The journey to La Paz

We didn't manage to get tickets for the direct (5 hour) bus from Puno to La Paz, so we had to go for the indirect one which was scheduled to take 7 hours. Not the end of the world, and we were told that the scenery would be stunning so were quite happy to be saving a few quid and seeing some more things along the way.

We were also reassured by the fact that the bus left dead on 7.30am - despite the efforts of a very angry French girl to hold things up by insisting that she needed to get on this bus even though her ticket was for another company. We enjoyed a comfortable and uneventful couple of hours ride to the Bolivian border, and got through immigration with no problems. It was however interesting to note that the Peruvian side had about 6 staff to do their stamps and the Bolivians just one, so inevitably it all took a bit of time.

We were then asked to load our bags onto the top of a minibus and everyone piled in - as you can imagine this stage of the journey was particularly unpleasant for tall people and cramped even for me. We were a little concerned that this would be our transport for the next 3+ hours, but fortunately it was only a short ride to th the next stop, Copacabana. Many people were stopping off here to see the other side of lake Titicaca but those of us who were heading straight on to La Paz were asked to come back in an hour for the 1.30 bus for La Paz.

After having a quick drink and snack with another English girl we boarded our bus. Sitting behind us were 3 English guys we had met in Lima (who seemed to have had bad luck from day 1 - food poisoning, hospital visits, getting lost on a one track island, 40 hour bus from Quito to Lima amongst others) and next to us a couple of girls from the Wirral. It seemed that between us we had met just about every other person on the 3 or 4 buses also heading for La Paz, proving once and for all that the so called Gringo trail is alive and kicking...

The next interesting interlude was when the bus stopped and hour or so later at yet another shore of Lake Titicaca and we were told we had to get off, cross the lake on a boat and the bus would meet us at the other side. Again the photos say it all! Pleased that our vehicle and ourselves had all made it across in one piece - let's just say that the boat was a bit full and didn't like moving very fast - we were back on the bus again. Well, most of us were. Somehow we had managed to lose 4 people. The driver was all set to head straight on, but us passengers persuaded him to wait a little longer as we knew how unhappy we'd be to be left behind. After 10 minutes or so he gave up and we were away, taking some poor stranded peron's snacks and spare shoes with us. Mental note: don't be late for buses in Bolivia.

Finally after a few more hours passing seemingly endless snow capped muntains, we made it to the city of El Alto, a vast sprawl just outside La Paz with limited but clearly developing infrastructure. After winding our way through yet more interesting traffic, we stopped above La Paz to admire the view. All I can say is wow! The photo should give you some impression of the incredicble view down into the basin that contains the city, but it is certainly something that you should see for yourself if you ever get the chance. Despite our by now very long (9 hour) journey we were all in good spirits and looking forward to seeing what life was like inside the city itself.


arriving into Bolivia


Our bus goes across the channel


Our full "small" boat


A view of La Paz (a small part of it)


Glorious mountains in the background..

Lake Titicaca - photos

Our memorable last few days in Peru

We arrived in Puno, a small(ish) town on the lakes of Lake Titicaca on Wednesday afternoon. Some Canadians we met at the Colca Canyon had ponted us in the direction of a really nice hostal they had used, so we checked in and set about planning for the next few days. First priority was to book our trip out on the lake - Puno itself is not the most beautiful town you´ll see, the main draw is the nearby Lake Titicaca. For those of you who haven´t heard of it, it is the highest navegable lake in the world, and absolutely huge with it.

Our tour began at 6.45 am on Thursday (one of far too many early starts this week!) and we headed down to the harbour where numerous similar tour boats (30 passenger) were setting sail. When you see the lake you can understand the significance of the altitude thing - sorry to keep going on about it! - as it really does see like you are very close to the sky but also you have the sensation of being on the sea. Really hard to explain and totally stunning, hope that the photos do it justice.

Anyway, our first stop was only about 20 minutes away from Puno - the Uros floating islands. Although they now have mod cons including solar power, and are visited by many tourists each day, the Uros people still live on floating islands as they have for many generations and use reeds to make just about everything. The totora reeds are used to build their houses, for food, for crafts and most fundamentally to build the islands themselves. As well as tasting the reeds, we also had the chance to ride on a reed boat - it was definitely one of the most interesting and totally different experiences we have had so far.

