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Published: September 1st 2007
Quito Old Town at night
Our hostel had an awesome view from the bar!Arriving into Santiago in the early hours of the morning, Claire decided straight away that she did not like South America as she could not speak the language (Spanish) and no-one seemed to speak any English! In contrast Sam's mind was made up five minutes after leaving the airport, when the taxi driver and Sam started discussing various football players using a combination of sign language and Sam's limited Spanish.
We stayed in Santiago in the area aptly named the “London quarter” for a day and a half and spent most of that time sleeping and trying to get over the jet lag (as it was a ridiculously long flight from Auckland to Santiago!). Soon we were back at the airport and onto our flight to Quito, Ecuador. Arriving late at night we instantly loved our hostel for its amazing bar with a view of Quito old town. We spent some time exploring Quito’s beautiful old town, taking in the sights of the Monastery of San Francisco and the Church of El Sagrario. It was exhausting work going up and down all the hills, especially with our first taste of altitude sickness. Quito is around 3000m above sea level.
The Cathedral roof in Quito
Somewhat dangerous to get to the top! We also risked our lives, all in the name of sightseeing (fools that we are!) by climbing up some very old and rickety ladders and standing on platforms made of chicken wire (we kid you not!) to see the stunning views from the top of the Basilica del Voto Nacional, a huge cathedral. We also got to see another awesome sight, El Panecillo - Virgen de Quito (huge statue of the Virgin Mary), which overlooks the old town.
The next challenge was to book ourselves a bus trip to our next destination of Baños using our very limited Spanish! Sam did a great job though only to find out that the lady spoke fluent English. She found it very funny listening to our attempts... practice is supposed to make perfect right!
Baños (this is not the town of toilets for those of you that can speak Spanish!) is famous for its volcano, the Tungurahua volcano, which erupted on July 14th and August 16th 2006 destroying several small villages and wiping out all roads into and out of town, some had only just opened again recently and we could see a lot of the lava pathways from
the bus! Whilst we were in Baños we visited the other famous sight, the Piscine de la Virgen, also known as the volcanic hot baths, along with most of the village it seemed! Another interesting sight in Baños is all the local sweet shops making huge stringy slabs of taffy, which they constantly stretch out on a hook on the wall and give you samples as you pass by! Of course we visited these streets a few times during our stay, just to check we had not missed anything out!
After Baños we headed out by local bus again (Spanish definitely improving) to Riobamba, during the journey we found out that the Tungurahua volcano had actually had a minor eruption the night before and we had slept through the whole thing (Claire was of course relived to be alive, but Sam was gutted we'd missed the excitement!).
Riobamba was a very chilled out town with many beautiful old colonial buildings but not much else, so after one night we decided to a get a night bus out and start our very long journey to Peru. Our first bus took us overnight to Tumbes, where we grabbed
some quick breakfast and then it was onto another bus to Machala, which happened to be the banana capitol of the world… but could we buy any bananas there…could we heck! We were rather hungry after all the traveling and had to rush straight onto another local bus to cross the boarder into Peru. Then it was on to another night bus to Trujilo and then on to a final bus to Lima (phew!). Although these bus journeys sound like a burden, most of them were quite entertaining, especially when we got to play bingo on one of them….so funny and it helped us to practice our Spanish numbers. The security set-up for the buses was also bizarre, with some companies finger printing us and it was also quite common for us to be videoed as we got onto the bus - not sure this will catch on with National Express though!
Our hostel in Lima was fantastic, as it was full of random paintings, sculptures and Sam’s favourite….three giant live tortoises! Watch out for your toes at breakfast time! Lima was full of beautiful buildings and we managed to visit a couple of these, La Catedral de
Lima and the San Fransisco Monastery and catacombs (where we somehow managed to get ourselves on a Spanish speaking tour and did not understand a word, much to the amusement of others!) and visit the markets at Miraflores for some retail therapy and finger puppet shopping for Sam. The finger puppets are knitted by old ladies and sold by little children throughout South America and it is a challenge between backpackers to collect the superheros - of course Sam had to get involved! We also managed to sample the local beverage called Pisco Sour in some yummy but rather sour Machu Picchu cocktails, just trying to immerse ourselves in the local culture!
