There's no central bus station in Lima, instead each of the many bus companies have their own terminals spread all over the city. This meant we needed to get a taxi to our general destination of the Miraflores district, apparently the better part of the city. Thus was my first encounter with the affluence of Lima, as the fare was far higher than any taxi fare we've paid in Peru. Being the capital city I'd expected higher prices, but the difference has taken a bit of readjusting (in fact, prices for things in general in Peru and Bolivia have rarely made much sense to my Western way of thinking, especially food - e.g. a 3-course set dinner in a cheap place can be literally a 10th of the price of just a pizza in the not-so-fancy place next door (2.5 soles as opposed to 25 soles), but anyway...).
Sarah had spent some time investigating Lima's hostels on the Internet and she decided the first place to try would be Hostel Nice Place, mainly because our friend Glen from Cusco was staying there and he'd recommended it. It's a lovely old mansion, and although not cheap, we decided to stay in a dorm (as the place was very quite, and we had a good chance of having the whole dorm to ourselves, which we did).
That afternoon Glen let us use his computer again to upload photos to Sarah's Facebook, and to burn them to DVD and then he took us for a stroll around the local area and to have dinner in a nearby Chinese.
Next morning after a lovely breakfast we saw Glen off in a taxi (he was heading off to the jungle and then Columbia, where we might well meet up again), and then we went exploring Miraflores ourselves. It's a nice district alright, all very posh with lots of expensive shops and the like, you could be anywhere in the West really. The coastline in the city is very impressive though, with high cliffs dropping off towards the Pacific, and lots of paragliders riding the permanent winds (it sure is a bit weird seeing them glide overhead while strolling down a mad traffic filled city street).
The next couple of days we explored the city centre, which has most of the main museums and churches that are worth seeing (although a couple of the main museums were closed for renovations). Most impressive was San Francisco church and convent with it's fantastic old-world library with books from the 1500's and looking like something straight from Harry Potter's Hogwarts, and the catacombs that hold the remains of up to 70,000 people, many of the bones and skulls still on display.
Also impressive, but in an annoying way, was the museum of the Inquisition. It was in this building for 250 years (1570 to 1820) that the Catholic Church literally tortured and murdered (including public burnings of heretics) thousands of innocent people. As I've traveled throughout South America, seeing lots of churches, monasteries, convents and the like, the more convinced I've become of just how utterly ridiculous the whole Christian faith thing really is - I've always known it's history was dodgey to say the least, but at times it's really sickened me (and to think that a lot of intelligent, educated people still believe fervently in all this 'old guy with a white beard floating on a cloud and smiting evildoers' stuff, I just don't know...).
Anyway, I also checked out the logistics of getting up to Ecuador, and it turns out that the best option is to get a direct bus from here in Lima to Guayaquil. I kinda wanted to stop off at Huaraz and maybe do some more hiking, but that would work out more expensive and we don't have proper multi-day hiking gear (and Sarah is keen to move on to another country anyway). It means we pay a bit more than getting a bus to the border and then another bus on the Ecuadorian side, but it saves us a fair bit of hassle, as apparently we don't even have to get off the bus at immigration (we'll see about that!).
That evening we ate at one of Lima's best restaurants, Astrid y Gaston. It was another fantastic dining experience I must say - probably not on a par with Casa Cruz in Buenos Aires, but still a mighty fine feed.
So later this afternoon we hop on a bus for what could be 29 hours or so. We've now spent 35 days in Peru (the same number as in Bolivia), and again it's been fantastic. It's good to be feeling that wee familiar frisson you get knowing you're moving to a new country, and also weird to think that there is still so much more to see in Peru. Every country I've been to, regardless of spending up to 3 months in some of them, still has some place or thing that I still really want to see. Even going back as far as Kenya (I'd love to climb Mount Kenya), and Uganda (all transport options to Murchison Falls were full), it's mad to think of just how much more amazing 'stuff' the world really has to offer - there's certainly plenty more ammo there for future trips, and always will be of course.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Pisco
Pisco is famous for producing the national drink of Pisco, a grape brandy, but we didn't visit any of the local distilleries or bodegas as apparently they're all a bit outside the town. The town itself was actually hit by a huge earthquake 14 months ago in which 450 people died and the town was devastated. Much of that devastation was still very much in evidence with rubble strewn everywhere, although obviously there is a lot of rebuilding going on.
