La Paz

La Paz is a fscinating city. At an average height of 3600 Meters, it is the highest capital city in the world. Everything you do here seems to take a little more effort. And of course, everywhere you want to walk is either uphill or downhill. The views in all directions from all points is quite overwhelming.

We have spent the last few days exploring the city and generally hunting down places to eat, etc.

Our hotel is very nice and quite economical, but is in a very dodgy area of the city. During the day it is no problem but at night it can be quite scary.

We have taken a city tour and a tour to the ¨Moon Valley¨, which is at the lower end of the city and enjoys a much warmer climate. A very eerie place, surrounded by some of the nicest homes in the city. Generally, the lower the altitude, the higher the wealth.

At the top, on the Altoplano plain where the airport is, is over 4000 Meters high and is a city unto itself called El Alto. Not nearly as nice as La Paz proper.

Yesterday, we took a tour to the most important archaeological site in Bolivia at Tiwanaku, on the shore of lake Titicaca.

This is a pre-Inca site dating from about 500 AD and is currently still being excavated. Interesting but nothing as impressive as what the Incas left behind at Machu Picchu and such.

We are not sure what the plans are for the next 1-1/2 weeks but I am sure we will keep ourselves amused somehow.

Lake Titicaca and Bolivia

Some very hectic days...

Day 18

This morning, we took some sort of cyclos (pedel powered transport) down to the port in Puno.

Here we boarded a boat for a visit to the Uros floating islands in the bay of Puno.

Very different exsitance for these people, living on a bed of reeds complete with all the basic needs for life. They seem to be a very cheerful bunch, and eager to meet visitors.

After visiting a couple of these islands, we continued on to the larger, more normal, island of Amantani. Here we were met by our ¨families¨ who would be our hosts for the night. These are the local Aymara/Quechua Indians who actually live in a very nice village on the slopes of the island. They basically act as boarding houses for visitors, two persons per family, and they provided beds and all meals while we are there. We brought some gifts of rice, pasta and other basic needs that we had purchsed in Puno the day before. Facilities are quite primitive and they speak primarily the Quechua language, but we were able to get along quite well for the short time we were there.

While on the island, we participated in a football match (tourists against the locals), a hike to the top of the island for a view of sunset, and a dance at the local hall. All us tourists had to dress up in local garb for the event (harder on the girls than the guys). It is quite cold at night at these altitudes and many layers is a good idea.

Oddly enough, even though it is very cold at night, it can be quite warm during the day, and the risk of sunburn at this altitude (about 3700 Meters) is severe, as some of our group discovered. Between that and the injuries from the football match (on a paved pitch) and hiking on very uneven cobblestones, there were more mishaps on this one day than on the rest of the entire trip.

Day 19

The next morning, we left by boat from Amantani island and travelled to Taquile island. Completely different culture here, where the men stand around knitting distinctive woollen hats while the women work the fields and do some weaving. Of course, we hiked to the top of the island (if there is an opportunity, we will climb), had lunch at a restaurant near the main square of the village there, and then descended via 526 steps to the port to re-board our vessel for the return to Puno for the night. A few brave souls went swimming in the lake on the way back (9 degree C water). As for us, only Russ was brave enough to try it, and he was back on the boat pretty quickly.

Day 20

Last night, our tour leader got word that some sort of strike was imminent today. Apparently, the idea is to block the highways so no-one can move about the country. With this forwarning, we got up at 2 AM to board a bus that took us to the Bolivian border before the strikers had set up the blockades. As a result, we got to the border about 5 AM and had to wait for it to open at 8 AM before we could cross. The actual crossing was pretty smooth.

Once in Bolivia, we went a short distance to the town of Copacabana, still on the shores of Lake Titicaca, where we changed to a Bolivian bus for the rest of the trip to La Paz. We travelled across the Altiplano (a high-altitude plain), following the shore of the lake, most of the way to La Paz. At one point we had to cross a bit of the lake via a small passenger boat while the bus was brought across via a barge.

As a result of the early start to the day, we arrived in La Paz earlier than originally anticipated, so we had a chance to walk around the city a bit before we all headed to a lively restaurant/night club for a group dinner. Tonight is our last night with this group and there were many goodbyes to be said. As an aside, our taxi driver that we found to take us to the restaurant got totally lost and it took over a 1/2 hour to travel what should have been a 10-minute drive. We did get to see a lot of La Paz by night though, that we otherwise might never have gotten to see.

