Group meeting and Sacred Valley

We checked into Hotel Prisma in the afternoon and behaved a bit like children who had had too much sugar when we got to our twin room with an ensuite and a... wait for it...balcony!! We then went down at 5pm for a meeting with our group of 16 and our guide who would be with us for the week. His name is Fernadez and he went through the route with us and what to pack and expect from the Inca Trail. Jen and I hired a warm sleeping bag and a thick mattress. G Adventures restrict you with 6kg that the porters can carry for you, so with the sleeping bag and foam mattress we were down to 2.5kg for clothes and toiletries. It wasn't much!

We went out after the meeting and bought snacks and useful things like sunscream and wet wipes, which took us forever! Afterwards we went to Quinoa and met the Austrailians for dinner. It was this tiny restaurant and we were all sat along the only table in there. A woman and man cooked everyone's meal from scratch. It consisted of soup, corn juice, trout with veg and rice and fruit with cinnamon for desert. For the third night running Jen and I were unlucky with food- my trout, even though the man wrote the order down on his pad, never came and so I waited a bit longer for my food. I think we'll go back there as the food was so nice and it was only 15 soles (£3.50). We walked via a crepe stall and couldn't resist a crepe with chocolate- it was amazing. Again, we'll be going back. We love Cusco.

It was getting late and we still had to pack. We quickly got all our things together and went to weigh our bag in the scales downstairs- 4kg!! Oh no...instead of sorting it out, we just went to sleep and decided to sort it later.

After a wake up call at 6am and a bad night's sleep, we left the hotel at 7:30am and drove away from the city, passing the Cristo Blanco (white statue of Christ overlooking the city) and Sacsayhuaman, inca ruins nearby. On route, we stopped at a lookout over the Sacred Valley. The views were amazing. It's really interesting how they grow their crops in steps up the sides of the hills. Apparently, different levels are best for different crops in order to have the perfect growing conditions. We then headed to the Pisac ruins which were also really cool and the scenery was impressive. There were men restoring the ruins, as they were slowly loosing their structure. Jen and I felt absolutely exhausted from a bad night's sleep, were so hot and hungry, so I don't think we 100% appreciated it, or rather enjoyed it to the max, but it was great all the same. 

After a great buffet lunch where we ate too much, we checked into our hotel in Ollantaytambo. It was a nice little hotel in the centre of town. We went for a walk around with the group and the guide and visited a house in the town. What was so crazy were the free range guinea pigs running around in the big bedroom/kitchen eating food and getting really plump. Guinea pig is more of an occasion food, so a Peruvian would eat one guinea pig on a birthday or something. There were skulls of the dead and baby lamas hanging up in the large room, which were all a bit ominous. We then head to the inca ruins in the town and had a wander round, Fernando telling us about the history. They would quarry the stones nearby, and it would take a hell of a lot of man power to pull the rocks up the ramp and into position. The rocks would be carved with chisels to fit perfectly together like a jigsaw puzzle. It was so impressive and I couldn't believe they did it this way.

After a couple of hours exploring, we chatted to an English couple from our group who had were about 25 and were travelling for just over a year in total. They were very nice and were also worried about the 2.5kg limit! We chilled in the hotel for a bit and headed out for a pancake with fruit. We just fancied it and were still full from lunch, so just wanted something that wasn't a big meal! Lights out at 9:30pm for a fun fuelled day one of the Inca Trail tomorrow! Exciting!

Cusco

Our first impression of Cusco was that we loved it! We caught a taxi with a couple at the bus station from Holland and Estonia to make the fare cheaper. We checked in to our hostel and cooked some eggs and ate some mango we had bought. I'm enjoying eating lots of tasty mango and avocado out here as it's so cheap! I then skyped my lovely mother to wish her a happy birthday and she was looking gorgeous as ever! She was chilling with the dog, but it sounded like she was going to have a nice evening at Helen's.

We stumbled across a tiny vegetarian restaurant for lunch and sat down with a local who we got chatting to. He was very friendly and he said he had family in Germany. I started speaking German to him, but his vocab was very basic. He was a local architect and gave us advice on what food and drinks to try in Peru. We also confirmed what guinea pig was in Spanish so we could avoid it!

Spending a few days in Cusco before doing the Inca trail is a good thing to adjust to the altitude a bit. My thoroat is very sore at the moment (hopefully I'm not ill) and I've had headaches, so we'll see how it goes... We wandered around the town, all the squares in Cusco and up some back streets. It was all really interesting and architecturally impressive with cobbled streets, arches and really ornate balconies. We then decided to go to the chocolate museum that had been recommended to us by the English couple from Arequipa as there were dark clouds and it was starting to rain a little. I think that's the first time we've seen rain since New Zealand, even if it did last about two minutes! Haha.

