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Sorry for the 2 month delay in getting this written and online, we quite simply have been having too much fun doing better things! Better late than never.....
We caught a colectivo taxi across the border between Chile and Peru. It was fairly straight forward and our clocks went backwards by two hours due to the time difference. Tacna is a shabby looking border town, so the plan was to get a bus out asap - we were heading up to Cuzco to prepare for our Inca Trail trek. We arrived at the bus station with a Dutch couple we had shared the taxi with, we were approached by ticket touts, which usually we ignore, but for some silly reason we went with them this time. Bad move.... we had to pay for 2 taxi rides to find that the Cuzco bus seats were sold out and then pay a commission fee for this privilege! 30 minutes later we were back at the original bus station kicking ourselves for falling into the trap that we normally spot a mile off! We booked ourselves onto a 6 hour bus to the town of Arequipa, enjoyed a chicken sandwich breakfast at the
bus station (pleased with the fact it was much cheaper than Chile) and were soon on our way. The buses in Peru are not as good as the ones in Chile so it was a fairly hot and uncomfortable ride, made longer when we got held up in a local protest. The villages did not want the local mine to be reopened so were holding a demonstration which blocked the road and delayed us by an hour. We pulled into Arequipa bus station at about 5pm and decided to just keep going on our way up to Cuzco, so we booked onto a night bus for a few hours later. We found an internet cafe (22p per hour’s internet!!) and decided to eat at the bus station to save us having to venture far with our rucksacks. We tried to order dishes that have words in that we recognise (e.g. pollo = chicken), unfortunately this failed us as they were sold out of everything we knew, so we boldly pointed to something and ordered two of them. Ten minutes later, we were looking at a huge plate consisting of rice, chips, unidentified meat (UDI maybe llama?) a fried egg and
a huge banana covered in gravy! Interesting! We later found out that the banana was actually plantain but we found it very amusing (and quite disgusting) at the time! At 8.30pm we boarded our bus, each having to give our finger print and be filmed by a video camera as we boarded – that always fills you with encouragement about the safety of the bus! It was a long, windy, journey with many stops throughout the night which didn’t make for a good night’s sleep (our second in a row on a bus!) We finally pulled into Cuzco and caught a taxi to our hostel – 36 hours, 5 taxis, 4 buses later... we had made it! Hurray!
Cuzco is a beautiful old town which was once the capital of the mighty Inca Empire – it is South America’s oldest continuously inhabited city and is located at an altitude of 3300m. We had been well warned about altitude sickness and advised to eat light meals, avoid alcohol, drink lots of water and chew the coca leaves. Luckily we didn’t seem to suffer with this apart from getting out of breathe much quicker than normal when walking around. We managed
to find a hostel 2 blocks for the main square – the Plaza de Armas and it was cheap enough that we could afford our own private room! Luxury! Unfortunately the privacy was where the luxury ended, as it was freezing cold (often colder in the room than outside!) and there was only water available between 5am – 9am due to a problem at the dam outside of Cuzco and the water was normally between luke-warm and cold! Our first day we were walking around a bit like zombies, exhausted from our journey so we spent the day watching relaxing and watching films and went out for a really nice meal in the evening. We decided to ignore the alcohol advice and celebrate making it to Cuzco with a cocktail – a local speciality – a pisco sour. It was fairly strong and went right to our heads!! We decided to end the evening with a beer in Paddy O Flatherlys – the world’s highest Irish pub! (Very cultural of us!) Needless to say we slept very well that night!!
