Advertisement
Published: September 20th 2018
Edit Blog Post
Peru was the first country in South America that really gave us an appreciation of how big this continent really is. We had travelled 15 hours, on three different buses to get from Banos across the border to Mancora a little town on the northwest coast of Peru but we were shocked to see just how little we had moved down the map of South America when we looked! Only a few days later we would be on an even longer overnight journey to Lima which would take 20 hours! It’s a bit ironic that the worst bit about travelling is the actual travelling itself!
We hadn’t seen the sea since Cartagena in Colombia so spending a few days in Mancora was really nice. There is definitely something about being by the water that makes everything feel better. It’s something we’ve both said every time we come across some water, perhaps because it reminds us of home? Our newly learnt Spanish was tested straight away as we looked for a hostel and we thought we had ourselves a bargain finding a double room for only 19 Peruvian Sol (about £5!) only to discover the guy had said actually said 90
(£20) when we spoke to a Dutch girl behind reception a little later on that day! We treated ourselves to one night in the room after the long bus journey before taking ourselves with our tails between our legs back to the dorm rooms for the next couple of nights.
After Mancora we headed to Lima. Neither of us were particularly thrilled about the city itself but we did see a statue of Paddington Bear, who was of course from Peru, and we did meet Amanda and Bailey, a couple from Manchester who we ended up getting along with really well and travelled with for quite a while. They had started their travels in Colombia and were going a similar route to us and it was nice to have some English speaking company again! From Lima we took the bus to Huacachina which was nothing more than a horseshoe shaped little town around a lagoon in the middle of a mass of surrounding sand dunes. We spent two nights there and the highlight was being driven around the dunes on a buggy at high speeds and then trying our hand at sand boarding. The buggy was like being on
a big roller coaster which was great fun and the sandboarding simply involved lying down a board of wood and sliding down the dunes! I tried to stand up and immediately fell backwards and woke up with a really stiff neck the following morning which gives you an idea of how good I was at it!
Somewhere along our trip we realised we would most likely be in Peru for the World Cup and with Peru taking part in the tournament for the first time since 1978 it felt like there wouldn’t be many better places to be for it. When we first arrived in the country you couldn’t walk far without seeing mannequins modelling the teams shirts being sold in shops and people walking around in them. We bought a couple when we got to Lima with Amanda and Bailey ready for the first game against Denmark that we watched in Arequipa. As we walked around trying to find the best place to watch it the locals were stopping us for pictures and honking their horns as they drove by as the excitement grew before kick off. Unimaginatively we ended up watching the game in an English pub
called the Red Lion but there was a good atmosphere all the same and it was a shame that Peru narrowly lost a game that they should have got at least a point from. Unfortunately they lost the next game against France (which we got to watch with Jess and Dan who we randomly bumped into having not seen them since saying goodbye to them in Salento in Colombia), meaning they wouldn’t get any further in the competition but the party atmosphere continued as fans from other countries would gather in bars wherever you were and support their teams. I will also never forget how quickly Julia started telling people she was from England after spending the last 9 months or so being from Germany after the shock exit of the reigning champions!
From Arequipa we did an overnight hike down to the bottom of the Colca Canyon and back up. It’s the world’s second deepest canyon and we were picked up at 3:30am to drive out to where we started the descent. The views across and down into the canyon were incredible and the walk down to the bottom where we would stay for the night was long
but fairly easy going. When you reach the bottom there was a hostel with a pool there waiting for us and this is where we would rest before setting off at 4am to start the climb back up to the top in the dark. It was at the bottom where we got chatting to two Dutch girls in our group who had met each other a few weeks before and after chatting about where they were from and asking if they knew this person or that realised that their mum’s were related and they were distant cousins despite never having met before! It just goes to show how small a world it can be at times!
One of the main reasons people travel to Peru is to go and see the famous Inca city Machu Picchu and we were no different however we weren’t too sure what we were going to make of it having heard stories of long queues, bad weather and crowding. We set off from Cusco with Amanda, Bailey and another couple on a four day Jungle Trek. On day 1 we went mountain biking and white water rafting, day 2 involved a little walk and
some thermal baths, day 3 started with zip lining and a walk along the railway to the town we would stay before heading up to Machu Picchu itself at 5am on day 4. There wasn’t much trekking involved, but I think that might have had something to do with our guide Jesus who turned up with bloodshot eyes and the mother of all hangovers on the first day as he had been out apparently celebrating his mother’s birthday the night before and wasn’t in the best physical condition for long walks! After all of the walks we’ve done so far we weren’t too disappointed and we could have chosen to do different routes that would have involved more walking but the activities over these few days were a welcome change! As for Machu Picchu we really enjoyed getting up there just in time to see the sun appear above the surrounding mountains and it was much bigger than I had pictured in my head. We spent a good couple of hours up there walking around exploring and it was nice to stop and take in the views of the city itself and the surrounding landscape. I couldn’t get my head
around the idea that someone had decided to build a city on top of a few mountains in the Andes and couldn’t help imagining how an architect would be laughed out of a board room if they were to suggest doing such a thing nowadays! Yes it was busy with people, but I don’t really know what people are expecting when they go to these places and are left disappointed by the large number of tourists, we’re tourists ourselves which makes it a bit of a weird thing to complain about!
Peru has been fun and I know Julia will miss the ceviche (seafood dish made with fresh raw fish cured in citrus juices such as lemon and lime) which she has eaten at every opportunity! We move onto Bolivia next having heard mixed reviews from people we’ve met along the way and it’s one of the poorer countries in South America so it will be interesting to see how it compares with the other countries we have been so far.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.359s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 11; qc: 48; dbt: 0.0505s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb