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Hello dear reader,
Sorry for being so slack. I am going to try and be brief about the last two weeks so as to get up to date, esp as i am now a week away from hometime!
Ok so the friday after the Inca trail we were back in Cuzco. We went to the convent and another Ina ruin that day and had a massive night out to celebrate our achievements the next night. We went to one of the most expensive restaurants in Cuzco and i had a beautiful dinner with a few drinks for less than 25 pounds, which was the most i have paid so far. it was beyond worth it though. We then hit one of the many amazing, huh huh, clubs of Cuzxo. We all had a bit too much to drink, particularly me and Lynn which resulted in me going against one of my main beliefs and the word of all our guides. I ATE STREET FOOD after drinking. It was a parasite burger cooked in a shack on the street. i am ashamed to say it didn´t even look nice and it cost me 25p. i then made everyone smell my onion hands and got stressed that i may die the next day. CLASSY LADY!!
Alas i was fine! Checking out at 10am wasn't the greatest feeling though. we walked around for our last day in Cuzco, avoiding the hawkers and enthusiatic men, before getting the bus to Arequipa that night. This was possibly the hottest bus i have ever experienced, leading to me having to vomit in a bus toilet.. worse than an aeroplane one.
We got to Arequipa at 6am, and went to bed for a couple of hours before getting our briefing and exploring the city. Arequipa is a beautiful city, again with a beautiful square. These South Americans know their squares. Fact finders : Arequipa has the highest concentration of taxis in all of South America. This means that the ozone layer is very thin there and even if it isn´t sunny you can get burnt.
So we walked around the square for a while and then visited one of the museums. We were advised to go here as it houses a mummified Inca girl who was sacrificed as an offering to the gos over 600 years ago. She was found by an america exporer about 15 years ago and was preserved as her body was on one of Peru´s highest mountains and the ice had kept her features and body intact. We watched a film on the discovery and then saw various things that were found by the explorers before seeing Juanita (the girl) in her weird fridge type container. it was very odd, but definately worth seeing, even for weirdness value.
After that we had some lunch on one of the terraces and the sun can out. it was a lovely afternoon that was rounded off with a procession for the patron saint of police´s day. They do love a good procession. It was good but it meant we couldn´t go into the cathedral which was a bit of a bummer, i mean i haven´t seen enough religious buildings this trip after all.
The next day we got our bus to Colca Canyon. Colca Canyon is twice as big as the Grand Canyon at it´s deepest point. It is home to various people, as well as Peru´s largest population of Condors. It has many Inca remains and indications of Peru´s present and past agriculture, and amongst all of these things, it is stunningly beautiful. On the way to the hotel in Colca Canyon we stopped off at the highest point in Peru to get a view of the many Volcanoes. We then stopped at various Andean hill towns and various other viewpoints. The hotel we stayed in was really stunning and had a lovely fire and great views. We stayed in drinking very cheap wine and playing scrabble and Dominoes...we know how to live!!
The next day was the Canyon walk. We were woken up at 5am to ensure we got to the canyon in time to see the Condors in flight. They can be quite elusive characters apparently. Now i hate birds, but seeing these massive creatures with a two metre wing span flying right over head and swoopinginto the canyon below was impressive. The sky was beautifully blue which made it all the better.
We then did a walk of the canyon, where our local guide told us about the area. The trek was pretty hard, but obviousy nothing for us seasoned hikers! We then went back to the hostel for lunch before going out to ziplining and hot springs. More cheap wine, which actually tasted worse than Lambrini rounded the evening off.
We made our way back to the hotel in Arequipa the next day. Whilst we were in the car for 4 hours the guide pointed out various sight seeing spots and we visited a national park. ( i don´t have my notes so can´t tell you the name) We saw lots and lots of Llamas, alpacas and beautiful perkunias. ( that really isn´t how you spell it, but we´ll go with it. They are beautiful animals and jumpers made from their wool sell for around US$500, crazy!
When we got back to Arequipa we decided to go and visit the Saint Catalina convent. This is a convent that has been praised for it´s arcitecture and city like state. It was quite pricey to get in but Manuel kept wanging on about it, so we decided to go. It was definately worth it. The convent is beautiful. it is over 500 years old, but was opened to the public about 30 years ago. It is still a working convent but alot of it works as a sort of museum. The place is huge! And who knew nuns actually had quite big living quarters?! it was brightt, colourful and amazing. They also had a live guinea pig, which made a lot of our days, especially after seeing quite a few dead ones on plates. We went for food and a few drinks that night before boarding what was supposed to be my last night bus...to NAZCA.