We had 2 more days in Cuzco before we started our Inca Trail. These were spent preparing by attending
our briefing meeting, doing some washing, walking around the many markets to purchase hats, gloves and socks, visiting the Qorikancha Inca Site to learn more about the Inca Culture, renting Dan some walking boots and sleeping bags and resting up. On the Sunday we watched the raising of the flags in the Plaza de Armas – a big event with lots of music and military personal in uniforms – great to watch. We also took the opportunity to do some more planning for the rest of our trip. This involved booking a flight to Iquitos in the Peruvian Amazon. There is a local discount when using the LAN website inside of Peru - great we thought. The downside is you can’t pay online using a foreign credit or debit card, instead you are given a payment code and have to go to a bank and pay in person. We hadn’t quite worked this out and started booking our flights at 6pm the night before we set off for the Inca Trail. It ended up with a very stressful bumper car taxi ride (we did actually bump someone!) across town to the only bank open until 7pm. One of the good
things about Cuzco being a big tourist destination is that they have many restaurants and lots of them cater for western diners or ‘gringos’ as we are affectionately known. We enjoyed some really good meals whilst there, notably Jack’s Cafe – a firm favourite.
After an early night and an early start it was finally time to begin our 4 day adventure. It didn’t start overly well – Dan woke up with a horrible cold and the water in the shower was freeeeezing so we couldn’t properly wash for the last time before the showerless Inca Trail. At 6am we were collected from our hostel, our big bags were dropped at the Wayki Trek Office and we drove to the town of Urubamba. We met the others from our group – an American called Katherine and an older French couple. We stopped in Ollantaytambo for 15 minutes where we brought our last essentials – a rain poncho and some coca leaves for the altitude sickness, and picked up our porters – all 8 of them!! We drove along a narrow road which the locals were working to clear as part of a community scheme, and by 10am we arrived
at the start point – Piscacucho at 2750m. We were given our sleeping mats to carry here – both of which went into Dan’s bag (Laura was carrying both smaller sleeping bags). In the time this had taken us, the porters had put up a table with 6 chairs, a table cloth, cutlery and crockery, rolls, ham, jam, bananas, and the cook had whisked up some scrambled eggs! We barely even saw them doing it!! We ate our first meal together with our guide called Jose and he briefed us on what was in store. Dan mistook someone’s house for the toilet, and was surprised when he walked into a room full of rabbits and guinea pigs! It was then a 5 minute walk to the start of the trail at kilometre 82, we had to show our passports at the check point, collect the first of our 5 passport stamps and that was it, we were off!
We were instantly impressed with the porters, they carried so much and did the whole thing at twice the speed of us! We were pleased to learn about the tighter regulations that were brought in in 2004 – the porters are
no longer allowed to carry more than 25kg and they are really strict on this – everything gets weighed as they begin, and at every check point at the start of each day when the food they were carrying is turned into rubbish. Still 25kg .... We struggled with less than 10kg each! (Some more than others - Laura!)
We were taught how to chew coco leaves which help with altitude sickness (we would be climbing to 4200m). This involves carefully selecting the best leaves, removing the stalks and making a little package with them, and then a small amount of the activator (llipta) which is an alkaline ash substance of some sort added to the middle. You then give it a quick chew until it is an ‘akullico’ – a soggy wad about the size of a golf ball which you leve to sit at the side of your mouth to sit for 15 minutes or so before spitting out. It doesn’t taste very nice and makes your mouth go a bit numb! After a while of walking, we stopped at the Inca ruins of Llaptapata for our first history lesson where Jose could evaluate how much we
actually new about the Inca’s, (which was not a lot). We got our first glance of some ruins and had a good photo opportunity. We continued walking along the ‘Inca flat’, as Jose called it (this turned out to be not be so flat at all!) all the way till our first lunch stop – Tarachayuc down the bottom of the valley. When we arrived the porters were ready and waiting for us with the entire camp erected and lunch ready to be served, we couldn’t quite believe it! Lunch was great! We had corn soup to start with freshly made garlic bread. We thought that was all, but it turned out to just be the starter before we were served the main course – nachos and guacamole (a firm favourite), fried rice, chicken drumsticks, salad and pasta! We quickly realised we wouldn’t be going hungry and were all questioning how the chef had prepared everything on just a camp stove! After a short siesta we felt revitalised continued trekking to our camp for the night. The afternoon involved a bit more uphill through the sacred valley with a few breaks on route, one which has some peculiar looking chickens
to laugh at! They refer to the first day as the warm up, and all in all we only covered about 11km. Great we thought, the weather had been kind, the route hadn’t been crowded, in fact we hardly seen any other groups and we had stayed mostly dry so far... Camp was a small site with only a handful of other tents nearby; there was even a chance for us to purchase a beer, lovely! After a short rest we were called to the main tent for afternoon tea, or ‘happy hour’ as Jose called it. We had popcorn, biscuits and tea or coffee then set about to play some card games. The French couple were, well, typically French, but eventually they did join in. Then it started to rain, a lot! Jose assured us that rain at night was a good thing as it should mean tomorrow would be dry. Dinner came and again was superb – three courses ending in a coffee and strawberry mouse for desert. We not eaten this much food in one day since England!! After dinner, Jose prepped us on what was in store for tomorrow and we called it a night at
the late hour of 9pm!
