Leaving Peru

We are off to Bolivia today, via Puno, on the bus. The scenery out the window is spectacular, think Scottish west coast, minus the sea. Bare mountains, sparse vegetation and huge lakes that reflect the sky. I have really enjoyed Peru and I am leaving thinking what a nice country…friendly, honest people, beautiful countryside, nice weather. A pleasure. Hope Boliva is just as good.

View out the bus window between Arequipa and Puno

Hot tip

If you want to save an hour of your life, don’t post anything in Arequipa. The town seems to take a nap at about 3pm, for an hour or so, but the Post Office stays open. Great you might correctly think, no queue. In fact there wasn’t another customer in there but just to spite the system the staff work so slowly between 3 and 4, they might as well be asleep and you might as well shoot yourself in the face. One parcel, security inspection, fingerprints, passport copies and one hour later….seriously. That said – I love the rest of Arequipa. It’s a very good looking town, with great cafes, restaurants, shops and sights all handed to you on a plate surrounded by snow capped mountains and bright blue sky with puffy white clouds...

Arequipa whilst everyone's sleeping

Arequipa whilst everyone's sleeping

Colca Canyon

Yet more impressive mountain scenery in Peru, this time at Colca Canyon. We spent a morning watching the famous condors above the 'canyon' (debatable - might be a valley) and then Aaron came down with something that rendered him housebound. It was a real pity because we planned to do more hiking here - I went off on my own in the afternoon but we left the next day. Not to worry - you get a really good idea of what the canyon's like from the slowest, most packed bus ever, which winds its way along the edge for a good 3 hours. Fine if you really enjoy the views, not so good if you like to breathe clean air without a bum/goat/baby in your face.

Aaron pre punishment for eating an Alpaca

Not sure what these are - good photo

The town we stayed in - Cabanaconde

Worlds largest cactus

Tough life

I think its a tough life for the ruins of the Sacred Valley near Cuzco - after Machu Picchu, they struggle to reach the wow factor. That said, they are very impressive in their own right, set amoungst beautiful mountain scenery, surrounded by pretty valley villages, they deserve to be enjoyed. My advice - visit the Sacred Valley first and Machu Picchu last so you're not constantly comparing.

Ollantaytambo

Pisac

Pisac

Best pancakes ever

Because lunch on my birthday was 3 energy bars and dinner was brain soup with chicken I felt I had missed out on part of my usual birthday celebrations. So although Machu Picchu on my b'day was pretty good, to fill the remaining void we found possibly the best cafe in Cuzco and I had pancakes, a strawberry juice and a perfect flat white. Felt great at the time, felt a little sick for the rest of the afternoon.

mmmm

Friendly Peru

We left Quito on Monday - the views from the plane of the mountains were amazing but I was happy to wave goodbye - just didn't fall in love with Ecuador. Cuzco on the other hand has been like a breath of fresh, touristy air. The people are uber friendly, the food is great, transport is easy and it feels safe. We headed off on Tuesday to Aguas Calientes for our Machu Picchu trip. Brilliant. Front row seats on the Vistadome (see below), great weather and we even ran into some friends from the Galapagos trip. We hiked from AC to the top of Wayna Picchu so by the end of the day we were exhausted. Definitely worth all the hype.

Best seats - Vistadome

View from the best seats

One of the many postcard shots

Top of Wayna Picchu

My snooze spot after all the walking - nice.

Aaron's Travel Bite #4

Waste instructions in rural Equador

And the closeup...

A bit more about the Galapagos

I just realised, upon reflection, I gave you lots of animal shots from the Galapagos. There is a lot of wildlife, and it is the main attraction, so fair enough but if you want to know more about a Galapagos trip, I've added some photos of the islands. We went in the 'dry' season so I would say the coastline is mainly rocky and the vegetation is the opposite of lush. Occasionally you get the a great beach with clean white sand and crystal blue water but mostly its cliffs or rock pools that line the shore. Its just incredible how well these places thrive when you remove the humans - no matter where you go its birds, fish and mammals galore.

One of the many beaches, littered with coral, seals and shells (Genovesa).

