2 amazing weeks in Peru to finish my travel

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Geo: -9.18997, -75.0152

On Friday 1st of July, I arrived at 22h30 at Lima airport from where I had a shuttle to my hostel. I was really happy when I finally arrived at the hostel : people in Lima drive like crazy, really scary! In the hostel, I met my friend Anne who would travel for 2 weeks with me across Peru. We talked only for a few minutes and then went to bed, it was already quite late and the jetlag wasn't helping our conversation…

On our first day in Lima, we did the free walking tour in the center of Lima. The tour started in a bar where we had our first beer at 11 AM. The guide was very good, really funny and interesting to listen to. We saw the historic center of Lima, had some chocolate, some beer and some pisco sour. This tour was great. In the afternoon, we did the second free walking tour in Barranco. This part of Lima is the nicest but the guide was less good than the first we had. After the tour we went for some artisanal beer in the bar where the first free walking tour had started and afterwards we had dinner at some nice and a bit expensive restaurant. The waiter there were really nice and we had a good time. He even cut our meet for us because it was so huge that we didn't know where to start! But soon we had to recognize that we were both quite tired from the jetlag and so we went back to our hostel and to bed early.

On our second day in Lima, we went for a walk around Miraflores, it's the local market and bought some souvenirs. We also walked along the beach but it wasn't really beautiful there and the seaside stinks a lot. We had amazing lunch at the restaurant "Popular" in the mall next to the seaside : we had salmon and some other fish and fresh made juice. It was delicious! Afterwards we went back to our typical bar to have some beer with my friend Julie from Paris whom I had met in São Paulo. It was really nice to see her again but we were very tired and so our meeting was quite short.

In conclusion, we didn't like Lima very much : it's not a very beautiful city, the seaside stinks, there is no real beach and the weather isn't nice. Besides, our hostel sucked : really bad breakfast, it was dirty and the wifi didn't work. So we were happy to spent there only 2 days.

The following day, Monday, we took an early flight at 5AM to Cusco where we arrived at around 6:30AM. We went directly to our hostel where we were welcomed in the best way : with an amazing free breakfast! J We spent the day walking around Cusco's city center, drinking beer, hot chocolate at Starbucks and having a good time. Cusco is such a beautiful city, we enjoyed being there a lot! For lunch we had some quite good rice with avocado and chicken at the local market. Unfortunately, it seems Anne's stomach didn't like that so much, the next day she was feeling so sick that we had to go to the pharmacy. In the evening, we had a few beers in a bar next to the main square where we drew some paintings on the napkins. We had the best time! :-D

On the next day, we went on a tour to the Sacred Valley where we visited some Inka ruins in Maras, Moray, Chinchero, Ollantaytambo and Pisaq. It was nice but our guide wasn't that great : he was going quite fast from one place to the next (“We have short time!”😉, with few free time to enjoy the places. The worst was that aweful Polish woman in our group who never stopped complaining! It was a nice tour anyway because we saw a lot of beautiful places. Unfortunately Anne couldn't enjoy the day as much as me because she was feeling really sick that day, so she was happy when we got back to the hostel and she got some medicine at the pharmacy. That night we met Matthüs in our dorm, a Dutch guy. He was quite nice and we talked about the different tours and agencies in Cusco. We had payed for our 5-days Salkantay-trek only 230$/person but he had paid for the 4-days trek more than 500€ and he told us that he had seen offers for more than 1000€! It's just ridiculous how they exploit the some tourists! He was very nice, but when we saw him later on the Salkantay-trek he didn't talk to us, so that was quite strange…

On Wednesday, we got up late and enjoyed a good breakfast before starting our sightseeing program. We went up to Saqsayhuamán, Inca ruins on the hill behind Cusco, and to some other ruins close to Cusco : Q'enqo, Pukapukara and Tambomachay. It was quite cold that day and we hadn't expected that, so we were dressed poorly for that weather. It was a nice day anyway, because the Saqsayhuamán ruins are really impressive and it's a beautiful place. On the last stop, we were too cold to stay a long time, so we went back to Cusco around 5 PM. We still had to pack for our 5-days hike that would start the next day and we had to buy some snacks and other stuff. Our dorm-mate Matthüs had been to the “Rainbow-Mountain” that day. It was 7 hours to get there, 4 hours hiking and 7 hours back, which is just crazy! He had had a fever the night before and hadn't slept so we didn't talk a lot to him anymore.