We were woken the next morning at 6am, by a porter bringing us a bowl of water to wash with and a cup of tea to have in our tent! It had rained all night long and was still going... great! Despite our best efforts to keep everything inside the tent away from the edges to keep it dry, everything still felt damp. Breakfast proved as impressive as the other meals – pancakes, porridge, bread rolls, a selection of jams and dulche de leche (a butterscotch spread) and tea. We were each given snacks for the day and by 7am we were ready to depart camp one. Day two is notorious as the difficult one due to the fact you have to climb up to 4200m before descending steeply to 3636m into camp 2. The weather meant that we were both wearing our waterproof jackets (purchased cheaply in Vietnam). Until now, we had had nothing but positive things to say about them; however it soon became like wearing a greenhouse – they keep the water out, but are not breathable so you just sweat – nice! The ascent was broken up by two
resting points and they couldn’t come quick enough! It was difficult going – constant climbing and most of it up steep steps. Laura particularly found it difficult going and slowed Dan up quite a bit! As we neared the top and the air got thinner things got really slow... Laura was finding any excuse to stop for a short rest – untied shoelace, needing water, wanting to prepare more coca leaves etc! Even the porters were stopping for rests during this bit of the trek, the going got tough! We passed a load of llamas, something we didn’t overly appreciate at the time - we just wanted to get to the top! Finally, after nearly 4 hours of climbing, we could see the top through the clouds and rain. Dan went ahead and he and some others were clapping Laura to come on and make it to the top, but it was a slow process ... 3 steps, rest, 3 steps rest! She just couldn’t get her breath back and was feeling quite sick! Eventually we made it and were not rewarded with the amazing views we should have been, it was all cloud, boo. We wanted to rest, but
we quickly got so cold, both wearing tshirts drenched in now cold sweat isn’t a nice feeling! So, after all that climbing it was time to start the decent. Downhill felt great at first after so many steps up, but it quickly became difficult and painful in its own way! It was so steep and you had to be really careful as the rain had made it all very slippery. After 2 long and painful hours, we finally made it into camp 2 – Pacaymayu, what a relief!! Not a walk I would like to repeat, although looking back we can say we enjoyed it in a masochistic way. Still being at altitude made this camp pretty cold, we couldn’t wait to get out of our wet clothes and into something dry and warm. We ate lunch as a group and then had the afternoon free to relax. The weather did dried up for a short time and then the heavens reopened, so we took shelter in our tent where we tried to find ways to hang our wet stuff out to dry – not easy!! We had a nap and in no time at all we were being called
again for afternoon tea. This was quickly followed by more card games and then another 3 course meal – this one ending in a chocolate cake!! Rule, the chef, was doing an amazing job!! We went to bed in our soggy tent at 8.30pm feeling truly stuffed and with our legs beginning to ache from all the steps we had climbed and walked down.