After Lima we flew out to Cusco to start our Inca adventure! Cusco was beautiful and we loved every minute of our time there. The city is 3,360m above sea level, is full of Inca history and still has many Inca buildings remaining in tact, including the Inca city wall and the nearby Sacred Valley, which consists of 3 ancient Inca sites. We had booked on to do the Inca Trail and so spent a day trying to acclimatise to the high altitude and sampling the
Breakfast with friends at Hostel Espana in Lima
Toes, shoes and socks beware these things bite! western culinary delights of Jack’s Café (frequented by Cameron Diaz on her travels, Claire was gutted that we missed seeing her there by a few weeks, not as gutted as Sam though!).
Soon we were packing our bags and getting up at the crack of dawn to start the Inca trail. After stopping in a small village for last minute supplies (like coca leaves - yes that is what cocaine is made from - we used it purely for medicinal purposes though, it is supposed to be good for treating altitude sickness!). Just before starting the trail we met our 20+ porters (in Quechuan the language of the Inca's they are called Cheskis) that were going to carry all our our tents and food for the next 4 days! We decided to pay for a Cheski to carry our sleeping bags, as we knew it was going to be hard enough trekking with just small packs at the high altitude on the trail. Our Cheskis were amazing as they worked so hard and were always smiling and laughing even though they were carrying 25kg of weight each (the legal maximum amount that they are allowed to carry). Each
day the Cheskis would have our tents in place when we arrived at our camp site and then they would prepare amazing meals for us in the middle of no-where, including a birthday cake for someone in our group. The following morning they would take down our tents and then run, yes run past us on the trail to get ready for our lunch stop! We were totally in awe of these people! We also had two amazing guides, Saul and Gilbert who kept everyone going right till the end and gave us lots of great talks about the history of the Incas and pointed out beautiful wild plants (including orchids) and even the odd hummingbird along the way.
The Inca trail is only 49.5km long but the highest peak known as Dead Womans Pass is 4200m high and both of us were hit quite badly with altitude sickness. For Sam this meant little or no sleep over the whole trek and for poor Claire it meant a bad stomach bug, headaches, nausea and again little sleep. Despite all of this, it was an incredible expedition with a great group of people. As well as Machu Picchu, the
Inca trail passes by many other Inca ruins, some almost as stunning as Machu Picchu. On our fourth and final morning we started walking at 4am in the pitch black with our Petzl headlamps for light and it was pouring down with rain (now we realized why we had been carrying our waterproof trousers around with us for months!). After what seemed like a never ending hike for Claire, we reached the breath taking sight of Machu Picchu at around 6am. Our first glimpse through the clouds and rain was awesome. Our guides then took us on a tour of the ruins (which has recently been voted one of the modern wonders of the world - well deserved!). Our guide explained why the Spanish never discovered Machu Picchu and about the tombs and how some construction was never finished, all fascinating stuff. After the tour Claire headed back down the mountain as she was still rather ill and Sam stayed on as he had his heart set on trekking another mountain called Huayna Picchu, which overlooked Machu Picchu. The clouds finally cleared and Sam got a perfect view of the ancient ruins from the top of the mountain.
At the top of Dead Womens Pass on the Inca Trail
"I don't know why Sam is holding a sword either" tuts Claire We returned to Cusco to relax and recuperate for a few days. As we were getting Inca ruin withdrawal symptoms we visited one of the ruins of the Sacred Valley, Sacsayhuaman, a huge stone structure. Also while we were back in Cusco one of the many festivals was being celebrated in the main square, this meant that thousands of locals dressed up in very colourful (and weird) traditional costumes to perform numerous dances.
We were sad to leave Cusco but we had something to look forward to, yes another night bus! We headed to Arequipa, the second largest city in Peru, where we were met at 5am by one of the lovely sisters that ran the guest house we'd booked. These two sisters were very sweet and got rather concerned when we had not left our room by 2pm (Claire still rather ill!) and so they sent in a Dutch lady who could speak English to check on us! We finally ventured out to explore and managed to visit ”Juanita” the 500 year old ice maiden who was being stored at a museum that contained other frozen Inca boy and girl human sacrifices to the mountain gods of
the Ampato volcano, discovered by archaeologists. This all sounds rather grim but Claire found it all very interesting (must be the mad scientist in her!).
