On Tuesday night we got on an overnight bus to Arequipa, and were met in the morning at the bus terminal to start our 2 day tour of the Colca Canyon. I think in my mind I was expecting it to be something like our jeep tour, a sort of rough ride through some amazing views.. But it really wasn't: we were with some other Peruvians, squished into a small minibus, which did some stops are small towns where we'd get out of the van, stay for 10 minutes, take a photo, have lots of people offering us things to buy, get back in the van, get out again half an hour later... It's nothing against these pueblitos or the people, it just gets kind of frustrating, especially when you've seen quite a few on the road already and really just want to see the Canyon.
We stayed at a hostel in Chivay on Wednesday night - I didn't mention that our overnight bus had no heating so we had a pretty terrible ride, so we skipped the evening activity of dinner and watching local dancing to catch up on sleep.
The next morning we set out early for La Cruz del Condor, a spot on the Canyon where lots of Condors hang out (also is Chile's national bird). That was pretty cool. There were loads, and very close. Adult and kid birds practicing their flying right by us. Was a bit of a shame though because we really got no scale of the Canyon itself which is 100km long and goes down to 3km deep.
We arrived back in Arequipa and that night our group split, as Phil and I took another overnight bus to Tacna, the Peruvian border town with Chile, and Dais and Rachel stayed on as they've got a few more days before heading back to Santiago.
In the morning on Friday Phil and I crossed back into Chile, which was painless, no queues at all, although we had a really friendly / mildly terrifying passport checking lady. Arrived at Arica and whiled away a day until another night bus to Calama - where our journey all began.
Calama is the town that the Lonely Planet called 'a shithole', so we were expecting a day even more horrific than the one before, but we had less time and ended up going to the cinema so it was fine. Got a flight back to Santiago last night, went back to the hostel where Laura and I stayed 3 weeks ago and thank God my luggage was all still there! Packed up this morning, having lunch with Phil in a bit, and starting my Delta flights home tonight! One day in Atlanta tomorrow and I'm back Tuesday morning.
It is so freaking weird that it's all over now, everything we planned and talked about for so long... I'm definitely ready to come home, and also so grateful I didn't have to come back straight after saying all my goodbyes in Viña either.
So, I suppose this is my last blog from this year abroad..!
Photos will be coming up next..........
Lots of love! XOX
Sunday, 26 June 2011
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
cusco + machu picchu
Cusco is a really lovely city; although very much a tourist place in terms of street vendors and dodgily translated menus for pricey restaurants, Cusco was the capital of the Inca empire, and we arrived in the run up to the Winter Solstice (which is today) a huge Inca festival in celebration of the Sun called Inti Raymi, so there's been a lot going on here.
We stayed two days here, mainly wandering about and catching up on sleep. A notable visit was to Qoricancha, the remains of the temple of the Sun here in town - the workmanship was absolutely astonishing, and the mix between the Inca ruins and the Catholic church and convent that had been built on top of it was quite something.
On Saturday we began a two day tour - day 1 seeing some of the Sacred Valley, then a train to Aguas Calientes, otherwise known as the Machu Picchu town, to go and see Machu Picchu the second day.
In the Sacred Valley we visited two amazing places. The first, Pisaq, had some pre-Inca remains too, and also has the largest Inca burial ground, where what must be thousands of important people were mummified and buried into the side of the mountain in their own personal tombs. The second was Ollantaytambo, an original Inca town, amazingly well preserved and still in use today, and had the beginnings of the construction of a Sun Temple up one of the mountains where the people brought enormous rocks from the mines 8 miles away on the other side of another mountain.
The hour and 45 train to Aguas Calientes felt novel for about ten minutes but then was annoyingly slow and jolty, especially considering the hefty 80 USD return price. We went to bed at 9pm to be up the next day at 3.20am, and did pretty well with the early start, managing to get on th 2nd bus up to Machu Picchu at 5.30am when they start the service.