When we arrived in the main plaza there was a small local food festival taking place, so we had a very tasty lunch snacking from the various stalls. Then we got our hostel sorted with some help from a nice lady tout (the very nice and comfy Hostel Sorado that escaped any serious quake damage), before strolling down to the Pacific ocean (which we hadn't seen since way back in Chile 4 months ago), and catching the wonderfully clear sunset from the long pier.
But the main reason for stopping off in Pisco was to visit Isla Ballestas. This is a set of islands famous for their vast bird colonies, and it really was something else. The islands are really impressive in themselves, as they've been eroded into a huge number of sea arches that make for very impressive nesting sites. But it's really all about the birds, and I've never encountered anything like as many birds in one place - literally hundreds of thousands of cormorants, Peruvian boobies and various other species (many pointed out by the excellent guide), and hundreds of Humboldt penguins and sea lions. The whole time there was a vast number of birds flying around, many in small formations (which, sadly enough, reminded me of squadrons of Tie-fighters buzzing around the Death Star in Star Wars!).
The actual tour wasn't really that long - we buzzed out in about 30 minutes in a large speedboat with about 20 people aboard (along with 3 other similar speedboats), cruised about the islands for about an hour and then came straight back (stopping briefly on the way out to see the mad Candelabra etched into a hillside). That's always the problem with tours of course, but in this case there wasn't really much option.
I read somewhere that the islands are referred to as 'the poor man's Galapagos', and I can certainly see why, as it really was an amazing experience. It was just brilliant to see an example of a natural habitat that seems to be completely unaffected by humanity (although the guano (bird droppings used as fertilizer) was commercially exploited for many hundreds of years (since before the Inca in fact), that no longer happens (not much anyway), and the islands are now firmly protected and respected). From the incredible number of birds, penguins and sea lions there now it all seems to be working out very well.
Being a quick tour we were back in Pisco by around midday, so after buying a snacky lunch for the bus and a bit of internet we hopped into a collectivo taxi (waiting just 45 seconds for two locals to fill up the taxi), got to the Pan-Americana highway and literally within 3 minutes were on the next bus to Lima, just 4 hours up the road.
When we arrived in the main plaza there was a small local food festival taking place, so we had a very tasty lunch snacking from the various stalls. Then we got our hostel sorted with some help from a nice lady tout (the very nice and comfy Hostel Sorado that escaped any serious quake damage), before strolling down to the Pacific ocean (which we hadn't seen since way back in Chile 4 months ago), and catching the wonderfully clear sunset from the long pier.
But the main reason for stopping off in Pisco was to visit Isla Ballestas. This is a set of islands famous for their vast bird colonies, and it really was something else. The islands are really impressive in themselves, as they've been eroded into a huge number of sea arches that make for very impressive nesting sites. But it's really all about the birds, and I've never encountered anything like as many birds in one place - literally hundreds of thousands of cormorants, Peruvian boobies and various other species (many pointed out by the excellent guide), and hundreds of Humboldt penguins and sea lions. The whole time there was a vast number of birds flying around, many in small formations (which, sadly enough, reminded me of squadrons of Tie-fighters buzzing around the Death Star in Star Wars!).
The actual tour wasn't really that long - we buzzed out in about 30 minutes in a large speedboat with about 20 people aboard (along with 3 other similar speedboats), cruised about the islands for about an hour and then came straight back (stopping briefly on the way out to see the mad Candelabra etched into a hillside). That's always the problem with tours of course, but in this case there wasn't really much option.
I read somewhere that the islands are referred to as 'the poor man's Galapagos', and I can certainly see why, as it really was an amazing experience. It was just brilliant to see an example of a natural habitat that seems to be completely unaffected by humanity (although the guano (bird droppings used as fertilizer) was commercially exploited for many hundreds of years (since before the Inca in fact), that no longer happens (not much anyway), and the islands are now firmly protected and respected). From the incredible number of birds, penguins and sea lions there now it all seems to be working out very well.
Being a quick tour we were back in Pisco by around midday, so after buying a snacky lunch for the bus and a bit of internet we hopped into a collectivo taxi (waiting just 45 seconds for two locals to fill up the taxi), got to the Pan-Americana highway and literally within 3 minutes were on the next bus to Lima, just 4 hours up the road.
The oasis of Huacachina
As I said, the oasis at Huacachina really is gorgeous - it's exactly like something from a story book, literally picture-perfect really (and it appears on the back of the Peruvian 50-sole note). The weather for our short stay of just 2 nights was great, and the second day we indulged in the main activity - taking a dunebuggy ride through the huge dunes and sandboarding down a few of them.
