Arequipa

Arequipa was our final stop in Peru where we decided to brush up on our Spanish with a week of lessons and work off the many calories we had consumed in Lima with some hiking!

During our time in Arequipa, we enjoyed the historical district where you could find plenty of interesting antique shops, cafes, bars and squares. The most famous attraction in the town is the Santa Catalina Convent which we visited during the night by candlelight when the daytime crowds had disappeared. It was definitely much more impressive than we were expecting, albeit a little creepy! The convent is enormous - the size of an average city block - with it's own streets & cemetery.

Inside the convent

Our main reason for visiting Arequipa was to hike down & up the world's second deepest canyon, The Colca Canyon, and see the Andean Condors which have wingspans of up to 3.5 metres. We were picked up from our hotel at 3am and took the bus to the Colca Canyon for a quick breakfast and then to a viewing area to spend some time watching the condors. They were pretty amazing to watch, gliding in the canyon below. 

 At around 11am we began the long, 21km hike down the canyon and to an area called 'Paradise' where we spent the night. The track was not the easiest and a little frustrating with loose gravel & rocks galore! When we finally arrived at the cabanas and saw the steep track leading to the top of the canyon, Elise had made up her mind that she wanted a mule for the 7km trek back up to the top! But pride prevailed when 5am came along and she made the slow journey up, enviously looking at the people on mules and Ben's long legs all the way up.

It wasn't the biggest confidence booster being told by the guide, "Group, you are all good, you will make it to the top in less than 3 hours. You Elise, you are not bad but not very good. Maybe 3.5 hours for you." : (

Day 1 hiking (bottom middle shot shows what we had to climb up!)

 After the torturous hike up, we finally had some breakfast and drove to a nearby town with thermal pools to rest our sore muscles before heading back home to sleep it off.

Lima

A Tale of 2 Gluttons

Well, we don't have too much to say about Lima because most of our time was spent eating! Although Lima is definitely not the most attractive of cities, it sure makes up for it with it's amazing & cheap restaurants! We were able to visit 2 incredible restaurants - Central and Astrid & Gaston (which is currently one of the top 50 restaurants in the world) where we were able to at least pretend to be high rollers for a night!

The last picture is of Ben participating in a team photo with the Peruvian national soccer team who we bumped into at the airport.

 

Cusco & The Inca Trail

After a few days doing some last minute preparations for our trek in Cusco, we were picked up from our hotel at some ungodly hour (5am!) to head to the starting point of the Inca Trail in Ollantaytambo in the Sacred Valley. We were introduced to our group at a quick breakfast - an interesting bunch of 15 people from the US, Australia, the Netherlands & England. The group included all sorts..... from a father & son team from the North Shore who were the ultimate private school geeks in matching outfits to a dutch hippy who decided to do the trek in a silk dress and fashion boots! We definitely come across some interesting characters on our travels!

The first day was challenging but a good warm up for the days that would follow and involved walking through some tiny indigenous communities and past a few Inca ruins to reach our first camp site at 3,000m above sea level. We were pretty excited to be camping for the 1st time ever and not a bad way to do it with 21 porters who were there to carry the camping gear, cook and set-up our tents! We were kept awake by a donkey munching grass right outside our tent through the night (jeez of all the places!), before being woken up around 5.30am to start the second day's hike.

Ouch is probably the best way to describe day two which involved a 6 hour steep, uphill hike to reach Dead Woman's Pass at 4,200m above sea level. Dealing with the altitude was really challenging and we needed to stop for mini breaks every 50m at one point near the top. The view from the top was beautiful and it definitely was a feat to have made it. But the celebrations started a little too soon! The next section was also tough, going down thousands of steps to the second camp site.

The third day was bearable but l o n g .... around 15kms that involved constant trekking up and down hills. But we survived (just) and made it to the final camp site which was in front of Machu Picchu mountain. It was a relief to know that Machu Picchu was sitting just on the other side of the mountain, only 1.5 hours away.

We had to get up at 3.50am to walk to the entrance of the final section of the trail to reach "Sun Gate" with the goal of watching the sunrise over Machu Picchu. Fair to say that we were a little disappointed to be greeted by dense fog as far as the eye could see as we approached the famous viewpoint : ( After almost 50kms of difficult trekking, sleeping on rocks, no showers and waking up at crazy hours, Pacha Mama (mother nature) wasn't on our side. Thank god, by around 11am the fog lifted and we were so grateful to see the spectacular Machu Picchu ruins.  The only spoiler was the hoards of tourists who had arrived by train and kept on getting in the way. We were very close to attacking them with our walking sticks!

We really couldn't have made it without the porters & cooks from the group. They were tiny but amazingly strong, carrying 25kg packs and virtually running the trek in their sandals! We couldn't believe what the cook was able to prepare with camping gear, whipping up delicious pizza, pastas and even a cake on the last night! Each section of the trek was so much easier knowing that there was a delicious, hot meal waiting for us.

Reaching the highest point of the trek on day 2 with our group

  

 

 Trying on one of the porter's packs

Our first night camping, the amazing cake our cook prepared and the porters

I think the guy on the left sums up how we were feeling when we finally reached the fog-covered Machu Picchu sunrise!

 The postcard shot of Machu Picchu!

 We were smelly, sore and sleepy by the end of it, but the Inca Trail was an incredible experience and completely worth the effort.

For the next week and half we spent our time enjoying the beautiful city of Cusco with it's fantastic food and cheap massages.

In Cusco's main square enjoying some sun

Viewpoint of Cusco from a nearby mountain

The hole in the wall lunch spot that we became obsessed with! Best value food we have had so far

Cusco by night (P.S. Not us getting married!!!)