It's difficult to arrive at Machu Picchu without a preconceived idea of what it will be like, especially when everyone seems to take the same one photo of it. Thankfully, it was genuinely amazing, so well preserved and complete. We had a two hour tour round with our guide, before we started our climb up Wayna Picchu, the mountain behind the town in all the photos you see. Daisy got her stamina on and managed the climb in half an hour, while Rach, Phil and I took it slowly in over an hour. We were on the shade side of the mountain, thank God, otherwise the heat alone would have killed us. The whole path is stairs, but some of them are ridiculously steep, or narrow, or uneven, or rocks with holes carved into them. There was one section on the way down where I just went on my bum like a small child. Absolutely worth it though, the views were overwhelming and the climb was good fun too.
Arrived back in Cusco that night, Sunday, absolutely shattered. Yesterday we had a lazy one and watched a few films... Making the most of our nice hostel before we start another journey tonight - this time an overnight bus to Arquipa, getting picked up straight from the bus terminal to start a 2 day tour of the Colca Canyon, at the end of which we'll be getting another overnight bus to the border with Chile to start the return journey.
Home in one week!
Lots of love
XOX
We stayed two days here, mainly wandering about and catching up on sleep. A notable visit was to Qoricancha, the remains of the temple of the Sun here in town - the workmanship was absolutely astonishing, and the mix between the Inca ruins and the Catholic church and convent that had been built on top of it was quite something.
On Saturday we began a two day tour - day 1 seeing some of the Sacred Valley, then a train to Aguas Calientes, otherwise known as the Machu Picchu town, to go and see Machu Picchu the second day.
In the Sacred Valley we visited two amazing places. The first, Pisaq, had some pre-Inca remains too, and also has the largest Inca burial ground, where what must be thousands of important people were mummified and buried into the side of the mountain in their own personal tombs. The second was Ollantaytambo, an original Inca town, amazingly well preserved and still in use today, and had the beginnings of the construction of a Sun Temple up one of the mountains where the people brought enormous rocks from the mines 8 miles away on the other side of another mountain.
The hour and 45 train to Aguas Calientes felt novel for about ten minutes but then was annoyingly slow and jolty, especially considering the hefty 80 USD return price. We went to bed at 9pm to be up the next day at 3.20am, and did pretty well with the early start, managing to get on th 2nd bus up to Machu Picchu at 5.30am when they start the service.
It's difficult to arrive at Machu Picchu without a preconceived idea of what it will be like, especially when everyone seems to take the same one photo of it. Thankfully, it was genuinely amazing, so well preserved and complete. We had a two hour tour round with our guide, before we started our climb up Wayna Picchu, the mountain behind the town in all the photos you see. Daisy got her stamina on and managed the climb in half an hour, while Rach, Phil and I took it slowly in over an hour. We were on the shade side of the mountain, thank God, otherwise the heat alone would have killed us. The whole path is stairs, but some of them are ridiculously steep, or narrow, or uneven, or rocks with holes carved into them. There was one section on the way down where I just went on my bum like a small child. Absolutely worth it though, the views were overwhelming and the climb was good fun too.
Arrived back in Cusco that night, Sunday, absolutely shattered. Yesterday we had a lazy one and watched a few films... Making the most of our nice hostel before we start another journey tonight - this time an overnight bus to Arquipa, getting picked up straight from the bus terminal to start a 2 day tour of the Colca Canyon, at the end of which we'll be getting another overnight bus to the border with Chile to start the return journey.
Home in one week!
Lots of love
XOX
crossing the border
The day we were due to cross over into Peru we arrived at the bus company's office to find out that the road from Puno to Cusco (both on the Peruvian side) was blockaded, and that the bus would only be able to take us as far as Puno. We figured that was fine, at least we'd be in Peru, and we got some money back from our ticket.
The back story is that in the high plateau region of both Bolivia and Peru there are a lot of things worth mining, particularly silver, and lately a Canadian company either tried to or already has been mining in the area, something which the local people are very much against. This is because the environmental affects on the area from the mining can be disastrous, and apparently a lot of these mining companies also do things illegally, which makes it worse. The people don't really have a voice, especially at the moment because they have just voted in a new president who I think starts his term in just under a month, and so no one is taking any notice to the problem. So in order to get the attention they think it deserves they have claimed the streets as their own and blocked them with rocks and their own presence.