This desert seemed quite different to the desert in Namibia, mainly I think because the colour here was a far more 'normal' golden shade as opposed to Namibia's red. Anyway the buggy was a big 9-seater and plenty powerful, so you get quite a rush driving down some of the sheer dune-faces. The sandboarding wasn't as good as Namibia though, as the boards only had velco bindings, and so your feet moved around quite a bit. Myself and Sarah only stood up on the boards for one dune (and we were the only ones to even attempt that), but the other 3 dunes we just lay on the boards and slid down. But with the dunes been so large you still managed to build up some amount of speed. One of the other girls with us had a nasty looking tumble at the end of one dune, but she was straight up onto her feet and laughing.
I was going to stay another day and just relax by the lovely refreshing pool at our hostel (Hostel Titanic), but the weather looked a bit misty and so we decided to just head off towards Pisco instead. It was a quick taxi ride to the town of Ica (just 5km away), a quick visit to the museum there and then a quick local bus ride straight to Pisco.
This desert seemed quite different to the desert in Namibia, mainly I think because the colour here was a far more 'normal' golden shade as opposed to Namibia's red. Anyway the buggy was a big 9-seater and plenty powerful, so you get quite a rush driving down some of the sheer dune-faces. The sandboarding wasn't as good as Namibia though, as the boards only had velco bindings, and so your feet moved around quite a bit. Myself and Sarah only stood up on the boards for one dune (and we were the only ones to even attempt that), but the other 3 dunes we just lay on the boards and slid down. But with the dunes been so large you still managed to build up some amount of speed. One of the other girls with us had a nasty looking tumble at the end of one dune, but she was straight up onto her feet and laughing.
I was going to stay another day and just relax by the lovely refreshing pool at our hostel (Hostel Titanic), but the weather looked a bit misty and so we decided to just head off towards Pisco instead. It was a quick taxi ride to the town of Ica (just 5km away), a quick visit to the museum there and then a quick local bus ride straight to Pisco.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
The Nasca Lines
The overnight bus from Arequipa arrived in Nasca nice and early the following morning and we got settled quickly into our hostel (Casa Blanca). I didn't sleep much on the bus so we got a couple of hours sleep before heading out to explore the small town and to visit the local Nasca Lines Centre.
This centre is dedicated to Maria Reich who is famous for bringing the lines to international attention, and for spending most of her life investigating and protecting the lines. Reich died back in 1998, and the centre is now run by a colleague of hers. Turns our her colleague is a really nice old lady who gives tourists a one-hour lecture on the lines, discussing various theories and the history etc. She's a bit mad though, and talked a fair bit about Peruvian corruption and all anyone is interested in is money and that nobody really cares about protecting the lines (apparently they are in danger of being lost for ever from flooding). After evading the issue of working with her as volunteers (I didn't get the impression she got to do any real scientific research or anything), we bought a book about the lines, thanked her very much for the lecture and made our escape!
My next plan was to try and hire bikes and ride out the 20km or so to the observation tower to see the lines close up, and also to ride to the nearby airport to see about getting a cheap flight over the lines themselves (which is by far the best way to see them). It's low season now but the flights were still US$60 per person (apparently it's US$120 in high season), which seemed a bit steep. Anyway, we couldn't find bikes anywhere so we had to get a taxi out to the airport, getting there just before 5pm. After asking at the various desks in the tiny airport it turned out there were 2 seats left on the last flight that day (total of 5 passengers). They tried to get us to pay the full fare of course, but we haggled quiet strongly knowing the flight was about to leave and if we didn't take the seats they'd just go empty. Once I showed the guy my US$100 bill he finally said OK and literally 3 minutes later we were lining up for take-off.
The flight was about 25 minutes, but seemed a lot quicker, as you get to see about 8 of the huge shapes with the pilot banking left and right to give the passengers on both sides of the plane a good view. I was busy trying to take photos too of course, so it all flew by in no time, but it was certainly worth it.
Later that night we went to another lecture, this time a tad more professional and organised. It was in a small planetarium in a relatively plush hotel in the centre (the hotel where Maria Reich spent her last 25 years in fact, something the hotel is very proud about). Anyway, the lecture was very good (although a bit repetative) and afterwards the guide took us outside to look at Venus through a telescope. It wasn't bad, and you could clearly see 4 moons and two bands across the surface of the planet, but nowhere near as impressive as looking at Saturn and it's rings in New Zealand!
So really we managed to cover just about everything Nasca has to offer tourists in about a day and a half, and so the next day we hopped on the bus to Ica, just 5km from which is Huacachina, an amazing oasis - a real one this time surrounded by desert sand dunes and fringed with palm trees and everything (good photos and stuff here - we stayed at the hostel with the photo of the pool, which was very nice I must say).
