Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Find Vicki and Liz
After a very rocky overnight bus from Quito, we hit the Equador/Peru boarder. No man's land proved to be a bit of an experience. Normally there is a fairly straightforward road with a few money lenders, but on this occasion, there was a maze of a market and a crazily busy trade crossing, which consisted of hundreds of Peruvian onion growers fighting to get their crops north of the boarder!
We found a friendly guard, who pointed us in the direction of a legit taxi driver and we were soon on our way to Tumbes. Our initial plan was to visit a few of the northern beach resorts, but we decided to go straight to Trujillo so we could chill out Huanchaco for a couple of days, famous for it's surf and surfer fishermen. We hadn't accounted for it being Winter of course! We still had a great time. We visited Chan-Chan, ate really good food and watched lots of movies and football. And when we weren't doing that, we thoroghly enjoyed from taking the pi** out of the American surfer doods!
From Trujillo, we flew to Lima (aka Las Vegas gone very wrong and home of crazy taxi drivers) to get a connecting flight to Cusco. The views on the flight were amazing, although the landing was v dodgy (something to do with the altitude).
Cusco is a fantastic city. We thorughly enjoyed a couple of days there aclimatising (drinking lots of coco tea), exploring the city and watching the many processions that were taking place. We stayed in a lovely hotel called Hotel des Ninos, which donates all of it's profits to the local street children.
The relaxation didn't last long, as we were booked on the Inca Trail. It was brilliant from start to finish. We set off (thermals and walking sticks in tow) along the river valley, and then climbed through jungle and high grassland to reach Dead Woman's Pass (4215m above sea level), followed by several more ascents decents over the course of three days. Along the trail we encountered Inca ruins, and several freezing cold campsites. The tour company (SAS) and our fellow hikers were both wicked.
On the fourth morning, we woke well before dawn, to make the final ascent to the Sun Gate in time to see the sun rise onto Maccu Piccu. What lay before our eyes was incredible. We spent the entire day exploring the ruins and climbing Wannu Piccu (the big mountain behind the ruins) for what provided the most breathtaking views of all.
After a very long day we headed down to Aguas Callientas for some relaxation in their hot springs, followed by watching England come top of their group (hurrah!).
On our return to Cusco we visited a few more ruins and prepared ourselves for the next leg of our trip. We also bumped into Steph and Paul (from the Golapogos trip) who intruced us to a fab little curry house in the town.
We just about made the night bus to Puno. Unfortunately, Vicki's camera and wallet did not - they were stolen in Cusco bus station! So, following a very cold night bus a couple of hours in an equally cold bus/police station, we finally set off for our tour of the reed islands of Lake Titikaka.
Impressed? Not really. It was a tourist circus (or maybe we were a little jaded from the previous night's events.
That afternoon, we caught a local bus to the Bolivian boarder. AAt the end of the bus line, we were greeted by loads of pedal powered tuc-tuc drivers. It was hilarious, the drivers were racing each other through no man's land, that is until we reached a steep hill and everybody had to get out and walk!
Next stop Bolivia....
- comments