Day 3 started early again a decent breakfast and luckily it wasn’t raining. We had been told that some people are undecided over which day of the 4 day trek is the hardest - day 2 (for being so steep uphill) or 3 (for being longest at 16km and most of it downhill steps – hard on the legs). We set off with an hour uphill assent to our first break where we were given a history lesson inside some Runkuraqay Inca ruins that are believed to have been a resting place for Inca travellers. It was then upwards again for another hour and thankfully that was to be the last of the climbing for the day. One of the guides had some Peruvian panpipes (champona) which he played and could be heard throughout the
valley, everyone clapped and it was good for moral. When we reached the top there was an extra little hill we could climb for some photo opportunities - Laura opted out at this point and rested instead! From here on we slowly descended down towards Sayacmarca ruins the next stop on our guided tour. This Inca site was more intact and was used as a agricultural centre, we had a guided tour around it whilst we learnt a little more. Whilst at the altar, we were quite surprised to find that the priests were mostly high on herbal concoctions as they believed this made them able to speak to the mountains, sun, rain and other items they worshiped. Lunch was just around the corner which we all looked forward too, by now we had gotten used to the porters having rushed ahead and having everything ready for us. Once we were contently full once more, there was just time for a quick nap for some , and a change of clothes for Dan as he opted for shorts, hoping the mainly rain free morning would continue for the rest of the day. During the afternoon, we walked through the ‘forest
in the clouds’ on what we were told was ‘Inca flat’ it was quite an enjoyable afternoon, if not slightly more uphill than expected. We were starting to wonder if these Inca people were all a little bit crazy for their routes they would take – why not just walk next to the river in the flat valley floor! It did give us some good views (between all the cloud), and we even managed to get some phone signal at the high point which enabled us to finally check the Spurs Vs Real Madrid score (the less said the better). On the way back down we stopped at some more ruins (Phuyupatamarca) which were used as an elaborate bathing system and/or irrigation system (we were being to realise the full extent of how little is actually known about the Inca’s due to the Spanish causing so much destruction during their invasion, erasing lots of history from our records). At this point the weather started to change, and to say we got wet was an understatement. Needless to say we continued on and found shelter under a large rock just as it started to ease, great! We continued downhill on now
slippery original Inca steps for quite some time. Dan definitely preferred the upwards part of the trek and developed some blisters for the first time during the down hill. Surprisingly Laura’s feet were doing quite well, although she did have to set the alarm extra early each morning to ensure she had time to wrap them in so much tape that she resembled an Egyptian mummy, ‘just in case’! We finally reached camp after a long wet slog of an afternoon and our first site of civilisation – a restaurant with showers! Laura decided that it was pointless having a shower when she only had wet clothes to put back on, Dan was lucky and still had one dry t-shirt and pants. Unfortunately he managed to drop the top into the bowl of water left for us by the porters and then after a disappointing luke warm shower, he dropped his pants on the wet and dirty floor! Oh dear! That evening, we played more card games before dinner, which included pizza (goodness knows how he made that on a camp stove) nachos with guacamole, egg plant, crispy soy pieces and pasta, very impressive! It is customary to tip the
porters after dinner on the third day as we wouldn’t see them after we left in the morning. We had a little ceremony where they all told us a little about themselves, how old they were, how many children they had, and how long they had been doing the trek etc (it was a shame this didn’t happen on day one really!) Some of the answers were quite amazing! One of our porters was 60 years old and has 10 children, whilst another was only 23 and has a 5 month old baby! We thanked them and said a few words ourselves and presented their tips, needless to say the chef got an extra special one as well as our tour guide who had been ever helpful! The last day is traditionally an early start as we head to Machu Picchu and the porters pack up camp to catch the train back. So another early night was on the cards, which we all appreciated after the last few days’ activities!