ok so the problem this time - snoring! seriously the guy sounded like a warthog. i was psuhing his seat, huffing, cursing and even declared he must have a serous health problem to the whole of the bus. I had earplugs in, but his snorting was still penetrating. it was hideous!!! i tried to sleep for a couple of hours when we got to Nazca, but i didn´t really want to miss our only day there so tried to carry on like the trooper i am! We sat around the pool for a bit, whilst a couple of the others did the flight over the Nazca lines. In hindsight i should have done this, but as i felt like poo i really didn´t want to get into a small aircraft that uss it´s wings to point out the various lines. For those of you who don´t know what the Nazca lines are, they are lines that form various animals and symbolic shapes in the group, a bit like crop circles. There is a lot of mystery around them because of the sheer size of the lines, prompting questions such as ´how can you draw something so perefctly that you can´t see´. They are very important to the Inca culture and continue to be a mystery ever since when they were discovered many years ago.
When the rest of the gang got back from the flight we were taken to an amazing lunch just outside Nazca. We weren´t told anything about it until we got there. We were then told that the two piles of earth infront of us was were our food was cooking, and had been cooking under ground for the last 3 hours. We then had a tradrional ceremony, blessing the earth, before one of the guys dug up the food. There were incredible smells coming from the ground. i vowed not to have the pork as it had not been wrapped up and was literally sitting on the ground, but i went against it and it was the best i have ever tasted. We had a feast of chicken, pork, corn, sweet potato, normal potato, cheese wrapped in a banana leaf, corn patties, veg, beans and rice. I think all meals should be cooked in this way in the future!
We stayed at the hotel that night, where they had a kid´s disco. It was hilarious watching them all, a bit bad of us too as we were just laughing at them trying to approach each other. We headed to Paracas the next day. Paracas is on the coast. On the way there we went to Ica which is where the picture is from. It is an oasis in the middle of the sand dunes. It is spectacular. We went in the sandbuggy and whizzed across the sand dunes, before sandboarding and then headng to a hotel in the oasis for a spot of lunch. The day was then continued with a visit to a wine and pisco factory which included the compulsory pisco tasting! We were all very pissed by 5pm. Luckily the hotel was the next stop. We went to watch the sunset but i only just stayed long enough as there was a massive group of dogs getting amourous on the beach and it started to get quite aggressive. They looked like they had designs on our legs next so i scarper inside the hotel. We had a lovely meal that night, reflecting on what a great day and trip it had been. Manuel then took some of us to an amazing hotel in Paracas for some drinks. I think it is called the Liberaria. It is the swankiest hotel i have ever seen. truely amazing. we all rocked up in havianas and they let us in. About 15 people say hello to you before you sit down and you are treated like royalty. oh how the other half live. i then spent more than i had in two day´s dinners on a drink, but it was worth it. We were all trying to fall asleep in the lounge so that we didn´t have to go back to our 2 star hostel, but sadly it didn´t work. if you have a spare US1000 when you are in Paracas though, go stay there for a couple of nights!
The next day i was woken up at 6am by an eathquake! My whole bed shook for about10 seconds and i wasn´t sure what was going on. it was confirmed it was a tremour when a few of us got up at 7 to take a boat trip to the Ballestas Islands. DRAMA! The islands are described by some a a poor man´s gallapagus. I would like to meet these clearly insane people. Don´t get me wrong, they were lovely and it was great to see Sealions, penguins and a whole load of birds, but half of the ride out there i thought i was in the north sea. Very grey and very smelly. but a lovely trip all the same. We then met with manuel and the others and got our bus to Lima. This is when it dawned on me we literally had one night left together. Some of the people that i was with had been travelling with me from the start, and the others for 40 days. 40 days of doing mostly everything together and not getting on each other´s nerves!
The bus to Lima took about 4 hours and when we got there it was humid and fairly warm. I have heard really bad things about Lima and i was pleasantly surprised, although it seemed to be alot more american and also a bit more dreary than the other cities i have seen this trip. Manuel was happy to be in his hometown and show us around. We all met for our last night of the tour drinks later on that evening and it was raucous and emotional. Lynn and Darren had to get their taxi at 3.30 and we made them stay up until just before. i was quite emotional after saying bye to two of my new very good friends,so demanded the rest of us go to a club for more drinks. We got into a great club on the seafront free by some stroke of luck and continued to commiserate and celebrate there.
The next day involved hangovers and more tearful goodbyes, not the best mix. That evening there was just me and Becca left. We spent another three days in Lima before leaving each other. (i´ll go into this in my next entry)
I am in Mancora at the minute and all alone! Quite weird after all the noise of the past 11 weeks! will update with my last entry before i make my way back to the lovely UK.
see you all soon
Kate xx
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