Blog 9 - Our Hop through Peru

---

Our lead in to the Salkantay Trek to Machu Picchu was preceded by a bus hop through Peru, beginning in Lima and taking in the towns of Paracas, Huacachina (pronounced ‘wacacheena’), and Arequipa before finishing in Cusco.



Because of pre-booked tours, we gave ourselves only 1 night in Lima, which, as we discovered after arriving, was definitely not long enough. Lima is the culinary capital of South America, so unfortunately we missed out on testing this out, however Renee was quite excited about our need to do a little bit of clothes shopping. We successfully located a large open mall type shopping centre, Renee was excited. But then, less than 24 hours later, we were running down a main road in Lima chasing our bus, before finally getting on it ready for our adventure.



On our departure from Lima, we had the opportunity to stop at the Christo Pacifica, or the Peruvians version of the Rio's Redeemer statue. Looking out over the Pacific Ocean, and much smaller in size, we learnt that there were about a dozen of these around Peru, and was built as a gift from the outgoing president to the Peruvian people when he left office. On our way to our first overnight stop in Paracas, we stopped in at Chincha and learnt about the slave tunnels that existed under the main Chincha estate in the 18th century before arriving in Paracas mid-afternoon. Now our plan at this point was to do some individual exploring of the region. Mother Nature had other ideas, and we drove into a massive sand storm, known locally as sand rain. As a result, the town shut down except for one restaurant so we could get something to eat as we watched massive winds carry sand into every crack and crevice it could. The wind was almost cyclonic in strength and lasted the rest of the afternoon, so we enjoyed our arvo with passionfruit Pisco Sours, cerveza’s and a selection of Peruvian food, including Renee's first Peruvian ceviche (which was the best she has had! – to our friends – please note Renee will attempt to make this for dinner parties when we are back).



The following day, the sand storm had passed and we went to visit the Ballestas Islands, known as the Poor Man’s Galapagos, while also passing the Candlebra, a gigantic 100m x 60m 'indentation' in the side of the hill. A similar phenomenon to the Nazca lines, it is still unknown why and how it appeared, but is quite an impressive imprint to see. During our tour of the Ballestas Islands, we saw many many birds, sea lions and penguins. The number of birds were impressive, and their congregations on the cliff faces was difficult to fully photograph, but looked great. Although no Galapagos Islands, this was a pleasant experience and nice to spot penguins and just a few more sea lions. Following this tour, we went to check out the Paracas National Reserve, a region that covers both land and sea and was our first real taste of desert exploration since arriving in South America. We were disappointed to find out that there is a large population of flamingoes living in the area, which due to time constraints we couldn't visit close up, but could see off in the distance.



Leaving the Paracas Reserve, we headed for Huacachina. Unknown to us initially, but as we found out along the way (seriously, how did people travel before "The Lonely Planet" book or "Trip Advisor"?) Huacachina is literally an oasis in the desert, just outside Ica. Upon our arrival, we discovered a little town (population of about 220) surrounded by 150m high sand dunes. We then understood why it was strongly recommended to do the Dune Buggy and Sandboarding tour. And what a great afternoon we had in the buggy's and on the sandboards. Our driver worked for bigger tips by impressing us with what can only be described as "crazy scary fun driving", with screams of fear, joy and fun throughout. The sandboarding was a blast, with us taking on drops of about 50-60m, some almost straight down either sitting or laying down, or for the more experiences, standing up. It was an experience leaving us with the want for a few more extreme action adventures before we leave the continent! Dinner tonight deserves a mention, not necessarily for the great food (it was a simple bbq), but for the effort they went into making sure we had enough to drink, including a number of shots of the national drink, Pisco, following dinner. It seems we needed to practice 3 or 4 times to get the correct methodology before a quick game of 'quickest skull' to win another free drink. And why? Because the bar owner wants us to recommend more people go to Huacachina and his bar. Unfortunately, we forget the name of it, but if you head to Haucachina, go with Peru Hop bus company, and you are sure to end up there! The following day, before heading further south, we decided to walk up the main sand dune behind Huacachina, a 160m walk straight up a sand dune. The effort was worth it, as we were treated to a great view of Huacachina, Ica to the north behind the sand dunes, and the seemingly hundreds of kilometres of desert and sand dunes to the South.



Leaving Huacachina, we embarked on the overnight bus trip to Arequipa, stopping briefly to check out the Nazca Lines. Although the viewing tower only allowed us to see a couple of the lines, it was again an impressive sight to see these massive indentations in the ground depicting random shapes, beings, flora and animals. Who knows what purpose they really served, but as a tourist attraction, it works :-) The less said about the next 12 hours on the bus the better, but suffice to say we had experienced the overnighter bus in South America once, and would be changing a few plans to avoid them from now on.



Arriving in Arequipa at 5am posed a few potential problems, not the least not knowing where exactly we were (in Arequipa) when dropped off to our hostel and whether we could have a super early check-in and actually get some sleep. Thankfully, we got a room early, and after a few hours’ sleep, we spent the afternoon exploring Arequipa, in what was their Independence Day. If you saw it on Facebook, you would already know that early on in our exploration, we found our perfect hangout in Arequipa, the Chaqchao Bar. A delightful place that houses the Arequipa Beer Club beer and local chocolate and other chocolate based goodies. Pete could easily have spent the afternoon trialling as many of the 40 odd craft beers they made locally, but limited himself to a selection of 4 from the tap on this visit. Renee limited herself to sharing a chocolate brownie with Pete, an iced chocolate and then some treated herself to some chocolate based moisturizer, some cacao tea and some other little goodies. We plan on returning. We completed the obligatory free walking tour of the city, checking out restaurants, the llama and alpaca clothes shops and random historical sites. We had another early start the next morning, so after trialling alpaca for dinner, we prepared for our 4am pickup and a 2 day trek through the Colca Canyon.