We then set sail again for the 2.5 hour trip to Taquile island. The closest comparison I can find is that it felt like we were on a Greek Island. It was very easy to forget that we were actually in a lake not the sea! The water was calm and crystal clear and the whole island was very tranquil in spite of the tourists. In many ways it seemed like the islanders there had been able to maintain their traditions and simple way of life in a way that the Uros hadn´t and I suppose that their distance from the mainland helped with this. One interesting fact is that the male islanders wear different hats to denote their marital status, or different again if they were authority figures. The community is clearly strong, work is carried out by everyone and the fact that many people live into their 90s didn´t surprise me, not least when I saw a man who was probably around 70 carrying a clearly heavy load of wood up steep steps.

So all in all we had a very lovely and interesting day with a great guide, and as we headed back we were happily admiring the view from the top of the boat. However, just to add a bit more excitement, we spotted a large number of grey clouds gathering ahead of us and when the lightning really started we hastily made our way back inside our now very flimsy seeming vessel. Not like me to panic in choppy water (Mum & Dad remember the Mauritius boat trip I´m sure!) and Andrew wondering out loud about how many boats had been struck by lightning really didnt help. What really freaked me out however, was when the driver started saying some kind of blessing over coca leaves (yes, they are used for everything) before throwing them into the lake! Then the hail started, the boat rocked even more and I started seriously asking myself what I was doing in a not entirely new small vessel in the middle of a Peruvian lake (highest in the world or not!) - especially one that had no form of windscreen wipers!

Needless to say we made it back to dry land with no real problems, and it is probably something that happens every day (see Andrew´s post re weather). My sense of adventure is well and truly still intact you´ll be pleased to hear and it has been a very memorable day to end our fascinating 3 weeks in Peru. Onwards to La Paz early (boo!) tomorrow.

Altitude and Changing weather of Peru

This is just a short post about the changes in weather that Cath and I have experienced (here in Puno in particular)..


But first here's a small photo showing the effects of going from Cusco to Arequipa (a drop of about 1,400m).. Personally I wonder what that's doing to our insides, no wonder people get altitude sickness...

On the topic of weather though, we had arrived in Puno to glorious blue skies (although a bit nippy because of the altitude), and decided to wander in and try and post about the last few days at a nearby net cafe..

While we were in said establishment a slight weather change occurred, by the time we finished and were ready to book our trip on Lake Titicaca hail stones had started to fall.. Actually it was more like hard snow, below you should see a photo of it in the street after about 15 minutes..

Luckily for us we were only a short dash away from the hostel (though we did hide out in a shop until the worst had past)...

Arequipa - photos

Canon del Colca - photos

Forgot to mention on the earlier post that the bus we had to the condors actually had a burst tyre (unfortunately the spare was not exactly pumped up either...)

Oh and a few of us helped out a local in Chivay :-)

One last thing about this trip forgot to mention that we went to La Calera hot springs, had a faint odour of sulphur but was great on those tired muscles (life is hard sometimes) ;-)

Losing things...and not quite losing the pedometer

Many of you will know that losing things like keys, bags etc is pretty common in the world of Cath. Therefore thought you might be interested in the pretty impressive log of items lost on the trip so far (bearing in mind we're less that 3 weeks in):

• 2 pairs of (fortunately cheap) sunglasses and 1 sunglasses case
• A couple of pairs of contact lenses
• My fluffy blow up neck pillow - really upset about this one, hoping it will reappear from a corner of the pack sometime soon
• My glasses - not quite as bad as it sounds - have loads of lenses and was planning to get new ones in Oz anyway. Still rather annoying that my only clue was that they went missing somewhere in Cusco!

Pretty impressive eh? On the positive side at least at this rate my pack with be very light very soon.

One thing I haven't managed to lose is my pedometer. My brother John & sister in law Varsha bought us some travel essentials before we came away, most of which are proving to be extremely useful. However, the talking pedometer complete with panic alarm has been not so much useful as highly entertaining. I was quite excited about being able to know how many steps I had taken as we trekked and it was a little generous in its step count (think bumpy roads) which I was more than happy to ignore. However, it then reset itself so my total step count for the entire trek was 14! To add insult to injury, the panic alram has a clever habit of going off when it feels like, so the serenity of the montains was shattered more than once and a few fellow trekkers knew me only as the one with the alarm. At least it has provided plenty of laughs, usually at my expense!

C

Cañon del Colca

On Monday we went on a 2 day bus tour of Cañon del Colca (we had the option of doing a 2 day hike ranging from 4,900 -> 3,400 -> 4,900m, but strangely enough decided against it...), which is where you can see the rare Andean Condors (if you're lucky)...