3am came around very quickly and we were straight up and eating another breakfast of pancakes. The porters were packing up around us – they were in a rush
as they have to get down the mountain and onto the 5am train. At 3.30am we left the campsite and said our goodbyes and thank you’s once more to the porters before walking the short distance to the restaurant. Here we took shelter along with the other groups waiting for the check point to open at 5.30am so we could get through and begin the final walk to Machu Picchu. When it did, we got our 4th stamp in our passports and begun walking along a very narrow track – annoying as it meant we couldn’t overtake the slower groups. As the sun came up, we were disappointed to see cloud, lots and lots of cloud. We kept our fingers crossed that it would clear before we made it to the Sun Gate (Intipunku). Luck wasn’t on our side. At 7am, we climbed up and arrived at the Sun Gate to be rewarded with a familiar sight – cloud. What a shame and a bit gutting. There was a llama munching on the grass so we snapped a few photos of him and continued our descent down towards the main Inca ruins. The cloud slowly begun to clear and we
got our first glimpse of Machu Picchu – finally a rewarding view after all our efforts to get here, hurray! We had to pass out of the entrance gate to leave our bags in the luggage storage. We enquired about climbing Wayna Picchu, the mountain next to the ruins so you can view them from above, but they limit the number of people allowed up each day, and we could only go if we went there and then which would have meant missing our tour, shame (although Laura was secretly a little bit glad we weren’t about to do another 2 hours of walking up and down!) After a quick snack, our tour of Machu Picchu officially began. We were taken around all of the sites of archaeological interest, which included houses, temples, agricultural terraces, sun dials, social and market areas, bath and wash rooms, school class rooms and astronomy viewing points. We were taught how the Inca’s went about their daily life and what Hiram Bingham’s (the American who discovered the site in 1911) interpretation was – basically educated guesswork! The tour went on for 2 and a half hours, our guide had to stop half way through and
check that we wanted to continue with it! We did. After we were finished we were given time to head off and explore by ourselves, we split up from the French who looked thoroughly fed up, we think the tour being spoken in English was too much for them and they lost interest long ago. We marched back up to the top (Dan marched, Laura very slowly walked) to take in the view and take some last minute photos now the clouds had cleared. It really is an impressive site and the natural setting is simply stunning. We were now tired and hungry and decided that we had seen enough of the extraordinary site (which was now crammed full of tourists who had got the train and bus there- we definitely felt that we had much more right to be there having completed the trek!) We caught a 30 minute bus down to the town Aguas Calientes, it was amazing how long it took to get back down the mountain and showed how high MP really is. We met Jose who had headed back down earlier and settled for a Mexican restaurant for lunch. We had been told about the
hot pools in town which were a good way to relax after the last 4 days exercise, and made our way over to them. Unfortunately they were located right at the top of the village meaning a slow and painful 15 minutes walk to get there! It was well worth it though, the hot water was very soothing on our tired legs, and it begun to rain again whilst we were in there which made it kind of magical – a nice way to end the trek. We just had a short time to look around the huge market before we showed our passports to get onto the train which took 2 hours to get back to Ollantaytambo. We were then buses back to Cuzco (where we all took a well deserved nap) arriving back into town at 8.30pm. We said our goodbyes to the French couple (who we won’t be staying in touch with – they didn’t do much for the French stereotype!) and were collected by the owner of our company (Wayki Trek) and taken with Katherine back to their hostel (a free nights’ accommodation was included with the trek, and we luckily got our own room complete
with en suite!) We enjoyed a warm shower and the 3 of us set off for a late dinner and well deserved beer! As our luck would have it there was a 48 hour alcohol ban on in Peru in the lead up to the presidential elections – typical! So instead we celebrated with fruit smoothies! What a brilliant 4 days which we would highly recommend to anyone who visits Peru! There are loads of alternative treks (which are also cheaper) but the good thing about doing the ‘real’ Inca Trail is you get to see loads of other Inca Ruins along the way and its all part of a tour, so you finish feeling quite knowledgeable.
The next day wasn’t overly productive! Laura had a bad stomach (thank goodness for the ensuite!) something we are both suffering with a fair bit in South America – strange after it not being an issue in Asia. We put our wet clothes in to be laundered, went to the bus station to book our bus to Lima, and spent the day relaxing.
