Planes, Buses and Indian Fonzies

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So its blog time again to update you all on our travels (despite you all being naughty and not leaving any comments).

After leaving you last time in Aguas Calientes we enjoyed various trips around Cusco and the surrounding mountains including taking in such sites as the ruins at Ollantaytambo (where we were lucky enough to see the rare sight of a pair of condors soaring on the mountain thermals above the terraces). Other places such as the cathedral in Plaza de Armas were equally stunning boasting around 400 original pieces of colonial Spanish artwork and the gold and silver leaf altars. Though we also visited great historic sites as Pisac, Coricancha and Saqsaywaman (yes its usually pronounced as sexy woman by us ignorant gringos), we have to admit we were becoming slightly worn out with Inca terraces. Perhaps it would have been better if we´d seen them before Machu Picchu as to be completely honest the other things struggled to compare.

As it turned out thankfully it didn´t turn out to wear too thin, as after eight days around Cusco we took a local bus for the journey south east to Puno on the shores of Lake Titicaca (the highest navigable lake in the world - over 12000 feet above sea level). Before we talk about Puno and the lake though, we have to give special mention to the guide on the bus down there. An Indian Fonzie was our agreed best description as he blatantly invented Inca history and tried his smooth moves on the lady travellers (funnily enough one Brazilian woman in her 60´s seemed to fall for his dubious charms). He wasn´t all smiles, shades and shiny shoes though as he tried to swindle us out of our 60 soles change for the trip despite Viks asking numerous times, eventually Rik had to corner him in a dodgy local restaurant he´d shepherded us all into and virtually strong arm it out of him.

Arriving at Puno tired and cold we were haranged mercilessly by a taxi driver whos only line was "tres soles, anywhere!" It turned out we could walk round the corner to the hostel which we did, much to the disappointment of ´mister persistant. The hostel was basic (bloody cold with even colder shower) but nice and the family that ran it made up for any shortcomings. The next day we booked the bus tickets to Tacna (after a false start and the first attempt getting to the bus station with no money - the poor bike taxi bloke was knackered huffing and puffing our forgetful arses around). The following day we headed out onto the lake, the boats were not quite what we were used to zipping around in in Auckland and Sydney, given that it would have been quicker to swim. The first stop were at the floating islands, these were amazing islands made of reeds where a few families lived, even making their houses our of the reeds and they took us for a ride in their reed boat. Next up was Taquile island (a further 2 and half hours into the lake), which while nice, was still 12000 feet above sea level and very steep - the cliff walk back down to the harbour (500 or so steps) would have been much easier to fall down instead of walk.

Anyway that was pretty much all for Puno and after a couple of further nights shivering in the lovely people´s hostel, we set off to Tacna. As We´ve been sat here writing this blog entry we´ve been thinking of ways to describe this bus journey...hellish is the best we could come up with. 9 hours long, locked (yes locked) in a toiletless (it was also locked), overcrowded (we´re talking bus on the axels), stinking (seems Rik´s feet are NOT the worst smelling things in the world) bus with this crazy marching band music playing on repeat was a very cruel and unusual self inflicted torture we had visited upon ourselves. Still after 9 hours we safely arrived in the desert city of Tacna, despite the best efforts of our psychotic driver on the mountain passes and Rik´s bizarre altitude episode (hand and foot spasms).

Tacna is a place where holidaymakers don´t go. As a result we were the only white people there, but also another side effect is that its cheap as chips so we picked that as our staging and planning post for our invasion of Chile (as Arica is only a short hop over the border from Tacna). We stayed in Tacna for 11 days, but don´t really have much to say about the place. We got used to being stared at when we walked around. We found a cheap and fattening cake shop. We used the cheap phone place to make our international calls to friends and family. We lived in the hot shower.

When the time came to leave, things quickly deviated off plan (as they so often tend to when on the road). The train we planned on using to cross the border had randomly decided it wasn´t running on the day we needed it to (a scrap of paper nailed to the wall helpfully stated "Oh by the way, we´re not gonna run tomorrow" and was dated the day before. We remedied this upset by throwing ourselves in front of the nearest taxi (not difficult in Tacna where the taxis outnumber the people and there aren´t enough pavements to go round either) and scampered across town to the bus station where after being swamped by touts we found a bus to take us over the border. This relic of the 1950´s shuddered and groaned its overloaded way over the border stuffed to the gills with the usual herd of on board vendors gleefully shoving their wares in each others faces, and within a couple of hours we were in Arica.

The northern Chilean city of Arica is back on the tourist map, loved by surfers for its waves and disliked by Peruvians for its military history. Places of note here are the Catedral de San Marcos, designed by Gustaf Eiffel just before he started on that rusty eyesore the cheese-eaters love in Paris and the Morro de Arica which has an amazing view over the city and a decent museum (warning not in English if anyone fancies going there and can´t speako Spanisho) detailing the War of the Pacific, theres also a huge statue of Christ up there at the top.

With the memory of the nightmare run from Puno to Tacna still painfully fresh in our minds we decided to splash out on air passage for our next two legs of travel and booked cheap local flights for Arica to Antofagasta and Antofagasta to Santiago. The flight to Antofagasta was uneventful despite the pilot blatantly getting his licence out of a Cornflakes packet with his handbrake turns to get us on the runways and while parking and his landings comprising cutting off all power and letting gravity do the rest.

We´ve settled into our accommodation here in Antofagasta and have just chilled out but we will be exploring over the next few days, so that is all for now folks!

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