This centre is dedicated to Maria Reich who is famous for bringing the lines to international attention, and for spending most of her life investigating and protecting the lines. Reich died back in 1998, and the centre is now run by a colleague of hers. Turns our her colleague is a really nice old lady who gives tourists a one-hour lecture on the lines, discussing various theories and the history etc. She's a bit mad though, and talked a fair bit about Peruvian corruption and all anyone is interested in is money and that nobody really cares about protecting the lines (apparently they are in danger of being lost for ever from flooding). After evading the issue of working with her as volunteers (I didn't get the impression she got to do any real scientific research or anything), we bought a book about the lines, thanked her very much for the lecture and made our escape!
My next plan was to try and hire bikes and ride out the 20km or so to the observation tower to see the lines close up, and also to ride to the nearby airport to see about getting a cheap flight over the lines themselves (which is by far the best way to see them). It's low season now but the flights were still US$60 per person (apparently it's US$120 in high season), which seemed a bit steep. Anyway, we couldn't find bikes anywhere so we had to get a taxi out to the airport, getting there just before 5pm. After asking at the various desks in the tiny airport it turned out there were 2 seats left on the last flight that day (total of 5 passengers). They tried to get us to pay the full fare of course, but we haggled quiet strongly knowing the flight was about to leave and if we didn't take the seats they'd just go empty. Once I showed the guy my US$100 bill he finally said OK and literally 3 minutes later we were lining up for take-off.
The flight was about 25 minutes, but seemed a lot quicker, as you get to see about 8 of the huge shapes with the pilot banking left and right to give the passengers on both sides of the plane a good view. I was busy trying to take photos too of course, so it all flew by in no time, but it was certainly worth it.
Later that night we went to another lecture, this time a tad more professional and organised. It was in a small planetarium in a relatively plush hotel in the centre (the hotel where Maria Reich spent her last 25 years in fact, something the hotel is very proud about). Anyway, the lecture was very good (although a bit repetative) and afterwards the guide took us outside to look at Venus through a telescope. It wasn't bad, and you could clearly see 4 moons and two bands across the surface of the planet, but nowhere near as impressive as looking at Saturn and it's rings in New Zealand!
So really we managed to cover just about everything Nasca has to offer tourists in about a day and a half, and so the next day we hopped on the bus to Ica, just 5km from which is Huacachina, an amazing oasis - a real one this time surrounded by desert sand dunes and fringed with palm trees and everything (good photos and stuff here - we stayed at the hostel with the photo of the pool, which was very nice I must say).
The Colca canyon
For some reason I never consulted the bus schedule information I got when we arrived at Arequipa and so we arrived at the bus station at 9am, while the first bus to Cabanaconde was 8am - d'oh! The next bus was 11:45, so I just used the Internet while waiting. The bus left 30 minutes late, but after only 20 minutes or so we came to a halt and one of the passengers explained to us that the holdup was due to a car rally race up ahead. We ended up getting stuck for nearly 4 hours waiting for the race to finish, and for all the cars to pass our bus after their race (so much for us never having travel delays).
It meant we arrived long after dark and missed the supposedly stunning scenery along the way, but the town itself was tiny and it didn't take long to check out a couple of hostels and find a lovely cheap place, Pachamama's. The next day we just spent relaxing and trying to find out information about hikes in the area and the possibility of renting bicycles. We also strolled to the mirador (lookout point) just 10 minutes walk from the village centre. I just sat here for a couple of hours soaking up the fantastic vantage point looking directly down into the canyon with small villages scattered along the far canyon wall and a small oasis by the river at the very bottom (over 1km down), that had a couple of very appealling looking swimming pools.
The next morning we got up quite early and started trekking into the canyon itself. Our guidebook suggested that the hike would take 3 days, but one of the locals we asked said it could actually be done in one long, hard day. The best option though seemed to be hiking all the way to the oasis at the base of the canyon (via three of the villages on the far side), staying the night there and then hiking back up the canyon the following day, which is exactly what we did.
We were blessed with literally perfect weather - not so much as a wisp of cloud in the sky and a nice cool breeze to prevent us getting too hot. The first day was almost completely downhill so it wasn't too difficult, but it was a long and spectacular day. At one point I saw a huge condor glide right over Sarah's head, maybe only 20 meters from me (I was a bit behind Sarah taking photos), but she never saw it as she was watching her feet, and within a few seconds it had disappeared around a rockface. The hike offered constantly changing viewpoints of the canyon as we descended, and getting to the bottom and then the small villages we'd been looking at the day before was all a bit surreal.