Santiago Island

Bartolome Island

Vegetation

Actually amazing

There's not a bad word to found when reading/talking about the Galapagos so when we left for our 8 day cruise over a week ago I was sooo excited. We were on board Flamingo 1, owned by Ecoventura, because we really liked the itinerary and I can honestly say it exceeded all of my poorly managed expectations.
Highlights included;

swimming with, walking over and watching the millions of marine iguanas;

snorkelling with sharks off Santiago Island (Laura's excellent picture);

the views from the top of Bartolome Island;

frigate birds and land iguanas on North Seymour;

hilarious tortoises on San Cristobal; 

blue footed boobies everywhere;

and hanging out with sea lions at Gardeners Bay on Espanola Island.

Another excellent picture from Laura,

and another.

We have 100's of amazing photos and a few great stories so we look forward to sharing these with you when we see you again. Can highly recommend this trip...amazing.

The Quilotoa Loop

We've just spent 3 days catching buses around The Loop, stopping in Quilotoa and Chugchilan for some hiking. Excellent. I couldn't find a topographic map to save myself but we met another Australian couple on the bus who had the same plan so we ended up travelling together, which was really nice. Scenery was spectacular, locals were sometimes friendly, sometimes shy, sometimes angry. First stop was the crater lake of Laguna Quilotoa - v. windy, v. cold but stunning...

Then it was down to Chugchilan, a great base for hiking and a good spot to find lots of French people.

View from the ridge walk behind Chugchilan

We saw lots of indigenous folk and their houses and farms;

On the last day we left The Loop on a 3am bus and stopped in Sasquisili to see the animal market - live trading of pigs, sheep, cows and lhamas. One lovely old lady trusted Aaron with her pigs...big mistake, they're worth US$160 each.

I really liked this area, there's a lot of walking to do, its cheap but the food and accommodation can be really good. Try and squeeze it in before or after the Galapagos. I'm really glad we went and that we had some great travel buddies.

The people here aren't happy and neither are we.

We arrived in Quito on Friday evening and checked into our hostel. The view from the balcony of the city lights was amazing. We were excited.

The next morning we went to the Otavalo Market, a lovely 2 hour bus ride through really nice mountain scenery. I had high expectations for the market but was left disappointed - lots of vendors selling the same thing, nothing original, everything overpriced. Unfortunately I cant add any pictures of Otavalo or the amazing view from our hostel because on the way back we were robbed on the bus and amoungst other things we lost the camera.

I'm calm about it now but for most of yesterday I was angry and bitter (way more than usual). What a miserable way to arrive in a country, Quito is actually very pretty but I just couldn't enjoy it. The police were very nice, we went to the station to do the police report and my guess is this happens all the time because the procedure was very slick. Hilariously, they gave us tourist brochures when we left....its too late buddy I already hate Quito.

We had to replace a bunch of stuff today...waste of time and money but I no longer want to murder the fucker, so on balance, a good day. I'm sad to report that the people we've encountered here are not particularly friendly or helpful and on top of the theft, I'm just not loving Quito. We are off to the Quilotoa Loop tomorrow so some pictures from the new camera and a better attitude should follow.

Flying in S. America

We are not taking many flights in South America and so far we have done 3, so I'm no expert but I have been really pleasantly surprised by how nice it is to fly here. The planes are big and new and clean, they leave on time, the hostesses are nice, our luggage reaches its destination, you have a seat allocated and a meal. I can only imagine this is what it was like to fly in Europe before budget airlines...lovely. As an aside, the views of the Andes are worth way more than the plane ticket.

Cartagena - hot days, hot nights

I'm not sure if, when I think back on this trip, I'll be able to remember Cartagena for anything other than heat and humidity, always. To be fair, I think it messes with your head....it certainly makes you lazier....I can barely be bothered to type this blog. I'm not complaining, I love hot, but London has helped me forget about the downsides - constant and profuse sweat, frizzy hair, clamey palms, exhaustion. 

In reality, Cartagena is all about forts (can't imagine soldiers patrolling this in full uniform and full sun);

gold (in a very good, free, centrally located museum with a/c and toilets);

 markets (with genuine or maybe mutant fruit, veg and meat);

 flash colonial renovations;

 and crumbling old buildings;

so I'll try and remember that.

This is our last stop in Colombia before we fly to Ecuador and we have really enjoyed the country. Particular mention goes to the people in Bogotá who are the friendliest we've met so far.

I didn't have any preconceived ideas about the trip, I thought there would be really good coffee everywhere but it was actually very hard to find. We were offered a lot of cocaine, which was always funny because it went something like this....'Restaurant, good price for you, my friend....cocaine....free sample?' Other than that the trip has been hassle free and I would highly recommend Colombia as a destination.