The next morning, on Thursday 7 of July at 4 AM, we started our 5-days Salkantay-trek. Unfortunately it was raining a little bit, but nothing too bad. During our breakfast, we met Laurie, Pierre and Florent from France who would be in our group. Each person was allowed only 5kg in his bagpack for the mules but like almost everybody we had 2kg too much so we had to pay extra but better to pay it than to have to carry it on our own. Shortly after the breakfast, our group was split in 2, each one about 12 people. Our guide, Walter, seemed really cool and nice and at our first stop he explained very well but later on that changed… The first day of hiking was a short one, only about 19 km in 4 hours, but it was the worst day because it never stopped raining, sometimes heavier sometimes less. When we finally got to our destination and lunch place, Soraypampa (3900m), we all were completely soaked and cold. The worst : there was absolutely no place to warm up or to dry our clothes! The warm soup for lunch helped a bit but the rest of the meal was mostly cold which was no help at all. After lunch, we had the option to go up to a beautiful lagoon but we were sooo cold and it was still raining that only the 3 French guys, Laurie, Pierre and Florent and the crazy Dutch guy, Jos, went there. Why call Jos crazy? Well, he was completely unprepared for hiking : he was wearing sneakers with no profile, he had no rain jacket, no hiking gear at all. But he was in a good shape, keeping up quite well and always in a good mood. That's why everyone liked him. Anne and I learned that next to the small shop in the village was a small room where 2 other groups were watching football, France-Germany, so we went there and that was the best decision! They had blankets and some nice guys gave up their place under the blanket for us. We were shaking so much that they thought we needed it more than them, which was actually true…. After the match, we all started a Dutch drinking game (almost 80% of the people there were Dutch!) with a lot of Rum against the cold. We had a great time with them and we got to know Philip from Chile, a really nice guy. His family is half German and he has been to Germany a few times and speaks German quite well. Only later, during dinner, we got to know better the other people from our group. None of them had played the drinking game with us. In our group, we were 11 people : Anne and me, Laurie, Pierre and Florent from France, Jos from the Netherlands, Hanna, Alex, Misbah and Mike from England and Mário from Argentina. It was a very nice group and we had a good time together.

The second day, of course we started having a cold because of the rain the day before. Fortunately, it had stopped raining and the sun was coming out so our clothes could dry during the hike. The second day was – for me – the best one besides visiting Machu Picchu. When we started the hike, it was all mud, but then we found snow and always more snow. We went quite high that day, up to 4650m. It was sooo beautiful, snow everywhere and sunny. I enjoyed it a lot. Afterwards, we had to go down on the other side and we descended almost 2000m that day, which was quite a lot. Fortunately nobody had problems with the altitude. The most difficult thing that day was the hike down because it was really hard on our knees and quite some people complained about aching knees. We did it anyway and had a good time. In the evening, we stayed camped in small village, Chaullay (2900m), where we could rest our aching bones. Daniel for Atlanta joined our group and we played “Shithead”, a card game, with some of his Rum. That's when we all got to know each other better and it was a very nice evening. Food was cold, like always, but quite ok.

The next day was much easier, only a 6h hike to Sahuayacu Playa (2060m). The route was really beautiful, we finally saw some rainforest. Walter had promised to show us some plants and fruits but he walked so fast that nobody could keep up and after 2-3h he had lost his entire group except for Jos and Mário. The rest of us stayed close together and we discovered some plants and fruits on our own, guessing what it could be. We found some avocado-trees, some coffee-plants, some banana-trees and much more. We even found one avocado on the floor that was already good and we shared it. It was delicious! :-D It was a lot of fun and our group got very close. For lunch we met our guide again who showed us a yellow lemon tree. Wow, at least he showed us something! ^_^ But never mind, we had a great time. In the afternoon, our group and the one of Veronica took a bus to the next village, Santa Teresa (1700m), where we would stay the night. That bus drive was crazy! Anne sat in the front and told me our driver had killed quite some animals on the way that didn't get away fast enough. Sometimes we got really close to the border of the road and we feared to fall down the cliffs, but fortunately we survived it! ^^ The music mix in the bus was very bad, but we were singing anyway. During that bus drive I sat next to Hagai and Elena from Israel who are very nice and with whom we would spent a lot of time later.