Day 21

This is officially our last day on this tour and we decided to just make a lazy day of it, actually sleeping in. Our plan for the day is mostly to try and figure out what we are going to do for the next two weeks before our second tour starts.

So far, La Paz is quite an interesting, busy and confusing place. Everything is very cheap and there are a million little shops selling anything you could possibly want. But walking about is a bit of challange. The streets are all up and down hills and at all angles, with lots of motorized traffic that seems to have the right of way over pedestrians at all times. Not really a lot different from the other cities we have seen such as Cusco, just bigger.

Jungle Adventure

Day 13

Today we took an all-day tour of the Sacred Valley of the Incas. We stopped at the Pisac ruins, strangely enough right above the town of Pisac, perched on a hilltop. The usual incredible views of the snow-capped mountains and the industrious Inca terraces - no longer used by anyone.

Spent some time at a traditional Indian market in Pisac where I broke down and bought a tee-shirt (the first of the trip).

We stopped at a local Llama and Alpaca farm which was sort of like a petting zoo. Kind of fun getting up close an personal with these animals though.

We then continued on to the temple-fortress of Ollantaytambo. This is actually where our Lares trek ended but we did not tour the ruins at that time. Another impressive example of Inca terraces on the sided of a steep mountain. Returned to Cuzco once again for the night. Big party for some of our departing travelling companions at a local restaurant.

Day 14 to 16

The Amazon Jungle...

We flew from Cuzco to the comunity of Puerto Maldonado, the starting point for a visit to the Amazon rainforest. We travelled by motorized canoe about 2 hours to a jungle lodge where, over the next couple of days, we did various treks into the jungle, viewing monkeys, birds, giant spiders, wild pigs and such. Huge climatic change from Cuzco.

In Cuzco the days are warm but the nights are quite cold but in the jungle ( a 30 minute plane ride away) it is hot and humid. Hard to believe what a change a drop from 3300 Meters to 700 Meters can make. And we can breath again!

We spent two nights at the lodge, getting up very early each day to make the most of our short time here. Not really much of a problem as the jungle awakes to the loudest variety of hoots and howls you could imagine about 4:30 AM each day.

We flew back to Cuzco again for one more night.

Day 17

Today was a travel day, a 7 hour bus trip south to the town of Puno on Lake Titicaca. Tomorrow we will be heading onto the lake to visit the floating islands and apparently live with some local Indian families in their homes. In preparation, we have stocked up on rice and flour and such as gifts for our hosts to be. Meanwhile, we spend a leasurly evening walking about town, dining and drinking at some local establishments.

Appologies for the poor selection of pictures for this posting. Sometimes our itinerary is so busy and I get caught up in the whole experience that I forget to take any pictures. I have lots of video and I am sure the others have lots of pictures but the only ones I use on this site are the ones taken with my camera, because it is only one taking pictures with a low enough resolution for posting on the web.

I will try and do better in the future.

Trekkers are us

On this little pilgrimage of ours, we are travelling for the first three weeks as part of an "Adventure Tour" from a company called Tucan. We started with 15 people in Lima and picked up two more in Arequipa. We will have some changes while in Cuzco and we will be leaving this group altogether in La Paz.

We are travelling in the company of two of our good friends, Russ and Val, who will be flying home after a week in La Paz, while we go on to join another "Adventure Tour" from there a week later.

This style of touring is new to us. Basically, the tour includes all of the hotels (some camping, etc.) and we have a leader for the group who keeps everything running smoothly. But we use only local transportation, usually meaning taxis to bus stations and buses between places, with a few other modes of transport thrown in, and we are on our own for most of our meals and other enternainment. Pretty interesting way to travel. The group we are with is all a lot younger than we are (typically early twenties), so we may slow them down sometimes, but they are a fun bunch.

As with most any organized tours, there are options that you can take at various places. In general everybody is taking all the options, but here in Cuzco there are just too many to take them all. The highlite for most people who visit Peru is Machu Picchu and there are a variety of ways to get there. This being an adventure tour, we of course are hiking there. Unlike everyone else on this tour however, we are not hiking the famous Inca Trail. Instead, we are doing a different, possibly more difficult, Lares Trek. And this is where our story continues...

Day 9

Last night we had our Lares Trek Briefing where we discovered that the transport workers, amongst others, are scheduled to go on strike on November 4th, which was to be the last day of our trek. Because our trek does not actually end at Machu Picchu, we need to take a train for the last 42 km. So it has been decided that we will be doing an accelerated trek, covering the 35 km distance in two days instead of 3, so we will arrive at the train station on the 3rd instead of the 4th. This means we had to leave our hotel at 4 AM this morning to take a car to the start of the trek, about a 4-hour drive from Cuzco. We are having a lot of misgivings about this as we are not sure we physically up to the challenge. However we have little choice.

