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South America » Peru » Lima » Lima » Miraflores
May 12th 2010
Published: May 29th 2010
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1: Dust yourself off and try again 27 secs
Our first impression of Peru was definitely not what we expected. As we drove down the west coast, we were greeted with vistas of beautiful white sandy beaches as far as the eyes could see. When we reached the small surfers' town of Mancora, we were really treated well, with the cheapest accommodation so far in South America and delicious seafood, sold for next to nothing. One of Peru's traditional dishes is called Ceviche. This is a mix of raw fish, marinated in lime juice and chili and served with raw onions and roasted nuts - we couldn't get enough. It was simply delicious.
We were quick to get back out on our boards and practice the surfing skills that we'd learned in Bali. It was the perfect welcome to Peru.
From Mancora, we took a twenty one hour bus ride to Lima, where we stayed for a few days in the suburb of Miraflores. Up to this, the two of us have been so blessed with our health, travelling around for ten months like snails, with our homes on our backs and barely an ailment to report. I’m not quite sure what changed in our diets (poosibly the raw fish) but it certainly did affect our tummies. We were struck down for two days, barely leaving the hostel. Poor Paulo had a fever too and was absolutely miserable.
Once we were feeling better, we got on the road again, this time towards the town of Huacachina, but unfortunately luck didn't seem to be on our side that week; Paulo’s day pack was stolen from the bus, along with our passports! As soon as we realised what had happened, (four hours into our journey), we alerted the staff on the bus, at which point three passengers said that they had seen a man pull the bag behind us and get off the bus not long before. With that, we got off and took the return bus to where the man allegedly was. I'm not sure what we expected to find there but none the less we searched the bins and the toilets in the hope that he had discarded the passports; we didn't care about the rest. With no joy, we caught the next bus back to Lima to make a statement and get a police report so that we could start the process of getting new passports with our consulates.
In fairness, everybody was super helpful and efficient, if a little unprofessional - I didn't even get need to show any ID or prove who I was; I just filled out a form, coughed up the cash and played the waiting game. Instead of hanging around Lima while this "minor glitch" in our travels was being sorted, we decided to continue on with our plans.
We caught a bus going south to Huacachina to try out a bit of sand boarding. As it turned out, this was just what we needed, a little bit of adrenaline to clear our minds. The town was tiny, nothing more than a lake surrounded by massive sand dunes all around. We signed up for a dune buggy/sand boarding trip and zoomed off up high dunes and sped down the steep declines. The sand boarding was hilarious. We started off on the small dunes for some practice runs before moving onto the big ones, possibly biting off a little more than we could chew. Like the surfing, it baffled us how we could have so much fun and laugh so hard while, at the same time, get bashed and bruised as we tried to board down the high dunes like pros. It wasn't until the following morning that we realised the extent of our injuries, but with the news of Paulo's passport being ready in Lima, we hobbled on.
We stopped off briefly in Pisco, a tiny little run down town on our way back up to Lima. The sole purpose of this stop was to visit what are known in Peru as "the poor man's Galapagos islands". The trip was gorgeous. We visited some of the offshore islands and sailed through their arches and caves. The wildlife was beautiful. We saw the endangered Humboldt penguins, pelicans, dolphins, giant sea lions and thousands of birds. The smell on the other hand was pretty disgusting, from all the birds depositing their waste; we were very lucky not to get caught in their line of fire!
Back up in Lima, Paulo got his new passport, I received a temporary travel document, we sorted our stamps out with immigration and were ready to move on to Peru part deux!
We departed Lima (for the last time) in style, on a fancy bus with leather reclining seats. The lovely staff on the bus served us up dinner (and dessert) and breakfast at 6am, as we watched English subtitled movies. We got off on the right foot and arrived in Arequipa full of the joys.
Arequipa is a beautiful city with fabulous buildings made from white volcanic rock and lots of little side streets to get lost in. After wandering around for the morning, we stumbled upon a rooftop restaurant overlooking the surrounding snow capped volcanoes, perfect for a typical Peruvian dish of guinea pig cooked on hot stones! Contrary to popular belief, this meat is delicious, juicy and tender. Paulo's only concern was that the guinea pig hadn't reached full maturity although that concern, I am sure, was more for his own tummy than for the welfare of the animal.