The next day, after a lazy morning, we said our goodbyes to the guys at Wayki Trek and
Katherine and caught a taxi to the bus terminal. The road from Cuzco to Lima is notoriously dangerous as it passes right through The Andes mountain range, making for narrow, windy roads with lots of vertical drops. Most people we spoke to about this advised us to fly, but out budget wouldn’t stretch that far (given we’d just booked a flight to Iquitos) so instead we decided to book with a more expensive bus company with a good reputation – Cruz del Sur – which was double the price of some of the other companies. If we were going to die on this route, and least we would have been comfortable in our last hours! Haha! The bus was lovely! Only 3 seats per row so plenty of space and leg room, chairs which reclined a long way, pillows and blankets provided, and all meals! They even played some films in English! Result! However, no matter how nice the bus was, the roads weren’t good and at points during the journey we felt quite ill from all the twisting and turning, and it wasn’t the best night’s sleep.
We arrived into Lima at 11am and caught a taxi to
the hostel we had booked which was located near the airport. It took us ages to find it and the driver had to stop to ask several people if they knew where it was! We eventually arrived and were greeted by the friendly owner, if anything too friendly, it made us feel a bit uncomfortable! We were shown to our room which had the luxury of a TV which played some American shows! We were a long taxi ride away from the main attractions in Lima, so we decided to spend the day in the room making the most of the free wifi and TV. By 5pm we were getting a bit hungry so ventured out, escorted by the owner. We weren’t staying in the safest feeling area, and we didn’t like the look of the 2 places he pointed out for us to eat in. We wandered around by ourselves for a bit and our search was pretty useless so eventually we opted to eat in a horrible looking restaurant which faced a car mechanics. We ordered the chicken, and the only good thing that can be said about it was that it was cheap!! Still it filled a
hole and we quickly returned to the hostel, not wanting to be wandering the streets in the dark. Back at the hostel, we bumped into a couple we had met doing the Inca trail. They are planning on travelling a similar route to us, so we added them on facebook before having an early night.
The next day we ate breakfast at the hostel and caught a taxi to the airport. We had to show our passports before we were even allowed in the terminal! We treated ourselves to a Starbucks after our horrible meal the night before and then it was time for our flight. We flew with LAN to Iquitos, a smooth and painless flight and a good selection of drinks and cakes for free onboard. The view from the plane as we landed into the Amazonian jungle was pretty good; the rivers were all so flooded though as a result of heavy rain – something we could sympathise with! We couldn’t believe the heat and humidity as we stepped off the plane! We collected our luggage and found a taxi to take us into town. We immediately took a liking to Iquitos, it felt very much
like an Asian city with tuk tuks everywhere. Our driver was a bit crazy and put on some American rock music which he blared out and was dancing and singing along to, we couldn’t help but join in! We checked into a fairly basic hostel, showered and went out for dinner. We found a place that sold cheap burgers and beer and we spent the meal chatting to a couple that had just quit their jobs and are away travelling for a year to celebrate their 40th birthdays (showing us that maybe another big trip in the future is possible!)
We wanted to get out and explore the river and jungle, and thought about taking one of the many tours on offer, but unfortunately the prices reflect the popularity of them so instead we decided to do our own tour around Iquitos independently. We took a bone shaking tuk tuk to Bellavista port where we could charter our very own long boat. There was a market we walked through selling all sorts of weird and wonderful items, from BBQed crocodile to children’s woolly hats, we then walked the plank, quite literally, to the dock where the boats were squeezed
in waiting to take us down the river to our destination - the Pilpintuwasi Butterfly Farm and Animal Orphanage. It was a good 30 minute boat ride and we were amazed just how much rubbish there was floating around, the locals really don’t take enough care of their surroundings. When we reached dry land we didn’t have change to pay our water taxi, so he agreed to hang around for our return then take us to find the famous pink dolphins which live in The Amazon. The lady which ran the Butterfly Farm was an Austrian expat who we likened to George of the jungle, a very knowledgeable lady with a real passion for the jungle who had been living there a long time, perhaps too long as she talked about catching malaria as is it were as common as man flu! The butterflies which she breeds were really pretty and it was very interesting to see the different stages of the lifecycle (it reminded is of being back in primary school!) but perhaps more impressive and definitely more entertaining were the other animals which she has taken in and rescued in her orphanage. The extremely mischievous Huacary monkeys first
caught our attention as the flung themselves around the open jungle; they are nicknamed the ‘English monkey’ because of their red faces. She also had to keep another monkey in a cage – it had been rescued after some street children had taught it to pickpocket and then abandoned it when it got sick. Unfortunately it still has a liking for people wallets! We met many other animals including caimans, a 2m long manatee, parrots and 2 capybara – giant guinea pigs. The most impressively was the jaguar which she fed whilst we were there – stunning animals. After our tour was finished we headed back down stream, we didn’t have to hang around long before we spotted the dolphins playing quite close by, a good day trip out we both agreed although Laura was now covered in mosquito bites.