Mmmmm the smell of chocolate! We tried some cocoa tea which was really nice, a cocoa bean which was very bitter and some chocolate jam which was very tasty. We bumped into the couple we'd shared a taxi with that morning too. We keep bumping into lots of people in Cusco. It's nice as you know you're visiting the best places, and seeing some familiar faces!

We had another disaster with food that evening, after organising to meet the five Australians. We got chatting to people in our dorm and Jen cut my fringe, so we turned up just outside the restaurant called 'Quinoa' twenty minutes late. Laura and Alice were walking down the street towards us and said they were lost. A guy from a hotel on that road said the restaurant was closed that evening so we wondered what the other three had done. We decided to wander around and find somewhere to eat and after struggling we went to their hostel and ate there for convenience. However, our food was forgotten about (once again) and after an hour of waiting we ate our 'okay' food. It turned out the other three had knocked on the door on the closed restaurant and had a great meal. They had been the only ones in there and the woman cooking hadn't planned on opening that evening. We might go the tonight as we had food jealousy!

Today we visited San Pedro market just around the corner of our hostel. It sold everything and anything. There was clothing, material, loads of cheap street food, veg, fruit, tea and pulses. We stopped at a juice stool and the woman there made us two glasses of mango juice. It was so yummy and we got our daily dose of mango. We might go back after the Inca trail and get an orange and passion fruit juice drink! Think we'll also get some street food and sit with the locals in the market. Looking forward to it!

We then went to the Plaza Regocijo to begin the free walking tour. Our group was absolutely massive. Our guide, Luis, gave us tips on things like public transport, a history of the Incas and some samples of local food. It was really good and informative. We also went up to a great viewpoint of the entire city of Cusco and overall had a great time looking around and exploring side streets. It's a bit hilly in Cusco and I think we struggled with some of the steeps. I think the Inca Trail is going to be tough! We meet our group at 5pm in the hotel (yay, hotel!!) so Jen and I are hoping they're going to be good fun! Crossing my fingers!

Recovering from the trek

We spent one more day in Arequipa before moving on, but I think we needed it! I didn't sleep very well in the hostel- no one really did in our room, as we'd had such a weird sleeping pattern over the past couple of nights, plus we had been woken up by these fireworks going off at 5am. Two girls and a guy got up too to go to the airport (they'd had a nightmare: the boy had had his bag lost in all sorts of airports and the girl had had everything stolen apart from her passport, so it wasn't the best start to their trip!). Over breakfast we talked to an English couple our age who were travelling for five months. They recommended loads of things for us to do in Bolivia. We spent the day wandering around the town, our muscles killing, so we managed to squeeze an ice cream into our day! We sat in the main square for half an hour, minding our own business and watching the kids play with pigeons etc, but we were approached three times by people to have photos taken with us on the bench. It got pretty frustrating in the end, so just had to leave before we were pestered anymore.

We had initially been looking forward to buying some alpaca in Arequipa as a few people from the hostel had bought some really nice jumpers, but Sunday is their day off and the only shops that were open were food places. There also weren't any decent markets selling clothes that we'd seen either. It was lucky though because we got chatting to the English couple from breakfast outside that afternoon and they told us to save oursves for the markets in La Paz as the variety is great and it's so cheap to buy alpaca clothing so we plan to do some shopping on our way home. (Family, put your requests in soon!)

We got organised before heading out to dinner. First of all, we walked to the office were we did our canyon tour from, as we were picking up Laura's glasses as she left them at the oasis and was already in Cusco, so we were going to give them back to her when we next saw her. We went to the place we'd eaten lunch on the first day. Jen ordered spaghetti which came quickly enough. They ended up forgetting about my salad and it came 15 mins after Jen finished her food. We haven't had much luck with food before catching buses, so we raced back to the hostel. The couple we we going to share a taxi with to the bus station had already left and we caught one twenty minutes later. Anyway, we got there and it was fine! Our bus journey was okay and I slept for about five hours, before arriving early morning in Cusco, for our next adventure! Machu Picchu! Excited!