This trip came with a bilingual guide, who to be honest wasn't very good.. That said the sites and a few of the other people on the tour made up for it. Unfortunately for the guide (who kept trying to get us all along to his mates restaurants) we were in slightly rebellious mode, in that we decided to go our own way and get 3 course meals at half the price of the single plates being offered..* About half of the bus followed us in doing that... :-)

Other than seeming to start our own rival tour group, we did get to see the entrance of the 2nd deepest canyon in the world (the deepest by an extra 163m is the nearby Cañon del Cotahuasi), and one of the best viewing spots for seeing the Andean Condor, luckily both Cath and I did actually see a Condor swoop right past the viewing spot we chose (mainly because it wasn't packed with people), however at the fairly high speed that bird was moving by the time I got my camera out it was just a speck in the distance...

For those unlucky enough to miss the birds many of the towns on the way to the viewing spot (oh by the way it's opposite a known nest of a family of Condors, apparently about 40 of them nest nearby), have the birds of prey on display (you can have your photo taken with them for a mere S/. 1)... That is along with the traditional souvenir touts and the children in traditional gear dancing for all the tourists at 6:30 in the morning..

We've liked seeing the traditions of the Andean people, and it's been nice finding out more than just the Incan and Colonial history of the places we've been, but (particularly on this tour) the tourist aimed folk dancers and traditional clothing was starting to get a little too much.. Going on the trek and seeing actual villages where the actually wore that clothing seemed much more real.. That said we have been enjoying ourselves and having fun wherever we've been..

Now we're in Puno, right by Lake Titicaca and looking forward to seeing what this nice little town has to offer :-)

Andrew (& Cath)

Oh, unfortunately I forgot to bring the cable with me to this net cafe so I can't upload photos of the spectacular canyons and amazing tiered walls of the Incas.. But we should be able to upload something in the next couple of days :-)

* I do have to point out that the price difference was S/. 15 for the guides recommendations, to S/. 8 for where we went to eat, with S/. 8 being about £1.20 - more a case of not liking being told what to do!

Arequipa

Been offline for a few days now and the internet hasn't been too reliable which is a bit frustrating. However, I am still of the opinion that it is quite impressive that it works at all so can't complain too much - cue groans from geeks around the world! Either way, bit of catching up to do so here we go...

After my good night of sleep on the bus from Cusco to Arequipa we got to our hostal at about 6.30am Saturday and promptly went to sleep until lunchtime. Lazy is one word, totally exhausted after the trekking/partying/travelling my preferred explanation - adrenaline levels had certainly dipped by this point. When we had woken up slightly, we wandered into the city which has a particuarly nice Plaza de Armas (main square, common characteristic of all towns and cities here) with white buildings made from the local volcanic rock sillar, a very different type of stone than we had seen elsewhere in Peru. The city is surrounded by the volcano El Misti as well as some other stunning mountains.Quite a backdrop.We also arranged our Colca Canyon tour for Monday and Tuesday, ate some dinner and drank some beer - so all in all not the most productive of days but a very welcome laid back one. We are on holiday after all!

We were much more with it on Sunday and so set off for some proper sightseeing. First of all we went to the Museo Santuarios Andinos which is home to Juanita the Ice Princess. She was an Inca girl sacrificed over 500 years ago and found on the top of nearby Mount Ampato about 10 years ago incredibly well preserved by the ice. The Incas believed that the mountains were Gods so they tried to appease them by sacrifices. Pretty grim stuff, but fascinating to see the near perfectly intact girl, the best preserved example of several such sacrifices that have been found. It was also a bit spooky I have to say, but altogether worse for the specially chosen Juanita.

Later on we went to see the Santa Catalina monastery. It is a convent founded in 1580 where daughters of rich families lived a luxurious lifestyle complete with servants. It was really interesting to gain an insight into how they lived in what can only be described as a town within a town. They certainly didn't take a vow of poverty! We rounded the day off with a beer in a cafe overlooking the cathedral in the Plaza de Armas as the sun set. It was one of those times when the view was worth the extra few sols, especially as the beers still came out as under a pound each!

Over to Andrew for more about the Colca Canyon...

Wedding photos (are now up)

For those that have been bugging us (and you know who you are) about when you can see some more wedding related photos...