Practically speaking it means that any vehicles using these roads have to try and talk the locals into letting them pass, often involving a cash bribe, but this isn't always the case. Sometimes they just won't let you pass. In other occasions if the bus doesn't pay enough the people will throw rocks at the bus, until they either pay up or leave.
Back to our story: we got in our bus which crossed the border with no problem, it's only about 20 mins from Copacabana. We drove for about another 15 mins before we came across small rocks across the road, and our driver basically turned the bus around and said "They've extended the blockade, there's no way through, I can't take responsibility for what happens if we go through because it'll be too dangerous so I'm going back. Make your own way.", which left us pretty scared to say the least.
We got back to the border, annuled our entry to Peru, reentered Bolivia and decided to go back with the bus to Copacabana to work out a new plan. Meanwhile, the rest of uor bus managed to get on a Peruvian bus that was arriving into Copacabana from Puno and was about to do the return journey. So when we got into Copacabana we went to the office of the same company and managed to get 4 seats on a bus load heading that way, which was a private tour. The driver was totally chilled about it, and said maybe our driver had freaked out because he didn't know how to handle it, and didn't want to risk his bus either. So we set off an hour later, left Bolivia and entered Peru, again (we have 6 passport stamps from the 15th June, and were told not to come back to Bolivia!), and headed to Puno. We had two detours, and the journey ended up being I think 5 hours long instead of an hour and a half, but I didn't feel in danger at any point.
It's not ideal for the people nor for us from the sense that the tourism is incredibly important to Peru's income, and hindering people coming in is never a good thing, but I get the impression that there really is nothing else the people can do to get attention for the cause.
We took an overnight bus from Puno to Cusco that same evening, arriving here at 9am the following day.
I need to check out of this hostel now - Machu Picchu tales coming asap.
XO
The back story is that in the high plateau region of both Bolivia and Peru there are a lot of things worth mining, particularly silver, and lately a Canadian company either tried to or already has been mining in the area, something which the local people are very much against. This is because the environmental affects on the area from the mining can be disastrous, and apparently a lot of these mining companies also do things illegally, which makes it worse. The people don't really have a voice, especially at the moment because they have just voted in a new president who I think starts his term in just under a month, and so no one is taking any notice to the problem. So in order to get the attention they think it deserves they have claimed the streets as their own and blocked them with rocks and their own presence.
Practically speaking it means that any vehicles using these roads have to try and talk the locals into letting them pass, often involving a cash bribe, but this isn't always the case. Sometimes they just won't let you pass. In other occasions if the bus doesn't pay enough the people will throw rocks at the bus, until they either pay up or leave.
Back to our story: we got in our bus which crossed the border with no problem, it's only about 20 mins from Copacabana. We drove for about another 15 mins before we came across small rocks across the road, and our driver basically turned the bus around and said "They've extended the blockade, there's no way through, I can't take responsibility for what happens if we go through because it'll be too dangerous so I'm going back. Make your own way.", which left us pretty scared to say the least.
We got back to the border, annuled our entry to Peru, reentered Bolivia and decided to go back with the bus to Copacabana to work out a new plan. Meanwhile, the rest of uor bus managed to get on a Peruvian bus that was arriving into Copacabana from Puno and was about to do the return journey. So when we got into Copacabana we went to the office of the same company and managed to get 4 seats on a bus load heading that way, which was a private tour. The driver was totally chilled about it, and said maybe our driver had freaked out because he didn't know how to handle it, and didn't want to risk his bus either. So we set off an hour later, left Bolivia and entered Peru, again (we have 6 passport stamps from the 15th June, and were told not to come back to Bolivia!), and headed to Puno. We had two detours, and the journey ended up being I think 5 hours long instead of an hour and a half, but I didn't feel in danger at any point.
It's not ideal for the people nor for us from the sense that the tourism is incredibly important to Peru's income, and hindering people coming in is never a good thing, but I get the impression that there really is nothing else the people can do to get attention for the cause.
We took an overnight bus from Puno to Cusco that same evening, arriving here at 9am the following day.
I need to check out of this hostel now - Machu Picchu tales coming asap.
