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!!!)

Lake Titicaca

After our tour of the Salt Flats we decided to get out of town ASAP and boarded the 1am train to Oruro and then straight onto a bus to La Paz. In La Paz we were in heaven with a really lovely room, hot shower and tons of great restaurants and cafes within walking distance. We caught up on some much needed sleep and food for the next couple of days before continuing on to Copacabana - the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca.

The lake is enormous (it takes 3 hours driving just to get from the Bolivian side to the Peruvian side) and is the highest navigable lake in the world at around 3,800m above sea level. 

Copacabana was a very chilled out little town with just one main street and beautiful views of the lake. The main tourist attraction is the Isla Del Sol - an island around 2-3 hours away by boat which holds great significance to the locals as they believe that the sun god was born here. We arrived at the northern point of the island and then hiked to the southern end, around 3 hours away, but a beautiful walk. At points we could definitely feel the high altitude as we puffed our way up the hills!

In town - the local church and by the water

Just another day on the island taking the pigs for a walk

Very funny sight - our huge bus crossing the lake on a not so sturdy boat. Glad that we weren't on board

 The following day we caught the bus to Puno, our first stop in Peru! From here we took a tour of the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca, visiting the famous floating reed islands and the natural island of Taquile. Although SUPER touristy, we got a great taste of the unique way of life for the locals who use the reeds from the lake to build everything from houses to boats. There are even floating hospitals and schools!

On the island of Taquile we had a lunch at a local restaurant before heading back to the mainland.

Uros - the most famous reed island

Taking the scenic ride on the reed boat

Uyuni & the Salt Flats

From Sucre we took a bus to nearby Potosi, a small mining town around 3 hours away and spent the night there before continuing on to Uyuni. Potosi is one of the poorest places in Bolivia and has a very sad history with many people dying in the nearby mines (which have been exploited and over-mined for centuries) from accidents, dust inhalation and poisoning. If you have a few hours to kill it is definitely worth seeing the documentary "The Devil's Miner" which follows two young kids who work in the Potosi mines. Unfortunately the reality in Bolivia and other places in South America is that many children are put to work to ensure that there is food on the table for their families. 

Anyways, on to the less depressing stuff!

When we arrived in Uyuni, we tracked down an agency and booked a 3 day 4WD tour of the salt flats and surrounds for the following day. We were pretty keen to get out of town as soon as possible as it looked like a bomb had hit it - definitely one of the ugliest towns in South America!

The first day of the tour started with a visit to a nearby 'train cemetery' for some happy snaps before continuing on to the largest salt flat in the world. When we arrived we were blown away by the blinding white flats as far as the eye could see. We were so surprised to hear that despite the salt that they keep on taking from the flats for Bolivian use and exportation, the flats are actually growing every single year. After lunch, we continued on to "Fish Island", a natural island in the middle of the salt flats that is famous for it's enormous cacti which grow as high as 12 metres tall (1cm every year). There was a cactus there that was more than 1,000 years old. The entire place looked like another planet!

After two flat tyres, we called it a day and arrived at our accommodation for the night - a hotel made entirely from salt - beds, tables, walls and all! It was quite a novelty but soooooo bloody cold with temperatures well below zero and no insulation or heating. We really froze our culos off!

The following day we headed further south through the desert to visit different lagoons and landscapes of the region. The landscapes were crazy - deserts close to 5000m above sea level with snow and unusual shapes carved out of rocks by the strong winds. The lagoons were of the most amazing and strange colours - reds, purples, greens and white due to the minerals in the earth. It was really like nowhere else on earth. The animals also were so unique and it was hard to believe that they survive in such extreme conditions - flamingos, foxes, chinchillas, llamas and vicunas.

That night was by far the coldest night of our lives with temps around -20 and once again no heating or insulation! We slept in our clothes for the following day to avoid having to get dressed in the freezing cold!

The next morning, we were up at around 5am to head to the nearby geysers to watch the sunrise but had a bit of a slow start due to the doors of our car being frozen shut. We refused to get out of the car to see much of the geysers as even our hands were numb with the cold inside ski gloves but eventually ventured out for our breakfast and to take a dip (and defrost) in the natural hot springs nearby.

All in all, the trip was amazingly beautiful but we were more than happy to escape to warmer temperatures!!

Train cemetery & Ben being a stuntman for the morning

 Salt!

Fish Island

At the Salt "Hotel"

Frozen lake

Blood-red coloured lagoon with flamingoes

Famous stone tree

Random pics from the tour including our flat tyre in the middle of the salt flats!

Potosi and at the thermal springs on our last day of the tour