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Published: August 29th 2006
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Hi everyone
Hope you are all ok. We have just finished our second week in Peru and wanted to keep you updated...
We arrived in Lima about 2 weeks ago and spent our first day paragliding over the city, which was awesome. Lima is quite busy and polluted so it was nice not to spend too long there. Seeing the city from the air was certainly an interesting experience. One minute your flying over busy congested streets and then over surfers in the ocean. Crossing the road is a mission- traffic lights and pedestrian crossings don't mean a thing though we have noticed one rule - give way to anything thats bigger than you! Hence pedestrians dont stand a chance!
We then flew to Puno the harbour city for Lake Titicaca. We visited Taquile Island from which on a good clear day you can see over to Bolivia. We wandered up to the main square where there were locals selling handmade weavings. Here it is common culture for only the men to weave and you aren´t considered a man unless you can weave! Its also a great place for women as all the men wear different hats depending
on their marital status! Though we did have to wonder about a few of them! We stayed overnight with a family on one of the islands which was interesting. There is no electricity or hot water on the island and it really was like going back in time. It was really like going back in time. Our 'mummy' for the night cooked the entire meal by candlelight and even though it took more than an hour and a half for a bowl of soup and some rice it was well worth the wait! That evening we were dressed in local gear which is basically a huge skirt, frilly petticoat, and a floral shirt with some sort of head shawl thing, on top of our hiking gear and taken to the town hall. Imagine the sight! Thankfully the other tourists on the island were made to dress the same though the guys just had to wear ponchos! There was a band and lots of dancing - it was fun for the first err 5mins but then i think it was more fun for the locals - a sort of tourist attraction for them!
The next morning we visited the floating
reed islands on our way back to Puno. Its not just the islands made of reeds either, its everything on the island as well, from houses to canoes to furniture. I think the guide said there are roughly 150 of these man-made islands, with the oldest being over 100 years old. It didn´t really make much sense to me as to why they lived there, when mainland was only 25 minutes away, but apparantly its good business from tourists. I thought it was kinda dangerous, as they have fires on these islands, and everything around is flammable, but who am I to argue with an old tradition.
The highlight for both of us so far as been the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. Although the trail was slightly tough at times mainly because of the high altitude, the ruins and different scenery you see on the way are amazing. We were well taken care of by our tour company and the porters were absolutely incredible. They´d set up a tent for us at lunch in the most obscure areas - provide us with a 3course meal and then pack up and have everything set up at our campsite before
Clubbing in Lake Titicaca
The hats were a gift from our host mummy so we had to wear them...The outfits on the other hand we wore purely by choice..NOT! we got there for the evening! Though we did manage to beat the porters to camp on the 3rd day and it just so happened to be the campsite with the bar!
We got our first glimpse of Machu Picchu at the Temple of the Sun, where we just stood for half an hour taking in the view. We carried on for another half hour until we finally reached the site. We´d started at 4am that morning to get there before the rush of tourists and it was definitely worth getting up early for! Machu Picchu is spectacular- the site is huge and surrounded by mountains...it just makes you think 'how the hell did they build this?!' It felt extra special doing the Inca trail first because it was like we had worked hard and Machu Picchu was our reward. Its one of those places that you just have to see and experience and the pictures available really dont do it justice.
We then spent a day and a half in Cuzco relaxing after the trail and doing some well deserved shopping! There are also a few ruins about 8kms from Cuzco which I thought were as impressive
Transport on the Lake
Travelling from island to island in style! as Machu Picchu purely because of the size of the stones used. It was like a massive version of Stonehenge except all the stones were measured meticulously and all fit together like a jigsaw. Our guide owned a Mountain Biking company so instead of taking the tourist route round the ruins we got onto an inca trail (which im not sure was exactly legal) and biked all the way back to Cuzco which was a lot of fun! We went out to the only Irish Pub in the area and then headed onto the clubs - Mama Africa and Mama America and were surprised to walk into the club and hear them blasting Punjabi MC!
The next day we headed into the Amazon jungle. We flew to Puerto Maldonado and then took a boat trip to our lodge. On the way we were lucky to see some camen and also some MaCaws. We climbed up a very unstable 37m high canopy tower and saw some monkeys and also got to watch the sunset. Our lodge was cool as the rooms had only 3walls so we really did become at one with nature! We were woken up at 4am the
Fiesta in Cuzco
We arrived in Cuzco just in time to see a parade through the main plaza next day to go bird watching which was fun for about the first 10minutes! After that we were just stuck on an oxbow lake! Having been travelling for 2weeks we were feeling lazy and opted out of the afternoons activities of..more birdwatching..and lay in hammocks for the entire day reading and drinking! And even then I think we saw/heard more wildlife from the hammocks than we did on the oxbow lake!
We´re now in a city called Huancayo where we are teaching English. We started today and we were just thrown into the classroom and told to teach english for an hour - totally unprepared! Though now that we know the level that we´ll be teaching hopefully it will become easier!
People here are really friendly and when we haven't got our walking boots/rucksacks/fleeces I think we can just about pass for locals, which is useful until they start a conversation!
Speak to you all soon
Avni and Prianca xx
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Mehta
non-member comment
wow
wow you guys are the SHIT!