But the real draw at the end of the day was the swimming pools at the oasis we'd seen, and they certainly didn't disappoint. Accommodation here was pretty basic, having no electricity, but the pool was fantastic, being fed from natural spring water and not too cold. As you can imagine the setting at the base of a canyon made for some nice relaxing and the food that night was great too (and we met a nice Danish/Norwegian couple over dinner).
The next morning we weren't in any great rush, so we had a nice lie-in to let the day heat up before having another long, leisurely swim in the pool. Then we started the hike out. I thought we had plenty of water, but we didn't have much food for breakfast. I thought the hike out would only be 2.5/3 hours and so it shouldn't have been too much of a problem. But the uphill hike turned out to be a good bit tougher than I'd expected, and I think towards the end I had a touch of the bonk (a cycling term for becoming rapidly fatigued due to lack of food). But we did manage to reach the top in 3 hours with just enough water, just feeling pretty knackered!
We could have gotten a bus straight away back to Arequipa, but I was too hungary (and I still wanted to check out renting a bike), so we headed straight to the excellent local restaurant we'd been to on our first lazy day. After another great lunch there I checked out the bikes again, but again they had already been rented. We explained that we wanted the bikes to ride the 14km to a famous condor-spotting mirador the next morning (if you get the bus the touts pounce on you for expensive tickets, so I wanted to avoid them by cycling instead). The bike guy then told us that we didn't need to go to that mirador at all, that the condors should be at the local free lookout in about half-an-hour!
So obviously we headed straight out to the local mirador again, only a 10 minute walk, but this time at 3pm. Within the next hour we spotted 3 condors (and maybe a fourth one, but it was too far away to be sure). One of them came gliding by really, really close and we had a great view of him - he even turned his head at one point to look us straight in the eye. I even managed to get a pretty decent photo too, even though our camera only has a 3x zoom, and is generally pretty rubbish for wildlife shots. Yet again on this trip I was struck by how cool a proper, close-up wildlife encounter can be.
So after that we headed back to Pachamama's for another night, eating in the pizza place there too (we meant to go to the only 'posh' place in the town, but just couldn't be bothered to walk the 5 minutes!). Next morning after breakfast we got the 9am bus back to Arequipa with no hold-ups and this time I got to see the scenery along the way - and boy was it something. The guidebook says the bus journey is an experience in itself, and I couldn't agree more. Much of the shallower parts of the canyon were terraced for agriculture hundreds of years ago and continue to be farmed today, but the extent of terracing really is just awesome, far more extensive than anything I've seen in Asia.
On the way back to Arequipa we had the option of stopping off at the town of Chivay, which has natural hot springs, and so I jumped at the chance of that. The taxi drivers in the town were being rather cheeky I felt, trying to overcharge for the 3km trip to the springs, so I just decided to ignore them and walk. It turned out to be a beautiful walk, and all on the flat (the taxi drivers had been saying they charge so much because of the 'hills', cheeky so-and-so's).
I was very surprised at how modern, clean and professional the whole setup was at the springs, but we could only spend about an hour or so there before getting the next bus back to Arequipa. I certainly could have spent longer there, but the two main pools were outside with no shade, so I probably would have ended up burning myself! So we had to get a taxi back to the bus station (ggrrr!), but we caught the bus no problem and were back in Arequipa in no time.
We didn't bother staying another night in Arequipa as the buses to Nasca were a bit awkward - it turned out to be easiest to get a nightbus later that same night. So we collected our rucksacks from the hostel (using what had been the free internet, but they charged me this time!), had a so-so dinner in Mystique and then got the overnight bus to Nasca, home to the world famous Nasca lines.
It meant we arrived long after dark and missed the supposedly stunning scenery along the way, but the town itself was tiny and it didn't take long to check out a couple of hostels and find a lovely cheap place, Pachamama's. The next day we just spent relaxing and trying to find out information about hikes in the area and the possibility of renting bicycles. We also strolled to the mirador (lookout point) just 10 minutes walk from the village centre. I just sat here for a couple of hours soaking up the fantastic vantage point looking directly down into the canyon with small villages scattered along the far canyon wall and a small oasis by the river at the very bottom (over 1km down), that had a couple of very appealling looking swimming pools.