Pete has participated in some extreme sporting and exercise events in the last 35 years (week long hockey tournaments, half marathon, 8 week gym challenges, 1 point origin wins for Queensland at Lang Park), but nothing has been as difficult (so far) or as satisfying when finished, as the 21klms we hiked over these 2 days down into, and then out of the Colca Canyon. (Yes, the Salkantay Trek is still to come in a week, but as of writing....) Some facts on the walk and the canyon; it is completed in 3 sections (Day 1 is the morning, 2^nd part is the afternoon and 3^rd (and most grueling) is the morning of Day 2); we trekked down 1200m on the first part covering about 8klms, down 200m covering about 7klms and finally 1400m up over 6klms. Leaving Arequipa, it took about 3 hours to get to the Colca Canyon region from Arequipa, along the way stopping to check out the condors sailing in the up drafts of the canyon. When we started our trek, and for most of the trek down to the bottom, we could see our end point, which helped with motivation as we could see the oasis we were to stay in overnight. Even with this motivation, it hurt a lot, with Renee proving she was truly becoming a Thompson, complaining about a sore right knee :-) The next morning, we began at 5am, trekking up the canyon. Now this was tough, because there was no reprieve from the ascent from start to finish, and while the average time is 3 hours up, we completed it in about 2.5. Despite being so tough, it was a real sense of achievement when completed. The afternoon then consisted of a trip to the hot springs (and yes, we paid to sit in pools that had temperatures of between 38 and 50 degrees), looked at Inca and pre-Inca farming ruins on the sides of the mountains, had an eagle perch itself on our arms, legs and Pete’s head and tried Colca Sour (similar to Pisco Sour, but a South American prickly pear type cactus is used instead of the lemon (which by Australian standards is a lime), viewed the breathtaking landscape and many volcanoes (including one that is active) from a peak of 4910m and stalked alpacas, llamas and vicuna in the national reserve.



Our final day in Arequipa arrived, and we had grand plans to visit the markets, maybe do some rafting, a cooking class, a Pisco sour class and visit the museum holding Juanita, the Inca Princess. After a well-deserved sleep-in, we went to have breakfast at the hostal, and Pete became very excited when bacon was featured on the menu. Pete got a little too excited, for what came out as 'bacon' was a piece of bacon about 5cm in length and 1cm wide. We then decided to hang around and do the 2 hour cooking class, and a 30 minute Pisco Sour tutorial. 4.5 hours later, we had finished both, and were very satisfied with our achievements. The cooking class was great fun, we learnt some new techniques, especially with using the wok over an open flame, and had a great lunch of Ensalada Pollo (a peruvian chicken salad consisting of a lot of potato, and very little of what we would call a salad), Lomo Salado, and then a quinoa pudding for desert. If you're lucky, you may get an invite to our South American night later in the year, or at least get to taste some of these fine cuisines. Our Pisco Sour class was education with alcohol, as we learnt about the history of Pisco, the different types and why Peruvians don't typically drink Pisco Sour, but typically drink it straight like a fine whisky. As it was much later than we expected to finish, we gave the markets a miss, and visited Juanita, the Inca Ice Princess. For those who haven't heard of her, Juanita was sacrificed at the top of Mt Ampato about 550 years ago, and was only discovered in 1995 when sufficient ice melted at the top, and her body toppled down and became exposed. And then by chance a group of scientists were trekking and exploring the area, actually investigating the volcanic activity, and found Juanita still wrapped up and intact. It was an eerie visit as we actually saw her frozen and preserved body, and a lot of other artefacts from her burial site. Because she had been frozen from death, her body and organs were preserved perfectly and has allowed scientists to make some amazing discoveries about the Inca people, and even identify her final meal, based on her stomach contents.



Following this visit, Pete needed to try a few more beers at the Arequipa Beer Club and upon our arrival, we met up with some of the group from our Colca Canyon Trek. Pete tried another few beers, including one which was an Imperial Ale from Sierra Andina with an alcohol content of 10.5%. Very easy to drink, and following a dodgy meal at a 'pub' with possibly the worst selection of music ever (it must have been ladies night of music, because every song was performed by a female artist from the 80's and 90's, and the majority were love songs. Shocking. Simply shocking), we ventured back to the Hotel to pack for our departure.



And so the following day, we had a long bus trip to Cusco with Peru Hop. This has been a great way to get around Peru, with towns we would never have looked at twice, and for most of the way, we kept meeting up with other travellers doing a similar trip through Peru. So until next time, after the Salkantay Trek and Machu Picchu, see ya - Pete and Renee

---

Photos

the Shopping Mall
We (Renee) got a little excited at the opportunity to do some shopping here.

Lima slums
People have been able to claim these lands after occupation for 15 continuous years.

Huacachina
The true oasis in the desert