Or just look on mypixmania.com

Huge thanks to Vinny for uploading and organising all those photos!

Andrew (& Cath)

A quick word about me and sleep

I thought you might be amused (unless you were on the trek in which case you won´t like me much) to hear that on the second night of camping I managed to sleep through a pack of dogs (estimates vary from 10-30) howling through the night. Needless to say a few people woke up!

Since then, on our overnight bus to Arequipa, I have slept through a loud film and an entire game of bingo. Yes, bingo. Ryan you would have loved it I´m sure.

Off for a snooze now!
C

Post Trek party - photos

Some photographic evidence of our post trek celebrations. Conspicuous by their absence are any photos of Andrew´s particularly stunning dancing - so if any fellow trekkers are reading this and would like to help me out on this please let me know!

Cheers
C

Machu Picchu

After several hard days trekking we arrive upon Machu Picchu, well that is we catch a bus, then a train and finally another bus again before arriving at Macchu Picchu. For those that are curious, from Cusco there are lots of different treks you can do, most finishing up at Machu Picchu, kinda. As far as I can tell there is only the famous Inca trail that you actually hike up to Macchu Picchu, the rest include various hiking but seem to all finish up at Ollantaytambo (which is where you can catch the train to Machu Picchu)...

Anyways, it was absolutely fantastic to be up at the top there, and the SAS guides again did a fantastic job of taking us on a tour around and telling us all about how it was discovered and what Archaeologists have been able to figure out.. (Though of course with no written language it is all theories)...

I especially liked the theory on Inca art, where the rock formations represent the mountains in the background..


I don't know how to sum up being up in Machu Picchu, but I will say that unlike the Nasca lines (which slightly disappointed me) I was not at all disappointed by these spectacular mountain ruins, I think that was also helped by all of us having a real sense of achievement in finishing the hikes.. Basically we were on a huge high (as well as bit of exhaustion) that definitely helped the party get going that night :-)

Ok, I'm starting to gush way too much, I'll just say loved it! And hope the photos sum it up... :-D

Andrew (& Cath)

Lares Trek for CRY Day 3

I´m going to keep the day 3 commentary brief, as I think the photos speak for themselves, although as is usually the case they don´t do the landscape justice. It was another long and exhausting day reaching around the same altitude as before, and this time we took it a little more slowly simply because our legs wouldn´t let us do otherwise. Particular mention also has to be made of the chocolate Andrew magically produced at one stopping point - I think it got many people through the rest of that particular climb...

We finally made our excited entrance into camp at around 5 and a great fun evening followed. We were all able to relax, safe in the knowledge that although we´d be making an early start again the following day, we´d also be spending a fair part of it off our feet. The walking part would be exploring Machu Picchu, so everyone was of course really excited about that too. Oh yes, and we were heading for our first shower in 4 days!

Lares Trek for CRY Day 2

After our first night of camping in the freezing cold, we were awake just after 5 (usual morning timing - really not my idea of fun!) and had a big breakfast before our warm up and the real start of the day. There had been several theories about which way we´d be heading out of camp, but to be honest all of them were uphill so it didn´t really matter! I´m going to add in some of the place names when we have them to hand, as spelling is something of an issue otherwise.

Anyway, we made our way up for a few hours, and after a brief flatter section alongside a gorgeous lake we made our way up a very steep section leading up to the 4400m pass. By this stage the group had spread out over quite a long way - here is a view from near the top of some of those who were behind us and believe me there were plenty ahead of us too!
















Fortunately for us by this stage we were in a small group of particularly upbeat trekkers who shared our approach of taking plenty of breathers as well as laughing lots - you know who you are, thanks guys! Bearing in mind that we had been told that adding another 20m in altitide could be enough for us to get sick, you can imagine the relief we felt at reaching our highest point; I think the photo says it all...















We then had the pleasure of a downhill section, and some amazing views of turquoise lakes:





























We finally reached our well deserved lunch stop. By this stage the headaches has kicked in - mixture of dehydration and the body trying to deal with the altitude. We soon picked up again and after a much more gentle afternoon reached our second stunning campsite at about 5pm exhausted but exhilirated.

You can also see from the photo that there were a few beers on sale from some of the locals who has clearly predicted the mood of many - I stuck to the Gatorade which really says alot about how much the day had taken out of me. The models of those wonderful hats (which came out at every night - like I said it was pretty much compulsory!) are the fantastic Ian & Jane - cheers guys!

Cath (& Andrew)