The next morning we got up quite early and started trekking into the canyon itself. Our guidebook suggested that the hike would take 3 days, but one of the locals we asked said it could actually be done in one long, hard day. The best option though seemed to be hiking all the way to the oasis at the base of the canyon (via three of the villages on the far side), staying the night there and then hiking back up the canyon the following day, which is exactly what we did.
We were blessed with literally perfect weather - not so much as a wisp of cloud in the sky and a nice cool breeze to prevent us getting too hot. The first day was almost completely downhill so it wasn't too difficult, but it was a long and spectacular day. At one point I saw a huge condor glide right over Sarah's head, maybe only 20 meters from me (I was a bit behind Sarah taking photos), but she never saw it as she was watching her feet, and within a few seconds it had disappeared around a rockface. The hike offered constantly changing viewpoints of the canyon as we descended, and getting to the bottom and then the small villages we'd been looking at the day before was all a bit surreal.
But the real draw at the end of the day was the swimming pools at the oasis we'd seen, and they certainly didn't disappoint. Accommodation here was pretty basic, having no electricity, but the pool was fantastic, being fed from natural spring water and not too cold. As you can imagine the setting at the base of a canyon made for some nice relaxing and the food that night was great too (and we met a nice Danish/Norwegian couple over dinner).
The next morning we weren't in any great rush, so we had a nice lie-in to let the day heat up before having another long, leisurely swim in the pool. Then we started the hike out. I thought we had plenty of water, but we didn't have much food for breakfast. I thought the hike out would only be 2.5/3 hours and so it shouldn't have been too much of a problem. But the uphill hike turned out to be a good bit tougher than I'd expected, and I think towards the end I had a touch of the bonk (a cycling term for becoming rapidly fatigued due to lack of food). But we did manage to reach the top in 3 hours with just enough water, just feeling pretty knackered!
We could have gotten a bus straight away back to Arequipa, but I was too hungary (and I still wanted to check out renting a bike), so we headed straight to the excellent local restaurant we'd been to on our first lazy day. After another great lunch there I checked out the bikes again, but again they had already been rented. We explained that we wanted the bikes to ride the 14km to a famous condor-spotting mirador the next morning (if you get the bus the touts pounce on you for expensive tickets, so I wanted to avoid them by cycling instead). The bike guy then told us that we didn't need to go to that mirador at all, that the condors should be at the local free lookout in about half-an-hour!
So obviously we headed straight out to the local mirador again, only a 10 minute walk, but this time at 3pm. Within the next hour we spotted 3 condors (and maybe a fourth one, but it was too far away to be sure). One of them came gliding by really, really close and we had a great view of him - he even turned his head at one point to look us straight in the eye. I even managed to get a pretty decent photo too, even though our camera only has a 3x zoom, and is generally pretty rubbish for wildlife shots. Yet again on this trip I was struck by how cool a proper, close-up wildlife encounter can be.
So after that we headed back to Pachamama's for another night, eating in the pizza place there too (we meant to go to the only 'posh' place in the town, but just couldn't be bothered to walk the 5 minutes!). Next morning after breakfast we got the 9am bus back to Arequipa with no hold-ups and this time I got to see the scenery along the way - and boy was it something. The guidebook says the bus journey is an experience in itself, and I couldn't agree more. Much of the shallower parts of the canyon were terraced for agriculture hundreds of years ago and continue to be farmed today, but the extent of terracing really is just awesome, far more extensive than anything I've seen in Asia.
On the way back to Arequipa we had the option of stopping off at the town of Chivay, which has natural hot springs, and so I jumped at the chance of that. The taxi drivers in the town were being rather cheeky I felt, trying to overcharge for the 3km trip to the springs, so I just decided to ignore them and walk. It turned out to be a beautiful walk, and all on the flat (the taxi drivers had been saying they charge so much because of the 'hills', cheeky so-and-so's).
I was very surprised at how modern, clean and professional the whole setup was at the springs, but we could only spend about an hour or so there before getting the next bus back to Arequipa. I certainly could have spent longer there, but the two main pools were outside with no shade, so I probably would have ended up burning myself! So we had to get a taxi back to the bus station (ggrrr!), but we caught the bus no problem and were back in Arequipa in no time.
We didn't bother staying another night in Arequipa as the buses to Nasca were a bit awkward - it turned out to be easiest to get a nightbus later that same night. So we collected our rucksacks from the hostel (using what had been the free internet, but they charged me this time!), had a so-so dinner in Mystique and then got the overnight bus to Nasca, home to the world famous Nasca lines.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Arequipa
So the bus to Arequipa took 13 hours instead of the advertised 10, but the scenery was lovely, and the bus very comfy so I didn't mind. We arrived kinda late at night so we shared a taxi into the centre with a couple from South Africa (that Sarah had met while panicking about the fact that the bus had disappeared when she came back from the station toilet at the waypoint of Puno - the bus had to change a tyre but took over an hour to do it, with me still onboard).