XO
Tuesday, 14 June 2011
la paz and copacabana, lake titicaca
The rest of our time in La Paz was fairly city-break-y; we went to the markets and even tried some museums, which were slightly disappointing - we were most excited about the Museo Litoral which is about the war Bolivia and Peru had with Chile which Chile won and left Bolivia without access to the sea, something that is still very much discussed now, but the 'museum' was literally just one room, with the phrase "The sea is our right, and it is a necessity that we get it back" in huge letters on the wall, with some sketchy information on the wall next to it and the rest of the room was just photos from the war. However, at less than 50p for entrance to 4 museums I suppose we couldn't really complain!
On our last day we went to the Witches' market which was quite something... It made me feel really uneasy, frankly. It was a mix of tourist stalls selling alpaca merchandise and others selling remedies for all sorts of things and, most notably, llama carcasses, in tact, some of them foetuses. It was quite unnerving. Apparently they bring good luck and people build their houses on top of them.
We ate a great arabian lunch, but unfortunately we got funny tums from it that night, especially Daisy, but we managed the 4 hour bus journey to Copacabana alright, only to eat something funny that night and have me and Rachel up all night once there. So needless to say we've been taking it pretty easy, which Copacabana has helped with as there isn't much to do. The most exciting thing about the place was really the drive here which was absolutely incredible. The views were just insane - rural pastures, the immensely huge lake, snow capped mountains in the distance, and the moon in full view during the clear afternoon.
Today we went to the Sun Island, where the locals believe the Sun was born, but we only had 50minutes on the island itself so didn't do much. Annoying as the journey was an hour and a half each way and we had no idea we'd have so little time. Again, can't complain really as the boat tickets were a pound fifty each.
Tomorrow we're driving to Cusco, Peru, via Puno. We're leaving at 8.45am and meant to be arriving in Cusco at 7pm... Long journey! Hoping the border is alright as it's been problematic for over a month now...
Home in 2 weeks! Until Peru...
XO
On our last day we went to the Witches' market which was quite something... It made me feel really uneasy, frankly. It was a mix of tourist stalls selling alpaca merchandise and others selling remedies for all sorts of things and, most notably, llama carcasses, in tact, some of them foetuses. It was quite unnerving. Apparently they bring good luck and people build their houses on top of them.
We ate a great arabian lunch, but unfortunately we got funny tums from it that night, especially Daisy, but we managed the 4 hour bus journey to Copacabana alright, only to eat something funny that night and have me and Rachel up all night once there. So needless to say we've been taking it pretty easy, which Copacabana has helped with as there isn't much to do. The most exciting thing about the place was really the drive here which was absolutely incredible. The views were just insane - rural pastures, the immensely huge lake, snow capped mountains in the distance, and the moon in full view during the clear afternoon.
Today we went to the Sun Island, where the locals believe the Sun was born, but we only had 50minutes on the island itself so didn't do much. Annoying as the journey was an hour and a half each way and we had no idea we'd have so little time. Again, can't complain really as the boat tickets were a pound fifty each.
Tomorrow we're driving to Cusco, Peru, via Puno. We're leaving at 8.45am and meant to be arriving in Cusco at 7pm... Long journey! Hoping the border is alright as it's been problematic for over a month now...
Home in 2 weeks! Until Peru...
XO
Friday, 10 June 2011
jeep tour
Our last days in San Pedro included swimming in a salt lagoon, pisco watching the sunset, cycling around the desert, and missing the infamous astronomy tour due to bad weather.
On Monday morning we got picked up in a minibus for the beginning of our jeep tour to the Uyuni salt flat
(Bolivia). Crossing the border was almost a joke it was so informal. I didn´t even have my photo page checked at the Bolivian side. We rose to 5000m altitude within an hour of being in the jeep across the border, and stopped at the White Lagoon, Green Lagoon, and Red Lagoon (their names say it all), as well as taking a dip in a rather toasty thermal spring. The wind was insanely strong due to change of seasons, meaning it was about -8
degrees celsius outside the jeep.