So it is that we set out with us (the only 4 trekkers), a guide, a cook, 2 porters and 3 horses to hike over the Andes mountains.

And hike we did. Our first day was a non-stop 6-1/2 hour trek up hill, starting at 3800 Meters and crossing two passes, at 4560 Meters and 4520 Meters, before descending to our camp at a mere 4100 Meters. It was very cold at the top, probably a few degrees below zero C. For the last 3 hours, including the passes, it rained and/or snowed and/or hailed on us pretty much non-stop. Between the steep climb and the high altitude, we were at times very discouraged and thought we were close to death (at least thats the way it seemed at the time). Somehow we made it through, but have little evidence of it as no-one was in any mood to take out a camera to document the event.

Day 10

After a restless sleep (basic winter camping),we awoke to a much nicer day. The sun came out and were hiking primarily down hill. We hiked for about another 6-1/2 hours before we arrived in a small town where we had a lunch and caught the train to the Machu Picchu Pueblo, where we are going to spend two nights instead of the originally scheduled one. We were very happy to see that hotel.

The best part of this hike was the interaction with the locals. Before we began the hike, we stopped to buy bread at a local market. When we would pass by some of the local hill people, the children would come running out to greet us and, very shyly, accept a small loaf of bread. It was a very rewarding experience.

We also saw some amazing scenery, huge mountains and deep valleys sprinkled with Inca terraces and ruins. You have to see it to believe it, and the only way to really get to this place is on foot, as there are no roads where we were.

Day 11

This would have been our third day on the hike, but due to the rail strike, we took the short bus trip to Machu Picchu instead. We were blessed with a beautiful day and were able to spend as long as we wanted at the site because of the extra day we had gained by shortening the hike. In some ways, this could not have worked out better for us and we thoroughly enjoyed our time at the famous Lost City of the Incas. Words fail to descibe it and pictures cannot really do it either. You really have to go and see it for yourselves (You could skip the trek however).

Day 12

We were able to return to Cuzco earlier than we would have on the original itinerary, so we had a lovely afternoon in Cuzco, site seeing and eating, napping, etc. So all in all, it has been a great 4 day trek.

Peru Continued...

Day 3

Today, we travelled by taxi (very noisy 1966 Dodge Coronette) for a couple of hours along the coast to the sand dunes around Huacachina Oasis, where much fun was had in sand buggies and sandboarding down the dunes (not for the faint of heart).
We then relaxed by the pool at the Oasis before taxiing to our hotel for the night in Nazca, a little further south down the coast.

Days 4 & 5

We spent the day in Nazca which is a small city, most famous for the nearby Nazca lines. Naturally, we had to take a small plane for an arial view of the lines. While very interesting, we found them a little harder to spot than we thought they would be - maybe we were a little higher off the ground than we thought.
We wandered into the center of the city for supper and spent the rest of the afternoon lazing by the pool and having the odd cervesa. I attempted to update this site but the internet connection was not quite up to it.
Then we had the wonderfull experience of an all-night bus trip down the coast and inland to the City of Arequipa (2nd largest city in Peru, after Lima).

This proved to be a very nice city, lots of character, restaurants and night clubs etc. Some of our group partied pretty hard - not us of course!

Day 6 & 7

In the morning, we were collected from our hotel "Casa de mi Abuela" by a mini-bus and guide for a two-day trip to the Colca Canyon. The bus took up up over the mountains to look for Vicunas, Llamas and such.
At the top of the pass we were at 4910 meters and the air was very thin. Any exertion would get us breathing very hard. Some of our group suffered a bit from altitude sickness - headaches and such, but we survived ok for the most part.
As it was very cold up there, lots of us bought some local sweaters and hats, which will no doubt be very useful on the upcoming Trek in a few days.
We drove along the Colca valley until in turned into the Colca canyon. Both were incredibly spectacular and quite a surprise to us. The Colca canyon is the deepest canyon in the world and is the home to the giant Condors, of which we did see a couple.
Our mini-bus then took us back to Arequipa for the night.




Day 8

Up at 4.30 in the morning to get a bus to the airport for a flight to Cuzco, where we have spent some time walking about the town and getting aclimatized to the altitude. Very pictureque city where we would love to spend some more time.

Tomorrow we start the 4-day Lares Trek. Hopefully we are ready for it.