So we took a nice place for our first night, but the next morning Sarah went to investigate other cheaper options, and found a nice place. So we packed up and moved across the town, only to find the guy Sarah had talked to was gone, and his assistant wouldn't give us the same price. We came back 2 hours later, still no boss, so we just moved 2 doors up the road to an even cheaper place (Hotel Florentina, not quite as nice but still lovely).
We spent the next 3 days strolling around the lovely town exploring the various museums (including the mad 500-year old frozen mummy of Juanita who was sacrificed by the Inca on top of a nearby mountain) and the cool huge convent that the city is also famous for. We've eaten really well too, in fact we had one of the trips better meals last night in the very fancy hotel of Casa de la Moneda.
But today we're off to explore one of the other things Arequipa is famous for, the Colca Canyon (famous for being twice as deep as the Grand Canyon). I didn't bother to get an organised tour, instead we're just hopping on the local bus to the town at the end of the canyon (Cabanaconde), and we'll just take it from there...
So we took a nice place for our first night, but the next morning Sarah went to investigate other cheaper options, and found a nice place. So we packed up and moved across the town, only to find the guy Sarah had talked to was gone, and his assistant wouldn't give us the same price. We came back 2 hours later, still no boss, so we just moved 2 doors up the road to an even cheaper place (Hotel Florentina, not quite as nice but still lovely).
We spent the next 3 days strolling around the lovely town exploring the various museums (including the mad 500-year old frozen mummy of Juanita who was sacrificed by the Inca on top of a nearby mountain) and the cool huge convent that the city is also famous for. We've eaten really well too, in fact we had one of the trips better meals last night in the very fancy hotel of Casa de la Moneda.
But today we're off to explore one of the other things Arequipa is famous for, the Colca Canyon (famous for being twice as deep as the Grand Canyon). I didn't bother to get an organised tour, instead we're just hopping on the local bus to the town at the end of the canyon (Cabanaconde), and we'll just take it from there...
Sunday, September 14, 2008
The journey home (home being Cusco now of course)
Alex was very keen on walking all the way back to the town of Ollantaytambo, from where local buses head straight back to Cusco (most of them via the town of Urubamba). This hike is 30km or something along train tracks, and the main reason for walking was to avoid the high cost of just hopping on the comfy train that travels the very same tracks. I had considered walking (being keen as always to avoid being ripped-off), and Sarah was quite keen to walk too, but on the way down from Machu Picchu I had felt a slight twinge in my knee, and at dinner that night it was quite painful. So I decided not to chance damaging my knee, and instead to see if we could get the train the next day, or if not (as we'd heard that seats sell out very quickly), just wait another night in Agus Caliente and maybe walk the following day.
So Sarah gets up the following morning around 9am and strolls down to the train station (we weren't in any particular rush and didn't have any idea of the train times or seat availability as the station was closed the night before). She arrives back at the hostel 10 minutes later breathless and in a bit of a panic, telling me to get packed immediately as she's just bought tickets for the 9:30 train - the time of the only cheap train each day. I have a quick shower and hobble down to the nearby train station (my knee is still a little sore, but much improved from the evening before).
The station is all a confusion of arriving and departing passengers, but after a bit of running around we find the right train and get seated in the lovely comfy seats with just a few minutes to spare. The journey is only 2 hours by train to Ollantaytambo, but after an hour I spot Alex walking alone along the tracks. It's 10:30 and he's only halfway, so either he started much, much later than he'd expected or he was really struggling with the hike. It turned out that the hike was all uphill too, and not downhill as he'd told us (the tracks follow the Urubamba river all the way, and the river was raging the wrong direction for poor Alex I'm afraid!).
Yet again on this trip I felt really 'lucky' that I'd made the right choice. Even though I couldn't have tackled that hike with my knee anyway, I intuitively felt that the hike would be a bit of a nightmare regardless, since walking along train tracks doesn't allow easy appreciation of your surroundings. This is because you need to concentrate on your feet most of the time, as there are small, misshapen rocks everywhere on which you can easily twist an ankle. So it wouldn't have been a particularly enjoyable hike even though the mountain landscapes were beautiful - I reckon I got to enjoy the views better from the train itself (again we just happened to get seats on the correct side of the train to enjoy those views).