After our frozen mummy experience we went on to see something even spookier, a candle-lit tour of Covento de Santa Catalina, a huge old convent dating back to 1579, which covered 20,000 square meters and at one time housed 450 nuns, who were secluded for life! The convent was opened as a museum in 1970 and it was rather scary walking round it deserted at night with the only light from a few candles.
Whilst in Arequipa we had booked onto a two-day tour of the famous Colca Canyon, supposedly the world’s deepest canyon. The journey to the canyon also takes you to 5000m so we got to experience another level of altitude (oh dear). Although we were not able to trek into the canyon as planned, but we did manage to see the Andean Condors gliding along on the rising thermal air at Cruz del Condor... an amazing sight! Also during this trip we got the chance to stay with a local family for the night, we were the only
ones to do this on our tour, the rest of the group stayed in a hotel and they thought we were mad when they picked us up the next morning from the middle of no-where! The family were lovely but spoke no English, which was interesting at times! They took us to some local hot springs where we played with their young daughter. All was going well with her while Sam was impressing her with his magic tricks (if you can call hiding things behind your back magic, but she loved it!), but then for some reason her affections changed and she kept giving him evil looks for the rest of the night, much to Claire’s amusement and Sam’s bewilderment!
Soon we were back on another night bus (well it does save a nights accommodation…) to Nazca, to visit the famous Nazca lines. The lines are thought to be around 2000 years old and are a range of geometrical figures, trapezoids, triangles and also figures that look like hummingbirds, a monkey, an astronaut and various other patterns. They were discovered by the American scientist Paul Kosok in 1939 on the rocky area of Pampa San Jose. The lines
have created much interest with numerous ideas being suggested as to the purpose of these lines, such as irrigation lines, drawings by Aliens, used by ancient astronomers or some kind of religious use. No-one really knows who drew them and why they are there, but they are an awesome spectacle to behold!
We arrived in Nazca at 4am and thankfully a man from the bus station took pity on us and let us crash out in the waiting room until morning. We were woken by random locals bombarding us with offers of cheap flights over the lines. After a little haggling we booked our trip and were driven to our plane. After long delays we eventually boarded the plane, just the two of us, a French guy and the pilot - and then it was full! Feeling a little bit nervous due to the size of the plane, but before we knew it we were up in the air and it was too late to back out! We had an amazing flight - just like a rollercoaster ride with the pilot whipping the plane from left to right so we all got clear and fantastic views of the
This better be worth it!!
On the last day of the Inca Trail - you get up at 4am. lines, which looked exactly like they do in the pictures we had seen - crazy stuff! We managed to see loads of trapezoids, triangles, circles, spirals, the Hummingbird, the Astronaut, 3 people, hands, stars, the Monkey and the Condor.
Have a look at it from the sky on Google Earth:
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&t=k&om=1&ll=-14.710637,-75.175152&spn=0.072889,0.11673&z=13
The bizarreness of this adventure did not stop here, just after our flight we were approached by a TV crew who were filming a documentary about the lines for the Mexican Discovery Channel. This lead to much embarrassment and pleading by Claire against doing the interview, possibly due to no sleep and hours of traveling, so the last thing she wanted was to go on TV, but Sam signed us straight up. So if you are ever in Mexico and just happen to be watching the Discovery channel... well you never know!
After the excitement of the Nazca lines and the adrenaline rush of the flight/rollercoaster ride it was back on the bus to return to Lima to catch our flight to... well you will have to wait for the next blog!
We both loved Ecuador and Peru, both were so beautiful and
the people could not have been more welcoming. We wished we had had longer there to explore more and we will definitely be back again in the future.
Love to you all.
The Eternal Travelers (Claire & Sam).
p.s. lots of photos to see - if you click next at the bottom you get another 20 photos.
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Seems if you decide to settle around London, you'll have to live on or near a nightbus route so you feel at home!! Brings to life much of what you told us about while we were together in the US in July......but that part of the journey is for a much later edition of your blog - by Christmas maybe?? Claire - you do look really ill on Macchu Picchu but we think it may actually have been caused by waking up next to the bearded wonder!! We always thought Sasquatch lived in Oregon!