After arriving at our camp, we left for the hot springs which was kind of the best thing that we could do after 3 days of intensive hiking. It was great! :-D We had a lot of fun in the hot water, enjoying the beautiful sight and getting to know better our group mates. We also so again Philip from Chile and got to know him better. We thought that night we would party with him and his group because they had told us that that night all groups would party together but in the end it was just us, Veronica's group and some group we didn't know, not Philip's. When we arrived to the camp, Walter came to announce some things but he was completely drunk and we didn't get anything he said. There was also a guy explaining us that we had the option to do some Zipline the next morning instead of hiking. Of course almost everyone wanted to do the Zipline. After dinner the “party” started. In the beginning most people were there and danced but the group of Veronica disappeared quite early except for Hagai and Elena. Walter was completely drunk and we were making fun of him, trying to guess what he was saying to the girls he talked to. They looked like they were in pain talking to him and I absolutely understand. Poor things! We were thinking about saving them but then Walter would have come to our group and we really didn't want that! xD That night I lost my voice… I had a cold since the first day, because of the rain, but now my voice started failing. The people behind the bar told me that only lemon juice with Andean tequila helped so I tried it, but in the end my voice disappeared for a long time (1 week later it's still gone… hope I'll get it back soon…😉. We all sat around the bonfire and had fun watching Walter dancing like an idiot. Misbah of our group wasn't lucky and had to dance with him but she left soon. Hanna danced with Walter on a rock, so that we could all watch him and it was just too funny! He started doing striptease and that's when we had seen enough… xD My friend Hagai tried to save me from Walter by dancing himself with him and that was very very nice of him and funny too. At some point Walter sat down next to me and tried to put an arm around me and in the last second I jumped up and sat down at the other side of the bonfire. Afterwards he came and said that he's sorry. Before going to bed we watched the stars for some time with Florent but we went to bed early anyway.

On the fourth day, we woke up around 6 AM to get ready for the Zipline. We all were a bit scared of doing the Zipline but it was the greatest thing ever – we had sooo much fun! :-D Only Florent had a bit less fun because he lost his phone on the first line… Fortunately I had one spare phone and so I gave it to him until we'll meet again in France later. The best part for me was the “Condor”, where we flew like a “condor” over the valley from one end to the next. It was sooo amazing!

In the afternoon, we all hiked to Águas Calientes (2000m), or the “Machu Picchu Village”. It was quite a long walk and hard since we had to carry all of our luggage. My stupid foot was hurting like hell and so I was very happy when we finally got there. Anne and me had a private room which was great, but unfortunately there was no hot water for the shower… We walked around the town for some time where we saw Philip again a few times and then we had a drink with Florent. There we had the best Maracuja-Sour ever! We were joined by Laurie and Pierre and later by Hanna and Alex and we all played Djenga. We had a good time and with each drink it got funnier. :-D Afterwards we went to dinner with the whole group. Walter disappeared as soon as we arrived at the restaurant but who cares. We had more Maracuja-Sour and that wasn't the best idea : the glasses were very slippery and at some point I swept all my Maracuja-Sour on Anne's plate… I gave her my plate – I didn't like the food anyway – and she gave me half of here drink and we were laughing like crazy, not even being drunk! xD After dinner everyone went to bed but Anne and me went for a last drink with Hagai, Elena and some people of their group. We exchanged mostly about the different tour agencies and the ridiculous prices that some of them ask for the tours.

The next morning and the last day of the Salkantay-trek, we had to get up at 4 AM to go up to Machu Picchu (2400m). We had to wait for some time at the first checkpoint before we could cross the bridge and 5 minutes before it opened I found that I had forgotten my passport in the hostel… So I ran back and fortunately a nice truck driver picked me up and drove me back to my hostel. That way I only lost like 30 minutes… The way up to Machu Picchu is really very steep and exhausting! When Anne and I arrived we were completely exhausted and sweaty, but the sight of the Machu Picchu was amazing! Walter gave us a quick tour around – actually with a lot of good explanations! – and then he left us. Our group stayed together though, only Laurie and Pierre left for the Huayna-Picchu and Jos and Mário went on their own. The rest of the group went up the Machu Picchu mountain which was very exhausting and difficult in the heat of that day. The sight was breathtaking though!