Our hostel on the first night was the most basic thing imaginable, without even running water, ie. no flushing toilets, but our group of 12 bonded over card games of cheat, a bottle of rum for the cold, and in the morning the shared expeience of a bad night's sleep.
Day 2 featured the stone tree, more lagoons, this time not so excitingly coloured, and a notable pitstop for photos of the active volcano Ollague. I hesistantly asked the driver if we were going any closer to the volcano, bearing in mind the very recent eruptions in the South of Chile, to which he replied "no way,it's active!", thank God... The landscape was absolutely amazing though; an eruption had left some incredible wave like formations of lava.
Our second hostel was much more bearable, with a very lovely meal (and running water!), and after a much better rest we spent our final day mostly on the salt flat, Salar de Uyuni.
It was just awesome. Genuinely felt as though we were on another planet. Our guidebook said the salar spanned 9 thousand km squared, but our driver thought it was 12... Either way, ENORMOUS.
We stopped in the middle at the ´fisherman's island´, which was a hill covered in cactai; a rather bizarre sight amongst the miles and miles of flat white salt.
That afternoon our tour concluded in the town of Uyuni, where we said goodbye to Isabelle, Daisy's flatmate for the last 6 months. Emotional. That night we caught a bus to La Paz, arriving at half 7 yesterday morning. Despite some severe exhaustion we managed to do quite a lot, most importantly have a wash.
La Paz is very charming. I've been really surprised at how many women wear the traditional dress of the huge long skirts, tall rounded hat and many shawls - we especially saw a ton of them at the Buenos Aires market today. Yesterday we went to the National Art Museum and ended up meeting the sculpture whose work was being shown in an exhibition there.
Got 2 more nights here (including this one) before we head to Lake Titicaca, where we will hopefully be able to cross over to Peru, despite the prolonged closures...
Until then.. XO
On Monday morning we got picked up in a minibus for the beginning of our jeep tour to the Uyuni salt flat
(Bolivia). Crossing the border was almost a joke it was so informal. I didn´t even have my photo page checked at the Bolivian side. We rose to 5000m altitude within an hour of being in the jeep across the border, and stopped at the White Lagoon, Green Lagoon, and Red Lagoon (their names say it all), as well as taking a dip in a rather toasty thermal spring. The wind was insanely strong due to change of seasons, meaning it was about -8
degrees celsius outside the jeep.
Our hostel on the first night was the most basic thing imaginable, without even running water, ie. no flushing toilets, but our group of 12 bonded over card games of cheat, a bottle of rum for the cold, and in the morning the shared expeience of a bad night's sleep.
Day 2 featured the stone tree, more lagoons, this time not so excitingly coloured, and a notable pitstop for photos of the active volcano Ollague. I hesistantly asked the driver if we were going any closer to the volcano, bearing in mind the very recent eruptions in the South of Chile, to which he replied "no way,it's active!", thank God... The landscape was absolutely amazing though; an eruption had left some incredible wave like formations of lava.
Our second hostel was much more bearable, with a very lovely meal (and running water!), and after a much better rest we spent our final day mostly on the salt flat, Salar de Uyuni.
It was just awesome. Genuinely felt as though we were on another planet. Our guidebook said the salar spanned 9 thousand km squared, but our driver thought it was 12... Either way, ENORMOUS.
We stopped in the middle at the ´fisherman's island´, which was a hill covered in cactai; a rather bizarre sight amongst the miles and miles of flat white salt.
That afternoon our tour concluded in the town of Uyuni, where we said goodbye to Isabelle, Daisy's flatmate for the last 6 months. Emotional. That night we caught a bus to La Paz, arriving at half 7 yesterday morning. Despite some severe exhaustion we managed to do quite a lot, most importantly have a wash.
La Paz is very charming. I've been really surprised at how many women wear the traditional dress of the huge long skirts, tall rounded hat and many shawls - we especially saw a ton of them at the Buenos Aires market today. Yesterday we went to the National Art Museum and ended up meeting the sculpture whose work was being shown in an exhibition there.
Got 2 more nights here (including this one) before we head to Lake Titicaca, where we will hopefully be able to cross over to Peru, despite the prolonged closures...