Colca Canyon

DAY 1:

The Colca Canyon trip was amazing. It was better, and different to what I expected. We left the hostel in a minibus at 3am and travelled for 3/4hrs to a place in the middle of nowhere and had some breakfast. We then travelled for another couple of hours and stopped off at a lookout over the canyon and spotted condors. They are one of the biggest birds in the world and have a massive wingspan. The roads were so bumpy and Jen and I were sat in the back so we had a bumpy ride. We then drove through a dusty tunnel and got into a bit of a traffic jam, so all the buses had to reverse out. We then went to the beginning of our trek where Pepe (our tour guide) gave us a history of the canyon and what they grow there and how the people live. We then started the trek and walked down one side of the canyon. It took us a few hours to get down. It kills on your legs going downhill so a few hours of walking was quite hard. The canyon was really steep and the sun was out so it was really hot. We stopped in a tiny village for lunch and topped up our sun cream. Pepe explained how the people living there were self sufficient and hardly left. They would only leave to buy clothes or things like that as the only way to get out of the canyon was the route we'd just walked. After lunch we walked along the bottom of the canyon, up and down hills and to an oasis. As soon as we arrived we jumped in the pool there (more like a pool of cold water), but it was refreshing and we 'washed' ourselves. After five minutes it was pretty cold in there and the sun was going down, so we went to play cards and have a drink near the kitchen area where there were tables and chairs. We then played cards with everyone and Pepe taught us a great version of snap which was good, being such a big group. They cooked us soup and then chicken and rice for dinner, followed by a cup of tea. We then went to bed at the late time of 9:15pm after looking at the stars. The beds were basic and comfy enough, too bad we were getting up at 4:45am though...

DAY 2:

I don't know what was more annoying: the dogs barking in the middle of the night, the cockerel making noises or Rene's alarm going off, the alarm being a person saying 'it's time to get up, it's 4:45am' on repeat for a whole minute. I can still recall that so vividly! We got up and started walking at 5:15am. Four girls opted to go up to the top on mules as they didn't think they could do the trek up the canyon, so they left later, at 6:30am. The rest of us wanted a challenge and slowly but surely climbed the way to the top. Everyone went at their own pace and we got there after 2 hrs 15 mins, so 45 mins earlier than predicted by Pepe. It was a great feeling getting to the top and my calf muscles were killing. We beat the mules though, and they arrived ten minutes after us. We had some snaps at the top and walked half an hour to the nearest village for some breakfast. We battled with a fast flowing stream along the way, some people taking their shoes off to climb across. After breakfast we got in the minibus and headed back to Arequipa. We stopped off at a couple of lookouts and then arrived at the hot springs. We'd all been looking forward to it. We crossed a rickety bridge one by one and chilled in the hot springs for an hour. We actually enjoyed sitting in the cold river with the sun on us as it was more refreshing, but we massaged our sore muscles in the hot pools. Afterwards, we re-fueled with a buffet lunch peruian style, and ate loads, so were super stuffed afterwards. It took us three hours to head back to Arequipa. We arrived at 5pm and said bye to our great group and Pepe. Jen and I had several cups of tea and showered. It got later and we just went and grabbed a sandwich in town and came back and headed to sleep!

Arequipa

Our Cruz del Sur bus arrived in Arequipa at about 11am. After we arrived at our hostel, we looked into how we wanted to spend our time. We booked onto the two day, one night Colca Canyon tour for the next day. A group of five Australians (four girls one boy) we'd shared a dorm with in Huacachina were staying in the same hostel in Arequipa too and when we arrived they were there too and also doing the canyon tour. We checked in and headed to the Plaza de Armas. The main square was really nice, with arches, pillars, a fountain, pigeons, well kept gardens and nice architecture. We had a wander around, had some lunch and then walked to Santa Catalina, a monestry in the centre of town. We had a tour guide take me and Jen around which was great cause she brought the place to life. She explained all the history of the nunery and showed us around the poorer nun's homes as well as the wealthier ones. She showed us the communal kitchen and bakery and how there purified their water. There was a lovely garden and a good system outside where they washed their clothes in big ceramic bowls. 24 nuns still live there in the monestry. It was a really interesting afternoon.

We bumped into the Austrailians and they recommended a market on the map to go to. It was a big local market selling loads of fruit, veg, juice, bread and meat (which we avoided as there were some horrible looking animal parts hanging up on the counters). We then went back to the hostel and sorted our bags out for the trek the next day. We had to be super  organised and pack what we needed as we were leaving our hostel at 3am the next morning. That evening we went for dinner with the Australians which was nice and bought some bananas and snacks to fuel our two day trek.