Anne didn't like the mountain and having heard that a few weeks ago a German hiker had died there, she got really scared and so we descended again soon. Back down, Anne, Hanna and Alex rested for some time and Florent and I went up to the Sun Gate from which the sight over the Machu Picchu is amazing. With Anne and Florent we walked around Machu Picchu for some more time and then we took a bus back to Águas Calientes where we had a last dinner together before everyone took the train back to Cusco.

In conclusion, I can say that this trek was amazing and that I would do it again any time. Sure, it was exhausting, but we saw all kinds of climate : cold and rainy, really cold with snow, hot and humid and the landscape was just breathtaking. I guess it's quite a different feeling to arrive at Machu Picchu after such a hike than just coming with the train from Cusco. You appreciate much more the sight and you've got much more adrenaline and endorphins to enjoy it in a different way. Also, we were very lucky with our group : everyone got along well and we had a great time together. It was an amazing experience!

When we arrived back to Cusco, Anne and me had to change our reservation to get the same room in our hostel : almost all rooms were full booked. After a good hot shower, we were very happy to go to a good and comfortable bed.

The next morning, we woke up quite late and had to hurry a bit to get ready and have breakfast before going to the airport at 11h30. But when we arrived there, Anne saw that she had left here passport at the hostel ! So she took the shuttle back to the hostel and I checked in our luggage. Unfortunately I couldn't get her boarding pass, but she arrived at the airport just in time to get it before our boarding started. We ran like hell and so it was quite an exhausting morning.

After a stop in Lima, we arrived to Arequipa at about 7 PM. We only had some soup and went to bed, completely exhausted by the stress of that day and of the Salkantay-trek.

The next morning at 7 AM, Florent texted me that he arrived with the night bus to Arequipa and had just gotten to our hostel. After breakfast together, we went to the main square to meet Hagai and Elena who had arrived late the night before and we did the free walking tour in the city center together. That tour was very good and we got a lot of interesting information. Arequipa is a very beautiful city! Afterwards we had lunch together in some nice restaurant before going for another bustour together. That bustour was really bad though… the worst! The guide was really sweet but she didn't speak English – they had sold us that tour as the one with the best English guide!!! – and it was very difficult to understand here in the microphone…. We were sooo happy when it ended! To finish that day we had dinner together in some nice restaurant with a lot of Sangria and wine. It was a great day and we had the best time with Florent, Hagai, Elena, Tanja from Switzerland and Valery from Argentina.

On our last day, Anne and me went for a day-tour to the Colca-Canyon. The tour started already at 3 AM, but we could sleep in the bus until 6 AM so that was ok. On that tour, we had the best guide ever : very motivated and motivating, telling a lot of stories and interesting facts. We saw quite a lot of condors on the “Cruz del Condor” and Anne was very happy. For me, the landscape was much more interesting. We also went to some hot springs, but after the hot springs in Santa Teresa on the Salkantay-trek, they were a joke. It was a very nice day and we were happy to finally have had a great guide! :-D But of course we forgot our towels and bikinis in the bus… what a day if we hadn't forgotten anything… Our motto for this holiday definitely was “forget everything you can!” xD In the evening, we went one last time for dinner with Florent, Hagai, Elena and Tanja and enjoyed the best meal we had had in a long time (and quite cheap). In the end, I was very sad to say goodbye to them, but I'm sure we'll meet again soon! J

The next day, Anne and me had a lot of time to pack our bags and to get ready for our departure so that in the end we didn't forget anything in the hostel. I was very hard to say goodbye though after 2 intensive weeks together. I must say, I love to travel with Anne. It's so easy and funny to travel with her, nothing complicated and usually we're always of one mind. Well, the next holidays together will come soon, I'm sure.

Peru was a very nice country to finish my travel in South America, but I will have to go back, 2 weeks aren't enough to visit it. There are so many more places to visit! Just like every other country I've visited ! I will definitely go back to Chile and Argentina for at least 2 more months to see the places I had no time to visit and 1-2 months in Brazil. South America was an amazing and unforgettable experience for me ; it's indescribable how much it has changed me. I'm very thankful to have lived that and to have had the honor of meeting so many amazing people.

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