Until then.. XO
Friday, 3 June 2011
san pedro, atacama desert
We arrived on Wednesday to a pitch black (at half 6) and rather deserted, dusty, and frankly almost biblical looking San Pedro.. After a bit of difficulty finding our way to the hostel, with minimal street lighting and hardly any road signs, we settled in for the night to prepare for some serious tourist action the following days.
Yesterday we arranged some tours and went to the Moon Valley and Death Valley that afternoon. We saw the most awesome views as the sun was setting from the top of this ridge like between-a-hill-and-a-mountain-thing. Volcanoes topped with snow on one side, immense sand dunes and bizarre rock formations like stegasauruses and coloseums all around, a peak at the Atacama sal flats in the distance, and the sun turning one part of the Andes entirely red as it went down... Apart from the other tourists we saw no other evidence of life. It was astonishing.
Today we got up at 4am and were picked up by our next tour guide to start a 2 hour journey to the Tatio geysers. I knew there would be some altitude involved but I didn't realise it was 4300m above sea level, which means 45% less oxygen. We suffered shortness of breath, physical weakness, and some nausea, but I'm just so grateful it wasn't any worse than that, seeing as we'll be at that altitude and just above for our jeep tour to Uyuni, Bolivia starting on Monday.
We arrived at the geysers at about 6, and after some explanations and photo ops had breakfast, including eggs boiled in the geysers themselves. Then, as the sun was coming out, we headed to a thermal pool thingy where we very bravely stripped down and took a dip in the waters! Getting dressed afterwards was definitely not fun though... When we arrived at the geysers it was -6 degrees celsius, and the sun had only just come up so it wasn't vastly warmer when we came out wet and in our swimsuits!
We visited some wetlands and a small village called Machuca where we tried llama and also had a photo with a baby llama of just under 2 months (in that order, otherwise the guilt would have been unreal...!), before heading back to the hostel at noon. A pretty insane morning!
Isabelle has arrived this evening and Daisy and her friend Rachel are joining us tomorrow, so we'll be 6 for the weekend.
It's all rather insane and deserty and overwhelming and awesome.. I had seen some photos before coming here (although have avoided too much research for fear of spoling surprises for myself) but there really is nothing like being here I think. It's quite astonishing.
Keep you posted... XO
Yesterday we arranged some tours and went to the Moon Valley and Death Valley that afternoon. We saw the most awesome views as the sun was setting from the top of this ridge like between-a-hill-and-a-mountain-thing. Volcanoes topped with snow on one side, immense sand dunes and bizarre rock formations like stegasauruses and coloseums all around, a peak at the Atacama sal flats in the distance, and the sun turning one part of the Andes entirely red as it went down... Apart from the other tourists we saw no other evidence of life. It was astonishing.
Today we got up at 4am and were picked up by our next tour guide to start a 2 hour journey to the Tatio geysers. I knew there would be some altitude involved but I didn't realise it was 4300m above sea level, which means 45% less oxygen. We suffered shortness of breath, physical weakness, and some nausea, but I'm just so grateful it wasn't any worse than that, seeing as we'll be at that altitude and just above for our jeep tour to Uyuni, Bolivia starting on Monday.
We arrived at the geysers at about 6, and after some explanations and photo ops had breakfast, including eggs boiled in the geysers themselves. Then, as the sun was coming out, we headed to a thermal pool thingy where we very bravely stripped down and took a dip in the waters! Getting dressed afterwards was definitely not fun though... When we arrived at the geysers it was -6 degrees celsius, and the sun had only just come up so it wasn't vastly warmer when we came out wet and in our swimsuits!
We visited some wetlands and a small village called Machuca where we tried llama and also had a photo with a baby llama of just under 2 months (in that order, otherwise the guilt would have been unreal...!), before heading back to the hostel at noon. A pretty insane morning!
Isabelle has arrived this evening and Daisy and her friend Rachel are joining us tomorrow, so we'll be 6 for the weekend.
It's all rather insane and deserty and overwhelming and awesome.. I had seen some photos before coming here (although have avoided too much research for fear of spoling surprises for myself) but there really is nothing like being here I think. It's quite astonishing.
Keep you posted... XO
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