Huacachina

We took a 3hr bus in the morning at 10am from Lima to Ica. We booked it with Cruz del Sur. The seats were comfy and we got some food on the journey. We arrived and took a taxi from the bus terminal in Ica to a small village 15 minutes drive outside of the city. The village surrounded a lagoon (now man-made, as it dried up) and surrounded by sand dunes. We'd been warned it would be hot in Huacachina in comparison to Lima and it definitely was! Once we arrived at Banana hostel, we changed into our shorts. Our room was tiny and we were sharing with two girls who had been on our bus and were travelling in a group of five. They were called Alice and Laura and were very friendly. We soon found out they were staying in the same hostel in Arequipa too. By that point it was about 3pm and we booked a couple of activities for the next day. Out hostel was located facing the lagoon. We strolled out and around, taking us about 5 mins. We discovered that Huacachina is tiny! There were quite a few people walking up the sand dune immediately by Huacachina, so we decided to go for. It was hard! It seemed like we were taking two steps forward and one step back! We finally got to the very top and realised how steep it was. The sun was setting and we had a great view over Huacachina and Ica in the distance, and then loads of sand dunes behind us. We had a shower and headed a few doors down to 'Huacafuckinchina' (rude I know!), a bar/restaurant. We were served by a girl called Charlotte, who was on her gap year and had just left sixth form and it was her first day working there. It seemed she was there cause her teacher was Peruvian and from Ica. She was trying to improve her Spanish. I'm not sure she'll be talking much Spanish in a tourist spot but each to their own!

The next day we got up at 6am and took a bus to Paracas where we went on a tour to the Islas Ballestas. We thought it would be warm, but it really wasn't and we were really cold on the boat. We saw penguins, sea lions, loads and loads of birds and pelicans. We also saw this indent into the land which was covered in sand. It looked like a big cactus and was similar to the Nazca lines. Also, we decided not to do the Nazca lines because it seems a bit overrated and expensive. There are other things we'd much rather spend our money on! On the journey back form the islands the sun decided to come out and it was really nice. I didn't feel very well, so wasn't up to eating lunch. We chilled in the afternoon, and I read my book a lot of the day.

At 4pm we went sandboarding. We got in this big open car type thing which seated about twelve people. We had a mix of Spanish, Dutch and English speaking people in our group. When our leader picked us up he was this old, short man who looked really grumpy and mean... Oh boy were we wrong. He turned out to be the best 82 year old guide ever! He was so funny and although he was Spanish, we had a translation from the people in the car with us! We whizzed up the sand dunes and it felt like a roller coaster. The suspension was ridiculous. We would drive up the the top of a sand dune and down the other side. It was so steep, it was great fun. Julio (our leader) was such a cheeky chappy. There was no wasting time either. He got everyone to lie on your stomach on a board and slide down the sand. It was sooooo steep! You also had no control over the board, so I almost crashed into a few people, but they ran out of the way! Then we went to three steep sand dunes and went down them all one after another. Julio was waiting at the bottom. It was a great three hours! We had the best time. The sunset was amazing too and the views were awesome. We went to Huakafuckinchina that evening again. We like it there!

We had one more day left so we just chilled, had a massive bowl of fruit for breakfast and I read my book for most of the day around the lagoon. We wanted to have the BBQ at the hostel at 7.30pm, but it wasn't ready so we rushed back to Huacafuckinchina for the third and final time. That evening we were their best friends. We got greeted with kisses and hugs! Anyway, we didn't feel it was rude asking about having our dinner come ASAP as we were catching a bus to Arequipa at 9pm. After all the rush, our bus was delayed by 1hr 15mins which was annoying. Once our bus arrived we got on a went to sleep. We went with Cruz del Sur again. I felt like I was in first class; the seats were massive and so comfy. You had a foot rest that pulled out so we had a little bit of a bed going on, which was nice! I think I slept pretty well. 

Lima

Once we'd arrived in Lima, Peru we knew that our next flight in a month's time would be to go home. This was good news, because we knew we would spend a long time in one place, but also bad because it was near the end! We took a taxi from the airport, arranged for us by the hostel, to Miraflores. We soon realised how crazy the Peruvians were, driving on the road! We whizzed through the traffic and arrived in one piece at Pariwana Hostel. It was a really nice, big hostel with very comfy beds! We ordered a chicken caesar salad which was fresh and just what we needed after such a long journey! We chatted to a girl who worked at the hostel and was from Lima. She recommended quite a few things for us to do in Peru and we took note.

After sleeping like a log, we woke up and had breakfast in the hostel and booked a few things like buses and hostels and did some research into Peru. It gave us more of an idea of what places we wanted to prioritise with the time we had. I skyped mum and dad which was nice and afterwards Jen and I decided to have a wander around Miraflores. We went to the supermarket for some food first and then had a wander down to the seafront. There's an outdoor shopping complex that has been built just on the cliffs called Larcomar so we had a wander around. Apparently Lima is the place to do paragliding. We've met a few people from the hostel who have come here purely to do paragliding. Anyway, we saw loads of people doing it that afternoon. We also went to a square and saw a big crowd of people surrounding a mini atrium, where the locals were dancing inside. In the evening we talked to several people about what they recommended to do in Peru and Bolivia, including tours, places to stay and what bus companies to travel with.