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Published: August 7th 2007
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Lima- Miraflores
We arrived exhausted in Lima, still half jetlagged and half due to an early flight so our first day was spent sleeping mostly! We stayed in a suburb of lima called Miraflores as it is safer and there is a beach. The beach is pretty useless as the sun rarely comes out of the clouds!!its nice along the front though.
Lima itself is huge , polluted and dangerous at night. Miraflores is quite touristy with lots of cafes restaurants and shops so it was good. We were there when Macchu Picchu was named one of the new 7 wonders so there were lots of celebrations and fireworks. The peruvians seem really friendly which is good, they love to eat guinea pigs though which is disgusting, its the most expensive item on all the menus!
On the way to Lima from Miraflores one day we caught a bus and got off it too early so ended up walking for a while, this nice lady came up to us and started babbling in spanish that we shouldnt walk there as its really dangerous lots of muggings etc, so we got out of there sharpish!They were selling huge knives
Lima -
miraflores
Lima - miraflores
A new branch of the eardley empire?
on stalls at the side of the road. We saw all the main sights in Lima even though the museums were mostly in spanish so I still know exactly what I did before about the spanish inquisition- next to nothing. Jon was more interested in the wax works of people being tortured, nice! There was also a monument to san martin which has a statue of madre patria underneath and she has a llama on her head, apparently it was made in spain and there are 2 meanings in spanish for the word llama, they wanted flames around her head but instead the plonkers put a llama on her head. Unbeliveably they didnt send it back so its up there!!We had a nice few days there but were keen to get away from another city so we went to the airport early on Sunday morning and managed to change our flights for free to get to Cusco earlier!
Cusco
Cusco is a beautiful city full of tourists ready for the Inca trail/machu picchu. We had a few days here earlier in the week when we booked all our
activities for the week. We have been around a few
Lima
Lima
Statue of san martin. The woman underneath has a lama on her head! Apparently a mix up over the spanish word for fire and lama being the same.
of the museums which werent very interesting really and we have seen some Inca stuff too. As we had an extra few days here we decided to go to Lake Titicaca. We got on a bus which did tours around sights along the way to Puno so we saw the church at andahuaylillas which is supposed to be the sistine chapel of South America, it was nice but not that nice. There was a bit too much gold leaf going on for my liking! We also went to Raqchi which has an Inca temple of Viracocha made with volcanic rock which was pretty impressive. The people in the highlands are so poor compared to the cities, they have houses made of mud bricks its terrible.The journey then took a turn for the worse as there are strikes in Peru this week so people have put rocks and dirt all along the roads blocking them. We saw an overturned coach at
the side of the road and loads of protesters wouldnt let the coach pass so we were stuck for an hour or more.
Puno
We arrived In Puno just before the strike started so we were able
Lima
Lima
Lima - where every car is a taxi.
to get a bit of the feel for the place normally. Its not as nice as Cusco and the people are much poorer. Our aim was to go onto Lake Titicaca and stay on one of the Islands, but we bottled staying over at the last minute. I think its because we have gone soft since Auckland! It was a good job really as Jon was quite ill that night , he is much better now though!dont panic
We took a boat onto the floating islands, these are islands made from reeds from the lake which have been inhabited by the uros people for 100s of years. They made them to get away from the violence of the peolples on the mainland, it seems a bit desperate to me! The islands were amazing bouncy yet crunchy underfoot, the reeds were about 1.5m deep. All the houses are made from the reeds too.
Its unbelieveable that they manage to live there.
Next we went to the island of Taquille on lake titicaca (the highest lake in the world apparently!3600m). The island is beautiful and the people there are really friendly and wear all the traditional clothes and live very
Lima
Lima
Cathedral in the plaza de armas (town square)
basic lives, it was real eye opener. They are quite poor though as they rely mostly on tourists for there money. we took some gifts for the kids pens and pencils etc. Jon gave this little boy some pencils and his face lit up so I started to cry, it made his day.
Today we have been on a bus all day to get back to cusco. It is the day after the strikes finished so we were 2 hours late setting off. Two women with 2 toddlers were taking 6 dead pigs in sacks on a coach, it was bizarre and disgusting at the same time- no hygiene here! Then we sat down and the window next to our was smashed,(the only one on the whole coach-typical!) protestors in the strikes had smashed it so they just taped it up with sellotape and
plastic, I couldnt believe it!
The journey was quite scary at times as there were lots of rocks blocking the roads and dirt had been moved into the road, at one point we had to get off the bus and walk past the dirt pile as the coach was scraping the floor!!We have arrived
Lima
Lima
Loads of these buses everywhere costsabout 30p to go just about anywhere.
safely now so there is no panic! Its Machu picchu tommorow, I cant wait!
Congratulations to Mike and Rachel on their Wedding day!
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Maria Jenkin
non-member comment
G,day Mate
Hi, Michelle and Jon ITs been very interesting to watch you journey,some of the places are amazing!!!!!Love and best wishes to you both and your families. From Frans MUM, and Mark. xxxx