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Published: December 15th 2005
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Alpaca
Looks cute but tried to eat everything, including clothes! After the excitement of the jungle we spent a quiet couple of days in Baños, only visiting the El Pailon del Diablo waterfall, before heading to the colonial city of Cuenca. This is a beautiful city, lovely buildings and nice shops. We visited the Pumapungo museum and Inca ruins. Nothing too exciting apart from the section devoted to the ‘Headshrinkers’ - tribes in the Amazon who used to remove and shrink the heads of their enemies in order to gain their power and appease their gods. There were real shrunken heads on show!
Next we left Ecuador and headed into Peru via Tumbes, a crazy border town, to the beach resort of Punta Sal. We were amazed at how barren the Peruvian coast line is, hardly a plant in sight. Punta Sal was a great place, miles of deserted golden sand. We stayed there a couple of days during which time we went fishing for Red Snapper in a rowing boat with a little old man. We ended up catching Red and yellow snapper, moray eels, Sergeant Major and nearly and octopus. We also saw turtles and barracudas, attracted by Rose puking up over the side of the boat.
From Punta Sal we continued down the coast of Peru, still a desert, passing through fishing towns to Huanchaco, another beach resort. The fishermen here have crazy boats made of reeds which they surf in on after a heavy morning fishing. We visited two interesting ruins, the Chimu cities of Chan Chan and the Moche’s Temple Of The Moon. Chan Chan was a city built out of mud that the Inca’s had to siege for 10 years before it fell, the walls were pretty big…
After Hunachaco we headed for the big smoke - Lima. That place is huge. Everyone rushes everywhere and the roads are insane. We spent most of our time in Miraflores, the posh shopping suburb which was like the Trafford Centre but outdoors. We weren’t really that impressed with Lima, too big and too dirty.
Next we headed to Paracas National Park. We stayed on a deserted beach where there was an amazing sunset. We took a boat trip to the Ballestas Islands where we saw sea lions, thousands of birds, vultures and Humbold Penguins, which are very rare. There are so many birds on these islands that the Peruvian government collects the guano
(poo)every four years from the islands. It can get up to 1 metre deep by then and sells at $800 a tonne!
From the islands we headed to Huacachino - an oasis on the edge of the Ica desert. We took dune buggies into the desert and went sandboarding in the afternoon before camping out in the desert where our guides cooked a barbeque and served Peru Libres (Pisco and Coke) which got stronger and stronger. The trip to the desert was one of the best things we’ve done, amazing fun. It was only when we got back we were told that ‘no insurance company in the world would insure you for that’ ahh well, we survived.
The next day we traveled to Nasca to see their famous lines. We booked flights over the lines. Half and hour later and $100 lighter we were slightly disappointed. They appeared tiny and were more often than not mixed up with other random lines. And Rose Puked. Everywhere. More Than Once. She's handling her travel sickness really well!
After Nasca we went to Puerto Inca, the old port for the Inca empire. Not much remains now but piles of stones
Chimborazo
Highest volcano in Ecuador and the odd bone - possibly human. Arequipa was our next stop and our first at altitude. Arequipa is like the Quenca of Peru, a lovely place shadowed by the active volcano El Misti. We visited the amazing Santa Catalina convent where nuns still live. It’s all painted red, blue and white. Anyone who goes there is a budding David Bailey. We also saw Juanita, the frozen Inca mummy, so well preserved that they know exactly what she ate before she died. Most important of all, we had the best meal yet - Beef, Alpaca and Llama on a sizzling piece of stone.
From Arequipa we headed higher still to the Colca Canyon and Chivay. The Colca Canyon is the deepest canyon in the world (possibly, our guide said it was measured last week by a team of Poles who said is might be, it is over 3000m deep at one point) and home to Andean Condors. These are seriously big birds, 1m high with a wing-span of 3m. We had to get up at silly o’clock to get to the viewing point soon after dawn but it was worth it. They flew within 10m of us although the
photos didn’t do it justice.
The next day we drove to Cusco which is where we are now. We set off trekking tomorrow and go to Maccu Pichu in four days.
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