cheaper food or something, we’re not quite sure!
When the weather is fine an enormous snow capped mountain (El Misti) is the backdrop to the city... unfortunately all we saw were glimpses of El Misti through the cloud and rain. We bought a lovely postcard of the view though!
We had a great time in Arequipa visiting churches and museums, a few highlights:
Behind the scenes tour of a church called the Temple de la Orden Franciscana Seglar – we saw the statue Virgin Mary’s wardrobe (!!), she gets a new dress every year. Church was over 200 years old so it was a big wardrobe! Wandered
around with a great guide and saw lots of interesting things that you never really get to see – the library, priest’s dressing room, meeting rooms, treasures and artworks.
The amazing Monasterio de Santa Catalina – a convent that was founded in 1580. It was huge (20,000 square metres in fact) and we strolled around the grounds for hours poking our noses into the rooms, communal bathes, kitchens, gardens, etc. Only 30 or so nuns live there now but back in the day it was known as a bit of a party convent for rich girls... the Vatican put a stop to that in 1871.
Museo Santury – dedicated to ‘Juanita’, an Inca girl that was sacrificed on a snow-covered volcano over 500 years ago. Truly amazing story and such an insight into the Inca culture. We didn’t get to see Juanita (she goes on ‘holidays’ every Jan-Mar) but we did see another young girl that was sacrificed on the same mountain. The girls (and boys) were only around 12 years of age when they were walked up the mountain by the Shamans to meet their fate, they were then buried with offerings to the mountain god. These
sacrifices were meant to calm the god and stop avalanches, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, etc.
Colca Canyon – the second deepest canyon in the world Just to bore you with the facts – Colca Canyon is over 100km long and varies in depth from 1000m to 3000m. Towering above the canyon are volcanos, some over 6300m high. To put it all in perspective, the canyon is double the depth of the Grand Canyon in the States.
We joined a tour group that left from Arequipa (at 3am!) and set off to the canyon. Only 3 hours drive in a bumpy bus. First stop was the Cruz del Condor, a viewing area to watch the mighty condors majestically sore on the updrafts from the deep canyon... we weren’t in luck... no condors, just a few big eagles!
We started the hike in the Pampas San Miguel (3,300m above sea level), together with three other hikers from Korea that were volunteering in Peru for a year. We enjoyed an easy walk down into the Canyon to stay at a lush little home hugging the side of the mountain called San Juan of Chuccho. We arrived at lunch time and
realised that that was it for the day... thank god for the deck of cards and Uno David packed! The view from the place was stunning, towering cliffs of rock, you couldn’t see the sky from the dining area, just the cliff. The roaring river below was the sound track for the stay and lulled us to sleep in our little mud huts.
The next day we walked back up the canyon and then down again and were delighted to see loads of soaring condors (they have a 3m wingspan – huge!) during the 16km hike to the next stop, ‘The Oasis’. At the bottom of the canyon there is a micro-climate so there are little hostels set up around natural spring water pools, palm trees and tropical plants. Quite nice, but the rain took the ‘tropical’ feel away! Another long afternoon playing cards!
The last day was TOUGH. I had been sick for quite a few days by now (usual travel bug) and couldn’t face the three hour rocky cliff face that was steeper than anything we had done on the Inca Trail, truly ridiculous.... so I hired a trusty donkey and zoomed up clutching my trusty
steed and over taking all the poor bastards sweating and grunting up the cliff. David was a legend, he powered away and was one of the first people up the cliff and apart from getting a bit lost in the corn fields up the top he had a great trek and joined me for breakfast in the little town of Cabanaconde in no time at all.
The rest of the tour was heaven – thermal hot springs (42 degrees) and a HUGE buffet lunch. We were happy little trekkers on the way home that night to Arequipa.
We slept in Arequipa that night and then headed back to Puno for our Lake Titicaca adventure.
Lake Titicaca – Eros, Amantani and Taquile Islands Lake Titicaca is the highest, largest lake in the world. At an altitude of around 3800 above sea level, dizzy spells and shortness of breath are common because of the lack of oxygen in the air.
We set off on our tour to the Islands and first stop was the famous Islas Eros – tiny floating islands completely made of reeds. We both felt like we had just stepped into a theme park made
of straw. Yes it was novel and has a historical background (reed islands were built to escape the violent Incas) but it was completely unauthentic and I felt quite sad that the traditional folk had had to create such a farce in the name of tourism.
Luckily the best was saved for later that day, three hours chug on the-slowest-boat-in-the-world, to Amantani Island where we were farmed out to local families for a home stay. It was magic. We met our ‘Mama’ and walked up a hill to her home together with Stephanie (a young German med student). The three of us were to stay there the night.
That day we hiked up the Island to a ruin then back down the mountain to one of the best experiences of our lives... we joined the Amantani community’s celebrations of the La Virgen de la Candelaria. Words cannot adequately describe what we walked into. Imagine a TINY village square filled to the brim with people in every type of traditional costume imaginable, throw in 4-6 brass bands all playing at the same time (not the same music mind you), then add thousands of crates of free flowing beer. What
you get is one hell of a drunken party! It only happens once a year and there were only a handful of tourists there, we felt really privileged to have been part of it.
We slept soundly that night in a warm cosy room at our Mama’s house and then left the little port the next day in fairly rocky conditions to Taquile Island for lunch. Taquile has a unique traditional dress – the men are really into knitting and knit all the beanies on sale there (and the special long ones they actually wear themselves), the women weave. In past times women would weave their man a belt from their own hair, this only stopped quite recently. The women wear big black blankets over their heads and the blanket have bright pom poms on the end (big colourful ones = single, small less colourful = married). It was a lovely little island and we had a great meal of fish for lunch. Great tour!
Goodbye Peru! Peru has been such a wonderful experience, we loved it. Should be on everyone’s Bucket List we think. Next stop Bolivia!
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Mum
non-member comment
Wow
I love reading this blog and am in awe of how you remember all the names of the wonderful places you are visiting! Loved the photo of you in costume- very cute! (You too David!). Hope we get to talk again soon x