The following day we set off in search of the incredible Condors in the Colca Canyon, one of the deepest canyons in the world. Although we spent a long time on the bus, the scenery was breathtaking. We drove through a national park and saw loads of wildlife until we reached the provincial capital of Chivay where we based ourselves for the night. In the evening, we hit the local hot baths for a soak. These were like no others we'd visited before. As we relaxed in the pools, women served up beers and cocktails while others offered massages! The service would match that of any posh hotel! Our night was topped off with an all singing all dancing Peruvian culture show. It sure kept us entertained.
The endangered Condors fly through the Colca Canyon early in the morning when there is a thermal current present. Hoping to see these massive creatures, we got up at 5am and made our way to the view point. We weren't waiting long before our first sighting and within an hour there were eight Condors circling the top of the canyon. It was awesome and well worth the journey. We were ready for our next adventure and set off to Cuzco to find it.
Cusco is definitely our favourite South American city so far. It has it all. The centre is so compact and easy to explore on foot, with several plazas, huge churches and tiny cobble stoned lanes leading off in every direction. We spent our first few days here wandering around and acclimatising. We visited the hostel where, three and a half years previous, Caoimhe had fallen two stories, through a glass roof and somehow landed on a couch without damage. To be honest it was a little eerie and I felt very lucky that I wasn't there laying flowers!
Cusco offered some really cool hostels, so we booked into one of the larger ones to get a good experience from this party town. It was here we met up with Daragh, a guy we got to know in Colombia, partied with in Ecuador and continued on the fun with in Peru. The three of us set off together on the Jungle Inca Trail to Machu Picchu.
We couldn't have been happier with our choice of tour. Our group was fantastic and we all gelled straight away. We mounted our bikes ready for our forty kilometer cycle on day one and Daragh and Paulo set off like Stephen Roche and Sean Kelly down the twisting mountain roads. It was an awesome way to start our journey to Machu Picchu. We reached our first town of Santa Maria in the early afternoon and with little to keep us entertained, we bonded with our new friends over a few beers and pisco sours, just the ticket!
Day two kicked off at the crack of dawn with a twenty two kilometer hike up the mountains, down the valley and through the jungle, along original Inca trails. It was a long day but so much fun. We were kept well entertained by Ian, the hilarious Ozzie and Melanie and Polly, two gorgeous girls from England. Super fit Daragh lead the way and we arrived at our destination of Santa Theresa by night fall, in time for another few ´cervezas´ and pisco sours for some more 'team building'.
We woke up on day three with tired, aching muscles and started on our journey on a cable car across the river. Although the sixteen kilometer trek was quite an easy hike along train tracks, the two previous days were beginning to catch up on us and burning blisters were starting to form. The hot springs in Aguas Calientes were just what we needed when we reached our hostel, and so as not to break tradition, we headed out into town together for dinner.
Day four was upon us and although this was the day we had been looking forward to for weeks, I can tell you that when the alarm went off at 3.30am, the excitement was not shining through. Poor Ian had come down with a serious tummy bug during the night and couldn't make it up which put a big damper on the morning. But none the less we set off on our hike in complete darkness to climb the seventeen hundred steps to Machu Picchu. Arriving before the gates had been opened, before the bus loads of people had arrived, made our first images of the lost Inca city quite special. The weather was beautiful. We watched the sun rise burning the mist from the mountains, leaving clear blue skies for our tour around the ruins.
Our final challenge was the climb to the summit of Wayne Picchu, a further one thousand steps, for some spectacular aerial views of Mach Picchu and it was well worth the effort. We sat up there for a couple of hours, taking it all in. After a good eight hours we were ready to head back to the hostel. It was at this point that our bodies gave in. They buckled and the aches and pains began to emerge from every muscle in our bodies. It probably took us longer to walk back down the steps than it had to climb up.
Once back in Cusco I was pretty much bed ridden for the days that followed, with a serious dose of the 'man flu', but luckily I had Doctor Paulo to give me all the TLC I needed and nurse me back to health before departing to our final Peruvian destination of Puno, to visit the floating reed islands on Lake Titicaca.
This was a pretty amazing experience, seeing how over three thousand people live their simple lives on sixty different artificial islands. And with that, we packed up once again to cross yet another border, this time into Bolivia.


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