So we effortlessly made it to Ollantaytambo, where we'd been before to visit the town's famous ruins. After a nice lunch there by the river we strolled though the small village to the waiting local minivans and within 3 minutes we were off to the town of Urubamba. There we had to get a connecting local bus back to Cusco, and yet again we were waiting literally only a couple of minutes before heading off (I don't want to jinx anything of course, but it continues to be uncanny how we never have to wait for local buses, having caught what seems like hundreds now on this trip).
We arrived back in Cusco early in the afternoon and walked back to our original hostel where we'd left our rucksacks. Of course they had a room available, in fact the very same one we'd had before, so it felt very much like coming home. So much so in fact that we decided to just hang around for another couple of days just relaxing.
It meant we had time to use Glen's computer to burn a load of photos onto DVD (although I can't read either copy of one set of photos, so hopefully I can recover them when I get home somehow!). We went to McCoy's bar for lunch and Sarah used Glen's computer and the free wi-fi there to upload hundreds of our photos onto her Facebook account (I think this link should get you there if your interested).
So this afternoon while I used the internet Sarah bought our bus tickets to Arequipa, our next destination in Peru, and we leave tomorrow morning. Cusco has been a great place to spend the past couple of weeks (Glen's been here for 3 months, and he leaves tomorrow too), but it's finally time to move on. Arequipa is famous for it's colonial archecture and also a mad huge canyon famous for condor spotting, so no doubt we'll end up spending ages there too...
So Sarah gets up the following morning around 9am and strolls down to the train station (we weren't in any particular rush and didn't have any idea of the train times or seat availability as the station was closed the night before). She arrives back at the hostel 10 minutes later breathless and in a bit of a panic, telling me to get packed immediately as she's just bought tickets for the 9:30 train - the time of the only cheap train each day. I have a quick shower and hobble down to the nearby train station (my knee is still a little sore, but much improved from the evening before).
The station is all a confusion of arriving and departing passengers, but after a bit of running around we find the right train and get seated in the lovely comfy seats with just a few minutes to spare. The journey is only 2 hours by train to Ollantaytambo, but after an hour I spot Alex walking alone along the tracks. It's 10:30 and he's only halfway, so either he started much, much later than he'd expected or he was really struggling with the hike. It turned out that the hike was all uphill too, and not downhill as he'd told us (the tracks follow the Urubamba river all the way, and the river was raging the wrong direction for poor Alex I'm afraid!).
Yet again on this trip I felt really 'lucky' that I'd made the right choice. Even though I couldn't have tackled that hike with my knee anyway, I intuitively felt that the hike would be a bit of a nightmare regardless, since walking along train tracks doesn't allow easy appreciation of your surroundings. This is because you need to concentrate on your feet most of the time, as there are small, misshapen rocks everywhere on which you can easily twist an ankle. So it wouldn't have been a particularly enjoyable hike even though the mountain landscapes were beautiful - I reckon I got to enjoy the views better from the train itself (again we just happened to get seats on the correct side of the train to enjoy those views).
So we effortlessly made it to Ollantaytambo, where we'd been before to visit the town's famous ruins. After a nice lunch there by the river we strolled though the small village to the waiting local minivans and within 3 minutes we were off to the town of Urubamba. There we had to get a connecting local bus back to Cusco, and yet again we were waiting literally only a couple of minutes before heading off (I don't want to jinx anything of course, but it continues to be uncanny how we never have to wait for local buses, having caught what seems like hundreds now on this trip).
We arrived back in Cusco early in the afternoon and walked back to our original hostel where we'd left our rucksacks. Of course they had a room available, in fact the very same one we'd had before, so it felt very much like coming home. So much so in fact that we decided to just hang around for another couple of days just relaxing.
It meant we had time to use Glen's computer to burn a load of photos onto DVD (although I can't read either copy of one set of photos, so hopefully I can recover them when I get home somehow!). We went to McCoy's bar for lunch and Sarah used Glen's computer and the free wi-fi there to upload hundreds of our photos onto her Facebook account (I think this link should get you there if your interested).
So this afternoon while I used the internet Sarah bought our bus tickets to Arequipa, our next destination in Peru, and we leave tomorrow morning. Cusco has been a great place to spend the past couple of weeks (Glen's been here for 3 months, and he leaves tomorrow too), but it's finally time to move on. Arequipa is famous for it's colonial archecture and also a mad huge canyon famous for condor spotting, so no doubt we'll end up spending ages there too...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)