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Published: July 11th 2007
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After dragging myself away from the mountains (the only thing that made it better was I knew I´d be returning soon... oh and I was going to meet Lizzie!) and back to Lima I had a day to check out the sights before making my way to the airport to meet a very tired and excited Lizzie, who had just arrived on a 12 hour flight from Amsterdam.
After a good long nights sleep, I acted as tour guide for the day around Lima! We ate Cerviche (raw fish in lime juice), went to the markets in town, checked out the beautiful Colonieal style plazas and got on a couple of busses going in completely the wrong direction. I obviously had a bit to learn still! We had an awesome day and packed in the sights pretty well!
The packing in didnt stop after that - we got the bus to Pisco the next day and organised what was to be a huge day of Gringo trail fun! Early mornign we went to Isla Balestas to see Peruvian Boobies and Penguins! Then it was a bus ride to Ica and Huacachina to go sandboarding and dune buggying in
the desert (so much fun!). Then the final bus was to Nazca to collapse into bed still covered in sand! We had one night in Nazca before heading to Cusco for a relax. We dicede to sack off the flight over the Nazca lines (Ancient giant picture in the sand that no ones quite understands) and go to the ´mirador´. A collectivo taxi ride, a 20 meter high steel tower, a place with litterally no one for miles on the panamericana, and a hitched ride back to nazca in the back of a 4x4 later we had a vague idea of what it was all about!
Then it was time for our return to the mountains! The bus ride to Cusco was pretty hard work and Lizzie wasnt enjoying the mix of Cerviche food poisoning and altitude! We luckly had a few days in Cusco to relax and check the place out before heading off on our pre booked (back in April) Inca trail adventure!
We were part of a huge group of 18 people and it was done in the ultimate luxury all the way. Some poor guy even carried chairs and tables round the whole trek
for us! Liz stormed through the whole trek but I really struggled - my stomach was playing up pretty badly and I could hardly eat anything for the first three days. However it cleared up (due to damn good antibiotics) for the 4th day whish was also my birthday, and our day in Machu Pichu! We had an awesome day and the ruins just blew us away - its always hard for an attraction with such a reputation preceeding it to still be exciting, but this really was!
The evening celebrations for my birthday involved one glass of wine and a mexican dinner - after that we were both exhausted and collapsed into bed!
The next evenig we bussed it to Arequipa - the white city (due to the volanic rock it centre is made of) and had 4 days there and on a Colca Canyon tour. This is the sencond deepest canyon in the world but we still havent worked out the difference between a conyon and a valley - and no one seems to be able to tell us... if you know I'd love to be told! We also saw Condors which are just insanely big
graceful birds - around 8 of them just above our heads!
It was then on to Lake Titicaca. We spent nights on the Isla del Sol (Bolivia) and Isla Taquile, both of which were absolutely stunning. On Isla Taquile we had a proper homestay which was awesome despite a real communication problem since they spoke Quechuan (the original language from the region) - we'd have struggled even if it had been Spanish! We did a two day walk round Isla del Sol and stayed in the most beautiful lake side town Ive ever seen - when we saw a for sale sign up we started to wonder whether we should just cut our losses and stay!
We made it across the Bolivian border (pretty smoothly) after another few days round the lake we headed to La Paz. We left Copacabana after snow, rain and hail had cut the electricity off for our last evening and day. We therefore had a very romantic candel lit dinner - missing Soph though...
The bus ride, with the barge river crossing (the bus was carried across a part of the lake on nothing but a foot high barge in very rough
water - we really though it wouldnt make it!) , across the Altiplano (a plain at 4000m with the 6,500m Cordillera Real in the back ground) and down into the La Paz bowl was all spectacular and something I'll never forget....
So with only 2.5 weeks left its all go for the rest of the trip - I'll let you know how it goes.....
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Henry
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Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday!! SOunds like it was an interesting one. It looks amazing you lucky things! Are you still in La Paz...because I have a very good friend who lives there who would surely hook you up...you would get on well....let me know asap!! I want to know more about dune riding...looks sick! Love to Lizzie and speak soon. H