Peru - hiking and drinking in high altitude...

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Due to our differing flight itineraries, Alex made his way to Peru on a direct flight to Lima whilst the rest of us had a less convenient and eco-friendly journey, via Miami! This gave Alex an eight hour headstart on us, armed with intructions to ensure our booking with Loki hostel, and arrange an airport pickup given that we got in around midnight. Perfect. However, on arrival we couldn't find our lift anywhere, although there was a suspicious looking random local man holding a sign saying 'David-Rhys Totter.' Given that there were literally hundreds of these people we took it as a mild coincidence. So we enquired with Loki hostel if an Alex had made a booking for four people, and when they confirmed yes we made our way from the airport to the hostel and were kindly shown to our room. Only to discover a totally different Alex! Nightmare. Fortunately we were able to access an email from Alex informing us of a whole change of plan - namely that he'd organised some guy to meet us with a sign saying 'David, Rhys and Potter'! It wasn't our finest hour of communication and common sense, but we were eventually re-united in another hostel nearby by about 1am!

Lima had not come highly recommended to us as a travellers destination so we wasted no time in making our way south that afternoon to a town called Huachachina, a few km out from Ica. Huachachina has become very popular stop for travellers after the invention of 'sand-boarding' on its vast range of surrounding sand dunes. That had to wait for the next day however, so we decided to spend the evening sampling the Peruvian beers in our hostel. At around midnight the night seemed to be coming to an end until one of the locals who had spent the last few hours with a beer firmly in his hand declared himself in fact to be a taxi driver; and would take us to the nearby club, in Ica, for a mere 70p all-in! We decided to take him up on the offer (though I'm sure we shouldn't have) and had a great night out, mixing it up with the locals. Not only did our taxi man drive us there, he stayed with us in the club all night and drove us home when it closed! He didn't even charge us in the end!

So after our night out in Ica we were ready for our much-anticipated sand boarding trip. We were taken out onto the dunes in a big sand buggy and the driver did his best to un-nerve us as he headed straight down the slopes at full throttle. He would then drop us at the top of the dune and wait for us at the bottom before taking us to a new set of 'slopes.' It was great fun, but we certainly didn't disguise the fact that it was our first time on a sand board! We all took some less than graceful tumbles, Pots being the only one to complete a run without falling - however, he had resorted to lying on his front and using the board as a sledge...

Following sand boarding, we continued our progress south to the city of Arequipa. The city, located on the edge of the Andes, was our first taste of the cold weather we would experience for the next few weeks. On the upside though, it was also the cheapest place yet and across town we could pick up a two-course menu, with drink, for 2.5 soles...just 45 pence! So that took care of lunch and dinner for the whole time we spent there (despite the dubious quality and more importantly origin of the meat!) and with a free breakfast at the hostel, we were laughing. It was also now a full eight weeks of travelling so David and Rhys finally decided it was time to take on a local hair cut. After shopping around for some time, we found our price at little over a pound and with our best Spanish (awful) tried to explain what we wanted. However, as expected, the ladies had other plans and decided to go for broke! Needless to say, we might as well have asked for the clippers all over. Five weeks later and we are just getting back to normality!

Arequipa is famed with tourists for its neighbouring canyon country, boasting the two deepest canyons in the world. A number of organised treks and tours were offered to us, but with limited time at our disposal we decided on the DIY option. We even took a friend, Boris, who after hearing our plans (he must have assumed we were experienced trekkers) decided to join us. So we all took a worn-out bus to Cabanaconde, located at 3300m at the top of the Colca Canyon. By the time we began our descent into the canyon it was 12.30pm which gave us only six hours until dark...no problem! The descent certainly got our hearts pumping, but it was fairly comfortable and we made it down to the fast-flowing river at the bottom in just over 2 and a half hours. We had though trekked down to 2100m, some 1200m below our starting and thus finishing point. We quickly discovered how much harder it was to climb up when we needed a break every ten minutes! A painful experience followed, but credit to all of us we managed to get to the top before dark. It was undoubtedly one of the most satisfying experiences yet when we finally reached the summit and arrived back in Cabanaconde. Our plan for the evening was to stay in the nearby Chivay, for which we needed to catch a 9pm bus. This gave us a few hours to kill and amazingly we were able to persuade a local hostel and restaurant owner to lend us his hot shower in return for us eating at his restaurant. So after dinner and huddling around his fire we took the bus to Chivay and found a place to stay. The next morning we got our ultimate reward in the local hot springs set overlooking the mountains and the valley. Bliss! After several hours in the springs we returned to Arequipa ready for our overnight bus to Cusco.

We arrived in Cusco the requisite four days in advance of our pre-booked Inca trail, the plan being to acclimatise to the high altitude before we set off. Thus we spent the next three nights getting trollied in the awesome Loki hostel before heading into town to Mama Africa's - one of the liveliest clubs we've found so far on our travels. So after three evenings of the standard combination of rogue spirits, local beer and obligatory drinking games, we all set our alarms for 4am the next morning to begin the 42km Inca Trail...

We woke up the next morning (with colds and coughs all round, ideal) to find that the two Brazilian girls on our trail had had to pull out due to altitude sickness. Whilst this was somewhat of a blow to us, it did mean the tour group was now reduced to just eight poeple - swings and roundabouts. We were joined by an American couple and two guys form London, not to mention an army of local Peruvians! For just the eight paying guests, the group included eleven porters, a chef and two guides! We strapped ourselves in for a relaxing, luxury, 5 star four days. In actual fact, this was not too far from the truth. The first day was admittedly pretty hard going, not helped by our insistence to save a few pennies and carry the 50 litre rucksacks we hired ourselves! The second morning was equally tough as we climbed to over 4200m, but after the initial ascents the majority of our walking was relatively easy going and we were free to enjoy the spectacular scenery, not to mention the hospitality of our Peruvian porters. Every day, by the time we arrived at our camping spot for the night, the porters had already set up our tents, boiled water for refreshments and even began preparations for some of the most delicious food we'd had in Peru. We were treated to three courses every evening, in unprecedentedly large portions that even us four fat boys sometimes struggled to finish! The climax of the four day trail was the final morning climb to Machu Piccu - the so-called lost city of the Incas. It was of course of particular interest to Alex and David given their extensive knowledge of the Inca civilization from their degree (!). Our good friends Ben and Dan kindly suggested that we wake up earlier than usual in order to beat the hordes of tourists and enjoy the famous city in all its glory. Thus, we crawled out of bed at 3.30am and literally ran for over an hour before reaching the Sungate and the famous view from above Machu Piccu with not a soul in sight! Well worth it.

After the exertions of the four days with no shower and little sleep, we headed back to Cusco contented but nevertheless pretty filthy and in need of some good rest. We managed a night anyway, before meeting up with the boys and girls from our group the following day for another boomer in Mama Africa's! By the end of January we were all very sad to leave Peru and Cusco after what had arguably been some of our best experiences so far. No doubt the cost of living skewed our perspective somewhat; but the quality of hiking, drinking and activities in general we hoped would set the tone for the rest of South America. Bolivia next...

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Photos

Hiking
Unfair representation