As luck would have it, we managed to make it back into Iquitos town just in time to watch the Spurs vs Real Madrid second leg in the sports bar! That evening to keep costs down we decided to cook for ourselves, Laura was in full flow when the hostel owner came over and gave her a good old
fashioned telling off! Apparently the kitchen was not for guests use, unbeknown to us and we were made to pay the gas bill and feel thoroughly ashamed of ourselves!
The next day we wanted to head out and see the alligator and lily pad park which were kept at a sanctuary further down the Amazon. So we went back to Bellavista and this time had to get a public water taxi down the Amazon for a good hour or so. We started to wonder if we had missed our stop so we used our Spanglish to good effect and asked the locals who were also on the boat, but thankfully soon enough we reached the jungle village of Barrio Florido safe and sound. It was a small place with one road and no cars, truly cut off and unreachable other than by boat. We were extremely annoyed to realise that we had brought the camera, but the memory card was still in the laptop in our hostel, so we couldn’t take a single photo, very frustrating. The sanctuary obviously wasn’t used to independent visitors and we weren’t sure if we had arrived at the right place especially as the
sign post wasn’t particularly visible. We were lead down to the lake’s where our guide made some strange noises which encouraged the alligators out of there hiding places amongst the reeds and up onto the bank where they were fed a lunch of fish. Their eyes looked empty and made them look particularly scary. Next stop we moved to the pontoon where we fed the giant fish, they were huge – bigger than us (unfortunately we don’t know their name). We were given the fish to feed them this time; they jumped out trying to beat each to the food. The guide then spent some time chasing something else through the mud in another lake next door, he didn’t catch whatever it was and the language barrier meant we still have no idea what it was! But we did get to see some turtle’s and guinea pigs which they also kept there. We thanked them and headed to wait a long time for the taxi boat to take us back to Iquitos, we did get a little worried we had missed the last one, but took cover in the shade whilst watching the local kid’s fish off the river bank.
We eventually made it back, pleased with our 2 days of experiencing the jungle and river independently.
We had booked boat tickets to take us down the river the next day to Letica a town in the Columbian jungle. It was an early 5am start and surprisingly, even at that time in the morning there were plenty of tuk tuk’s buzzing around. We had chosen the faster and more expensive speed boat option (the slow boat which takes 2 or 3 days has many problems with thieves). Our boat was crammed with locals, but somehow we managed to secure ourselves a double seat each, even this barely provided us enough space to sit, and definitely not in comfort. It was to be a long 10 hours with a very repetitive droning engine to listen to; the view was rather repetitive also. There was little to entertain ourselves, with a few stops to pick up locals who haled down the boat on route, so we were glad to reach dry land! We managed to get an exit stamp from a rather unorganised border control at Santa Rosa, Peru, and then were ushered towards another taxi boat that took us to
Brazil for a quick drop off, then onto our destination, Leticia Columbia.
So that’s it for our first trip to Peru. We will be passing back through with a couple more stops in a few weeks time on our journey down to Buenos Aires. What an amazingly diverse country and we look forward to coming back!
(Wow this blog is 6425 words long, and that’s only Peru part 1! That’s almost dissertation length! Sorry to take up so much of your time and well done if you got this far reading it!!!)
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